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
An Aztec Shaman in Zocalo honored me with a blessing two years ago this November. During an ancient Aztec ceremony he spoke words passed down from his ancestors. He chanted Earth-born hymnals as an interlocutor for his soul.
His gruff tones hummed from deep intergenerational tomes I couldn’t comprehend. Perhaps he prayed that we would see the blessing of our wayward-journeys home.
That we would choose to see the “I” inside the “other.” In words we never spoke, but we were one in our intention. In every cooperative conversation we are creating expansion for the human whole.
Connection is the nexus of creation. Where two atoms meet to create a bond- a compound, a wholly new and peculiar form. We have a chance as a society to come together from our disparate destinations and recognize there exists a soul connection. Where water and wine coalesce together.
In Zocalo the ancient Aztec ruins peak beneath the imperial public square. Sacred sites were razed asunder on streets & neighborhoods we may find ourselves brief travelers.
We stand on land which is not our own. We share this Earth with all beings whether- dead or living.
For the rot of injustice, oppression, and stubborn non-distributions of systems we rely and vote on have been exposed, protested, and on each side. We are building back better than came before.
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.
We are not made liable for the decisions made generations before. Each of us are responsible for making amends to everyone who is here in the present moment.
If everyone decided to radically forgive each other at this moment- everything everyone has been fighting over would come to fruition.
True justice, material and financial abundance, spontaneous sustainability would come forward BECAUSE of our mutual collaborations.
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.
It’s 2 days before the US elects another president. And it’s hard to pretend that social justice and human rights aren’t just below my level of awareness almost every moment of waking life.
That most of us are hopeful and unsure, afraid of what will happen to our country for the next 4 years. Because either way the pendulum cuts there’s still a schism. Another rip within and without.
One clearer path to human rights and freedom- because that’s what both sides think but that’s not the reality.
There’s a lot who would rather live in superficiality and paying homage to a mortgage and patriarchal boot-licking. Not in the hot way either.
She’s got a type 🤣¯\_(ツ)_/¯
That when I’m glazed over during inert conversations I am not contemplating, dreaming, and conspiring for human liberation, for everyone to have their needs met, bed, Bath & Beyonce.
That on some level I’m praying and believing that all internal & external pain & suffering will be eliminated for all people.
If even just within the small populations I work with as a social worker, or people I interact with every day. Even when I’m angry and disappointed by them.
Yet, I’ve been doubting our collective power, my voice, & ability to continue writing about social justice and human liberation.
What is one voice or a few thousand voices crying out in the desert going to do? What is the efficacy of our votes in an intentionally abusive & suppressive political machinery intent on breaking the human spirit.
Are Instagram and social media just glamourized echo-chambers? Like are we actually teaching anyone anything? Is talking about social justice, the fight for human rights, is any of it even worth the effort?
Like how are the billions of dollars spent on entertainment and sports but ournation “doesn’t have the money to help make sure people are clothed and have food to feed their children?”
No, our priorities are all wrong. We live in a culture of dichotomous greed- one in which we have to numb ourselves from every day and put to sleep at night.
Are any of us fucking listening? I just don’t understand why people aren’t passionate about human rights.
What else is more important than setting your fellow humans free???
And in the myriad ways that this can unfold?
And there are so many beautiful people around the world who’s voices will never get heard. Are not being heard now outside city halls, and in homes where love and abuse can and do coexist; Because it kills me inside to love this goddamn beautiful Earth and also go about our day like people aren’t dying in the streets being killed by another vehicle of systemic oppression.
That laws are being constructed and torn asunder by mole-men shrouded in halls that nepotism built.
America was founded in throes of Barbarism. A country where Black people were forced into lives of generational slavery and treated and killed as second citizens from then on, women have been suppressed, immigrants discarded, Indigenous people and their cultures decimated, degradation of people of LGBTQIA identities, persecution of with people experiencing mental or physical disability, basically a country where if you’re not a rich white man it kind of sucks.
Because we live in a country more committed to war crimes than committed to its own citizens.
A country that freely commits war crimes on its own people will do so anywhere else.
We’re not the good guys history has made America out to be. Because that history was told by the ones who are running the show!
What I’ve come to see is that we all have been born with generational blinders. Our communities and states inform the culture which entrains selective truths & manipulated lies we are cultivated to believe and spew forward to propagate a Capitalist agenda.
The ONLY REASON I’m SPEAKING IS BECAUSE YOU’RE NOTTTTT.
Because once you have seen the truth of how this world really works you can either lie to yourself that it doesn’t exist or you can sit with the truth of injustice every day like many others who have bore witness to various oppressions.
The desire for human liberation scorches within me that at times it’s all I can think about. Because once you have seen the real truth and have been set free how can you leave your brothers and sisters in mental, physical, and spiritual tyranny?
When you found true liberation from the false and unnecessary systems of thought and religious belief you were subjected into believing.
How can you stay silent when you were silent for so long and now know what it’s like to be free?
There’s a freedom to be who you are in Portland and it’s sacred. This city is unlike any place I’ve lived. The overall ethos of the city is to live with respect and communion with all people and harmony with the Earth, without pigeonholing everyone into tidy labels and categories. That’s one reason why this city (and so many others) are ready to come together to helping other people, communities, social groups.
If it’s good for the goose it’s good for the gander 😅
Speaking out against oppression and refusing the status quo has been a hallmark of Portland’s overall championing of social justice and human rights in various domains. The added bonus of empowering others gives one a new sense of ownership in their own lives.
Facing down police brutality and calling out fascism with thousands of like-minded people emboldens even millions more to physically and mentally stand up to corruption and agents in many facets of society.
It’s helping many of us grow and retrain our private thoughts and actions in our personal lives.
You cannot grow in the same place that forced you to expand.
And if you are not growing it will be very hard to stay in complete balance. Too often contentedness leads to complacency with apathy not too far behind. One begins to wither, grow bitter, or blameful without continual observation, discussion, and contemplation. We must tend and cultivate our inner gardens even when they are not in beautiful luscious blooms of life.
Until recently I realized I still had/have shame of owning or talking about the sexual aspects of my sexuality. Though I am gay and proud of it- many of us have been conditioned through the lens of cis-gendered hetero-normative White Christian practices and policies.
We have been culturally manipulated by the Church, as a whole, to believe that our sexual organs are to be hidden- tucked away. The act of sex is restricted to procreation and otherwise is condemned and mostly immoral.
We are shamed out of acting upon our innate biological drives. The reproductive organs of our physical form are shamed due to cultural and religious mores that have caused women and so many other people groups shamed out of not only being comfortable in our own bodies.
For Black people, and Indigenous and People of color they are shamed, generationally oppressed, and persecuted just for the color and melanin of their skin.
The falling away of stifled and unnecessary cultural mores- of even the ability just to be free from the constrains of clothing in Oregon & other places in the world has given many people (self included) a new ownership in many areas of our lives.
Especially where owning the physical and sexual ascpects of myself proudly and without fear of breaking rigid taboos that seem so silly and antiquated now.
The more comfortable one is with themselves the more they able to make spaces for others to feel safe and also express their individuality.
Symbiotic relationships aren’t just relegated to sea creatures and cute orange fish with a short fin. We exist in constant feedback loops- of a taking in new information, processing that information, and our reaction is a result of variables and life experiences that cause us to grow, shrink away in timidity, recoil in disgust, aid in oppression, or revolt against tyrannies.
The broadening and active efforts to achieve social equality, championing of human rights, and equity across is all tribes, races sexual orientations, gender identities, polyamorous and many more identities and lifestyles embolden each one of us to embrace our own selves and elevate to a higher aspect of ourselves.
To Those who are struggling with your sexuality, gender, coming to terms with a non-heteronormative identity. I truly hope you will find yourself. You are worth living your truest life.
Follow your inner guidance- your life is your own. The Earth is ready to teach us the true power of humanity.
We must first accept that power for ourselves and not be afraid to treat yourself right, Express yourself, Show it off and show yourself and others a sustainably respectful good time.
Beasts to subdue
Manifest lands to ravage
Peace was slaughtered
Its Peoples were called Savage.
Modern generations birthed
beneath fluorescent glows
God became irrelevant
when man learned fire all his own.
But I’ve always felt more
akin to Icarus
With dreams to melt the sun
Wax is just another Eucharist
to clip a caged child song.
Rhymes in fences
reflect the hour
of frightened flocks
who wield white power.
Auschwitz, America
comes not for native, Black, or Jew.
Barbed wire have
spiritually enslaved those
who’ve paid the Devi’s due.
“Foxes are spoiling the vineyards
Oh help us, great Catcher in the sky!”
Did you forget the thousands of charred and scarecrowed Titubas, Peoples’ ancestors unnamed & buried beneath White Rye?
Does the cry for freedom not
from within you call?
His Blood is on the cross
But You paid blood money to build a wall
Statues are crumbling
Systemic oppression will fall,
a billion voices are uttering,
“justice for us all.”
My country,
This of thee
Sweet land of inequality
Of thee I sing
Land where their fathers died,
land where their children cried,
from every township and capitol
Every courtroom and classroom
From every street corner
Detainment Center
From the White House
To the Halfway house
From every person
On every mountainside
The reflection of a mountain lake is changed by ripples of kayakers, canoes, fish, and wind. Mirrors cannot be fully trusted, even in nature, for they do not present the subject as it truly exists. What we see is the inverse reflection of an image but not the actual image itself.
In that way we never truly see ourselves as others see us and we do not fully see each other because of the images we are trying to outwardly portray belies the depth within ourselves and to ourselves.
Seeing this lake reflect Mount Adams, “The Forgotten Giant” in choppy patterns made me think again about how much of the world we really don’t know- presented by MTV True Life: True Life and the meaning of existence.
Millenia of human history has gone undocumented or painstakingly reassembled by anthropologists, doctors of paleontology, linguists, people charged with studying the ancients. We are still far from complete understanding of the Universe, of dark matter, dark places of human experience.
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. It also would be boring and predictable.
As much as I value harmony and living well- I would rather live exultant highs and crushing lows than be bound to a life of tradition never leaving a small town filled with mediocre experiences. And I’ve lived life in both versions. Bipolar, bicurious, but never bi-boring.
A major flaw with theists and atheists is that both camps posit theories of the existence or non-existence of god. They stay firmly planted in their beliefs because it helps them make sense of the world and is an understandable premise because existence is incredibly vast and unknowable.If a creator exists and really wanted humans to know a secret important message that will affect your life for eternity would it not be encoded in our DNA? Would there not be writing on the actual walls, reminders everywhere we turned that we must follow?
The more time one spends in Nature you come to see that the purpose of Life is to live, to continue experiencing the stunning variety of this world, to enjoy life, to reflect on our experiences, and then to evolve based upon what we’ve learned so we can pass the evolved knowledge through art, sciences, thought, the gene pool etc.
It seems to me that the answers to life’s hard questions, (like what is the purpose of life? Is there an after-life? etc.) can never be fully answered and that must be for a reason.
The purpose of life may be that we are to find our purpose and follow where the journey leads. Maybe the point is to Live the best life you can, make life matter for yourself & others while not changing your behavior just to please one another due to outdated modalities of thinking and ways of being.
We think this world is permanent yet it too will burn away billions of years in the future. Life feels like it will last forever and there are many who have contemplated leaving their own- some have succeeded in this arduous endeavor. All of our religions come from some “divinely-inspired” individual who rarely ever wrote down anything they actually said and are disseminated out through thousands of years of translated texts by people with various agendas.
What we think we believe about the world has often been carefully sifted and manipulated through centuries of people gripping to power with the goal of keeping the masses sedated and satisfied. Obviously this isn’t working when so many people throughout various societies are still killing themselves or wanting to die and in America- killing each other with guns on a daily basis.
There is no statistic I know of that measures how people have been aggregately affected because of religious indoctrination and pacification throughout their lives. The millions who are walking a slow-trek to the grave aren’t counted on the census. What about refugees- people who are hoping for a better life and are imprisoned at America’s borders, the children crying out in terror in their own homes, the people who are self-medicating just to get through the day? Rousseau said that humanity became poisoned when the first person claimed the land was their own. We come into this world without and we leave without.
The clamoring for status, possessions, certain relationships is a big Western civilization pissing contest to prove our own worthiness to others, but it’s mostly done in effort to subconsciously prove worthiness to ourselves. How’s that working out for us?
We are born into this world seemingly without knowing anything until consciousness finally appears in early childhood. The way we are programmed to believe about life, god, science is very much dependent upon the geographical space and time of our existence.
Most people who believe that the way we are living is the right way the only way to live have never left their states let alone their country.
How can we look at a refugee or on anyone and pronounce them unworthy. Somehow as less human than us because of an imaginary border we don’t want you to cross? But what if he’s gay and a migrant worker or not a shiny piece of eye and arm candy? We’re human to you because we help you look better and vice-versa. If you actually put into practice what your Bible stories say-you’d be baking that wedding cake with dildos and fireworks galore. Jesus met people where they were at and was not one to fault anyone.
The election of Trump is the last gasping death rattle of a white once-majority blinding their eyes against their own desperate nakedness and clutching gnarled hands onto the threads of an unclothed emperor’s train. A vote against the Future may momentarily deter progress but the Future is coming anyway.
We can be the catalyst of action or churn in the dry rot wood of complacency. My eyes are fully opened to see the Future meet us here while tyrants in various guises will forever eventually fall away exposed, unraveled by their own undoing, and with no subjects left to rule.
What were we thinking during those formative years before the impressions were made upon us the time before memory of which we have no memory? How different would each of us be had we not been collectively fucked over since the beginning of human history?
The ego- the separated consciousness the part of the self that gets scared and insecure is not entirely against us. For in those moments we think life is closing in around us, when our reflections get shattered, we realize how much of life was lived in the wings, in the attempts to prove we have it altogether in the safety of our beautiful homes and children.
Most of us are not used to being loved wholly for who we are with our blessings, personality quirks and imperfections. I finally allowed myself to experience unconditional love during last year’s breakdown. My father, my sister, my mother each came to my rescue even as I was cursing my parents and others with similar vitriol of what I was protesting against.
When I needed love the most my parents and best college friends came to my rescue. We finally let ourselves be loved when we break the walls within us.
“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to find all the barriers you have built up against it.”- Rumi
We are all contributing ideas, experiences, transmitting messages with our dna without even knowing it. We all have the potential to beam like the sun or devolve into massively powerful black holes. An awakening in the morning is a destruction of the dream life.
Sometimes we get jolted into the reality we wanted we just didn’t expect to wake up to it so quickly. A tearing away of shade and the shock of being flooded by the Light. We never think we deserve the ruby slippers. That only perfect people in fake fairytales and bible stories get to live that life. The belief that myths are fiction is akin to believing that miracles can’t come true. I get driven to great depths of despair and despondent frustration about this.
But That’s still my egoic self sifting through the darkness imbedded in the false sense of safe realities. I’m not kidding when I say im not afraid of anything. I can’t even began to explain that exultation into words and I’ve seen the darkness within that blessed anarchy. Its like the Power of the dark Phoenix being wrapped inside a rage a tempest in a teapot. The capacity for creation will always be greater than our capacity to destruction. Just look at how powerfully we’ve created and destructed through the best and most destructive days of your life.
SOCRATES: Do you think the one who had gotten out of the cave would still envy those within the cave and would want to compete with them who are esteemed and who have power? Or would not he or she much rather wish for the condition that Homer speaks of, namely “to live on the land [above ground] as the paid menial of another destitute peasant”? Wouldn’t he or she prefer to put up with absolutely anything else rather than associate with those opinions that hold in the cave and be that kind of human being?GLAUCON: I think that he would prefer to endure everything rather than be that kind of human being.
I am returning to the light and to living and loving well. My nephew was born three days ago and I couldn’t think of a better time in my sister and brother-in-law’s lives to be parents, my father to be a grandfather, and in my own to be an uncle. May we each be faithful in our charge as we continue to love and guide this precious being to life. Ashes to Ashes we come and go through this world reflecting on our deeds and Reflecting life back to the world. Little nephew, you are highly loved. May you see that example reflected back in our words and actions. May you have the best life has to offer us all.
A young forest is now growing 39 yrs after Mount St. Helens’ destructive eruption. New ecosystems have begun flourishing. Wetlands now dot the plains and valleys within the blast zone of St. Helens- becoming home to frogs, amphibians, water fowl in species and numbers that did not occupy this area in the past. Some wondered if this region would ever be habitable again. Their valid fears did not come to pass. Volcanoes in the Ring of Fire have also made these same places habitable- creating rich forests, waterfalls, life for millions of species & prime real estate across the planet.
Things fall apart. Nations are rocked by injustice & wars. Couples deal w/ divorces. Families get shattered by tragic deaths. When things don’t work the way you planned- it doesn’t mean you failed. I only began sharing my writing one year ago. It’s become second nature to write, publish blog posts, and hopefully contribute some positivity or challenge w/ words & photos.
It makes sense that you feel despondent and hopeless after a difficult ordeal- especially if you’re still wading through the mire. The more daunting the circumstances the harder it feels you will get to the other side. And though my recent difficulties seemed- most of which were 💯 my own doing (mental health problems or not) there are so many others who have lived decades in pain, abuse, poverty; who have seen horrors & come out on the other side.
Devastation can never be justified and we can’t choose our struggles. Do mountains want to shutdown and die when faced with the aftermath? Do volcanoes feel guilt regarding the molten core burning in their bellies? Are they beyond apologetic about the effect their destruction had upon loved ones, upon holy places in the wilderness?
There’s no way to know this answer except that the mountain is still there. Trees continued to leaf. Animals kept procreating & adjusting to their habitats. Life continued to grow in an inhospitable environment. But all of that growth took time to come about. A year in our perception might as well feel a lifetime. A year to Earth is a less than a nanosecond in its history.
We are quick to judge ourselves & each-other when working towards a goal and results aren’t immediate. Is the new forest any less of a forest because it is young, because it lost everything and had to build again?
Getting up, trying, accepting your current situation, & working towards future goals that’s what counts in the end. This whole process of becoming relies on standing on your own two feet, a willingness to be vulnerable, to admit you’re not at your best, to admit you need help, that you were out of control, that you are trying.
The horizon begs us to sail outwards to the farthest bounds as it follows the curve of Earth. Most of us begin to see dreams as remnants borne from the zealous pursuits of youth. But the adventurous heart never ceases to feel at home within wanderment. To be at home anywhere you must be at home in yourself. After a year of being on the road, brilliant heights of mania, the depths of depression anchored to the sea. I’m no longer held captive by the past.
The caged bird sings because the door to freedom isn’t solely quarantined by latch and bars.
Most everyone deals with worthiness issues on some level. The need for validation is within us all. Especially those who were brought up in religious households, or in homes where abuse and neglect occur. How about the ones who are noiseless and never voice the issues they find themselves struggling with? We are taught that humans are wretched beings needing to be saved from an archaic god used to separate & divide human kind.
If Jesus, Buddha, Socrates, etc. were guiding us to anything perhaps it was to believe in ourselves- to believe in the beauty of every person & being.
To believe that we are each able to lift our own latches so that we may lift the latch of another. To know that we are bridges to one another. That we are to live unshackled from the constraints social tyranny have enchained us.
Each of us carry struggles that can’t be shared and secret burdens that can’t be buried. We can only shoulder our own weight and lean on those when it becomes too much. Still there is important work we must do alone. It’s interesting that destruction occurs in the sky, in neighborhoods, out where we discuss and tweet and go to battle over. Healing so often happens alone, in secret, among rivers and pine trees, in CPS offices, in hospitals, in homes.
I’ve been mostly solitary for a year. First time I’ve been on my own so long- even the year in China. I see the beauty of solo living and standing on your own validation. Being alone is not a worthiness issue yet our culture tends to make us think we are damaged or obscene if we’re not in romance, without going on vacay w/ gaggles of gays, to celebrate victories in secret.
Aloneness became a sacred ritual when I discovered the power in private excavations of the soul.
The art of non-attachment is rooted in acceptance of self. Acceptance is a by-product created by unconditional love. When we consistently remember that everything is connected and every being is a reflection of god, the Cosmos, as belonging to the Whole- we become more gracious to other people, our blessings, we finally feel home in ourselves.
We call them mountains when they are beautiful & quiet. We call them volcanos when they misbehave & fuck things up. But are they not one in the same?
Kamcatchka, Russia (not my photo)
We call it love when relationships are good and hate when love can no longer cover the faults any longer. We operate in so many dualities. We must see the shadow within ourselves. Of believing there is more to come. That you are enough. I want to become a person who does not live or love others conditionally. Who does not castigate myself for blunders. Poetic words are pale ghosts- reminders of beautiful moments & people who truly lived. Love must be lived and tangibly expressed.
You can see far stretches of the mountain since it exploded 1/3 of itself out hurtling into the valley. Perspective lies in the eye of the beholder. There are 5 mountains you can see from various vantage’s in the Portland/Vancouver area. The only way to see them all at once is when you’ve climbed to the top of another mountain.
The discipline of love is etched within our hearts & found within our forests.
I am sitting at a bench in Chalputepec Park overlooking the lake. My edible is kicking in. I only have 6 or 7 left. The day is beautiful. Sunny with a cool breeze. Children blowing bubbles, laughter and hundreds of voices heard in the near distance. I believe I’m supposed to stay in Mexico for a while- or maybe travel farther a field. Against the advice of my sister, who works in finance, I am going to withdraw some funds from my 401k. This may seem like an unwise financial move because this is the last of my safety net to only be used in emergencies. But I believe I am on my path and it is to be transient but stable a little while longer.
I spent Thanksgiving with my friend Stephanie and her host family. This is the second time I’ve spent Thanksgiving abroad.
It feels weird to celebrate a holiday in another country that does not share the same traditions or revered days.
Instead of feeling homesick for the holidays, it’s actually a relief to miss them all.
I’ve come to believe that Life brings certain people into your life for a specific purpose and reason. Sometimes they are lifelong friendships, or the meeting of our soulmate, and at times your worst enemy. Were I to trace the connections I’ve made with people who have introduced me to other people and so forth- it would probably be astounding.
There is magic in this world.
It surrounds and permeates us every day. I have zero conflict or have come into contact with one unbearable person the three weeks I have been in Mexico.
I’m not saying it is perfect here- every country has its treasures and things that are in process. I am trying to not rate things as positive or negative experiences. Huge emphasis on the trying aspect. But it becomes easier day by day to release the things that no longer serve me so that I can embrace who I am becoming.
I have assets and a few financial obligations in America that have been stressing me out. I am paying over $1000 a month to keep a life on hold. And now I am not so sure that I want to return to it.
I have been asking the Universe what my path is and it keeps sending me signs and emotions that it is to keep on this journeyman’s path. I don’t know the reasons but it just feels right. When I think about returning to America- it fills me with dread. I have come to trust my intuition. When I think about Mexico or living farther a field- I feel happy, satisfied, fulfilled, even exhilarated. The Universe is dismantling my former life, my ego, my priorities.
I’m selling all of my possessions or giving them to my mom so she can start her life over in Fort Worth. 4 days. That’s all that separated my mother and I from reconnecting and seeing each other in Fort Worth. The irony of so many things. The year I quit my job and have money saved to travel is the year Lauren, gave her benefits to her partner- as she 1000% should have. I’ve said this before, Lauren gave me the greatest gift I have ever been given in my life to this point- the gift to see the world. I think that it all happened this way so I would continue to learn and rely on the Universe and my own knowing. Free Man in Mexico.
Colorado took my Texas driver’s license the day before I came back to Texas, and Mexico police took my old Texas ID my first full day in the country. I am now officially an American citizen with no ties to any particular state. I guess I’m still technically a Texas citizen because I haven’t changed my residency yet. I don’t know exactly where to go next. But I’ve been craving mountains and green again.
A primal force is calling to me to go farther. To where and for how long I don’t know. But I feel Life keep calling me forward. The path of the wanderer is a gift that bears a special kind of aloneness.
The great quaking of self. Of breaking open the sacred parts of me. I am in service to a higher ideal, a purpose of unity and light. I don’t always stay in that place but my heart and thoughts are thinking about Ultimate good and love for human kind and for our Earth. We spend out whole lives building a life we want to live.
I am living the life I want by shattering it to pieces, and I don’t know exactly why- except I feel I am supposed to. My heart quells with a secret ache as I stretch myself and bank account out further. When does the stretching cease? Do I even want it to stop? Will I know how?
The scabs on my right knee are about to fall off. And when they do I will take that as a sign to leave Mexico City, for now. The scales, falling off Saul’s eyes on the way to Damascus. How many things in this world have only begun with only a hope and a prayer?
Certainly our parents felt that when they discovered we each were to be born. Statues, monuments, movements, are moments that have been previously thought even if it was just a second before we make the choices. we send the dreams the vibrations outward. Like the nuclei of a cell, the building blocks of stardust, and all the things in the Universe call out for what it needs and wants.
I believe that we are the Earth’s projected concsiousness and it is calling forth children and beings of light to bring about harmony and balance to humanity. I have traveled 30,000 miles this year- for work and while on this journey. I don’t see a world plunged in complete chaos.
There a pockets and countries, human beings experiencing unimaginable pain and injustice. It is time to set the captive free, to wake the sleeping self. To shake off the scales and scabs in our hearts. Opening the hearths to our hearts. I have wrestled with this bitterness too long.
I offer my frustrations onto the threshing grounds. I offer my life onto the altar of Life, as a sacrifice. Do what with me you will. I trust that the Uiverse will come to fulfill my needs and purposes. For why would it have called me forward to rescind the offer?
I believe I have fortunes. There have been times that I have had nothing. Tina Turner started her life over with 33 cents, a dream, and her name. The Earth creates and brings life forward with even less. I am a little nervous and unsure of the next steps, but I am no longer afraid. I let go of all that once held me or called me by certain names.
A mystic in Maleta told me my life’s vision and my path. There wasn’t a way she could have known my dreams and what I had been through, and the areas I need to grow without some higher/other knowledge.
I don’t believe in God in the traditional mono-theistic sense. I believe that everything, we are all expressions of Higher Conciousness of the Universe.
Maybe it was us humans, or sentient beings, that brought forth the Universe into existence, the big bang caused just because we thought of it. And even if that’s not true- what a cool concept. At the very least we are calling ourselves forward. And I am listening, following, with earnest intent, scales, bruises, hope, dancing, and hangovers along the way.
Setting free the captive
I took leave of my bed Dripping accusations on the threshing floor.
Sunlight does not hold the night for ransom.
My eyes were last to see this caged heart was flung open long ago.
It takes a river to tell the glacier’s story.
It says, “Fall and add your tale to the streams.”
I’m a seed in cursed soil. I have no rain to spare.
I’m always with bread,
alone.
“Even in your barrenness- There are desert creatures thriving.”
Life forever finds its way. Two lips can be an oasis, or a divide.
Spit out the copper coils of your tongue. You’ve dined at ash heaps too long.
It is the mad who deny themselves a banquet seat.
Come taste the dew drops once again.
Why is my heart always the wager for such high bets?
“My friend, there would be no spring without winter sacrifices.”
Tectonic plates crash-created continents.
Life comes forward from the rubble from the dead places inside of me.
I have split my life open, An atom rising A sky god in the clouds.
There is no higher offering than Meat of the soul.
Love is not a slaughtering yard. “Then what else do you call a garden?”
I blame you not for the scales grown upon my heart
I forgot they were there, like Saul, until you caused their shedding.
Stripping great piles from this rusted gourd.
Okra, from my garden, 10/2018
All this time I’ve been Flowering in secret kept even from myself.
One doesn’t have to see a blue jay to hear its song.
You don’t have to say the word For love to permeate me.
Stranger in a strange land. The Man Who Fell to Earth. Will I ever find a place that is home- which can contain these multitudes? “Have you forgotten? You are multitudes. You can never be contained in words or bodies, alone.”
It’s my 13th day in Mexico City. I did not feel so brave today, but I can pinpoint its origins. It feels like lifetimes have passed since I left Texas in August. The countless lives and identities we have lived before today, yet this moment is all we have. We can’t ever be sure what the next one will bring.
I went to reheat leftovers & found my food was stolen from the hostel/hotel kitchen. I’ve never stayed in a place that functions quite like this one. But there is an unwritten code amongst travelers and it was broken.
I scrawled a letter to the thief, telling them that if they were poor & hungry- it was wrong & hoped that they were nourished and enjoyed it. But if the person who nicked my food was just lazy or uncaring- I told them to “go fuck themselves.” I later left a postcard- apologizing for that tone along w/ a smattering of pesos if someone needed them.
I returned & two notes in Spanish had been written next to mine- rebuking the robber. The postcard & pesos still left on the counter. A shred of hope in humanity restored.
I wasn’t as upset about stolen food, it felt like a betrayal to my quest or whatever this half-planned and half-flying by the seat of my pants thing I’m doing. Perhaps that’s how life is supposed to be. We live on precarious edges each moment. We take waking up, sex, food, & limbs for granted. We withhold love from those we love or are “supposed” to love the most. We cannot give what we don’t have. And “I do not want what I haven’t got.” That’s a lie, & the name of Sinead O’Connor’s debut album. 😆 Still, there is some truth in that sentiment.
Stranger in a strange land. The Man Who Fell to Earth. Will I ever find a place that is home- which can contain these multitudes? “Have you forgotten? You are multitudes. You can never be contained in words or bodies, alone.”
Someone’s only pair of shoes had been stolen as well- and they were more of a Kmart blue light special rather than a blue plate special which had been taken.
I have stolen before- usually in the self-checkout line when I don’t feel like an avocado should be $4 and mark it as bananas. I’ve even stolen clothing from a place I worked at as a teenager. Not my most shining moments, so perhaps I don’t have a lot of room to complain.
Stranger in a strange land. The Man Who Fell to Earth. Will I ever find a place that is home- which can contain all of me? Whitman was not alone in containing multitudes. Sometimes the closest to multitudes I’ve come to are from a box of Whitman’s chocolate samplers. Then I look out of my rented bedroom window to the Ochre red Cathedral- which has greeted my gaze several times each day. Doves and pigeons are nestled in the rafters. Bits of grass and flowers growing from the walls and cracks on the city’s uneven pavement. Mexico City is literally sinking an inch or so each year. The colonialists dammed up the rivers and drove the Aztecs out. And now those descendants are reaping the ultimate Montezuma’s revenge. Even then, there is a place for all of us.
Mexico reminds me of China in a lot of ways- tribal, unconventional and lax with driving and jay walkers, yet a stickler for certain letters to the law. Guess we all do a bit of pick and choosing for what we believe, ourselves. And like China, and America, there are numerous people who are houseless. It gets overwhelming because you want to give each person you see some pesos. Again, it’s in the moment that we must make that decision and trust that just as it is no one’s responsibility to ensure our needs our met- it’s not entirely up to each one of us to meet everyone else’s needs- if it were supposed to be that way then it maybe it wouldn’t feel so impossible.
Leaving the metro in Condesa, I saw -walker laying sideways on some stairs, last night. A few stairs above was a man lying on the ground. I rushed over, picked up the walker, brought it to the man, asking if he needed help. He pushed the walker away and muttered something I couldn’t really understand. I tried to move the walker to a higher step- thinking that maybe this would be of better assistance to him. Laying on the ground, legs twisted, the older man pushed the walker away and let it fall down the stairs. I looked across the stairwell facing opposite of us and saw a middle-aged middle class male and female couple looking as dumb-founded as me. The male on-looker told me, in Spanish, that they had been trying to help him as well; but the man also refused any assistance.
There was nothing more to do, but let him languish in his squalor. He was railing against the thing that is his support, and I don’t blame him one bit. He has every right to be pissed and mad at the world and god. Haven’t we all refused the help of a tender hand? I tend to rebuke the help of those with forceful hands and words. Am I doing that now in my own way, by leaving everything and everyone I know behind, for now?
I have 5 days left booked at the Downtown Selina, and I am not quite sure where my next step is. Still in Mexico, but for how long will I live in impermanence? Until my money runs out, until I finally decide somewhere to settle down these restless bones and heart? Until my first book gets published? The answer will come. I will know in the moment when it’s right to make a choice. I can feel it’s getting closer.
I have a room to myself in a beautiful city from which I am writing this post with a cool breeze entering the window, sounds of cars and passers by echoing in the night as well. I am thankful for my blessings and the lessons- albeit a bit begrudgingly at times lol and I think that its okay for us to have those moments of doubt and reflection. We have been catalyzed into camps of yes and no, republican and Democrat, Christian and sinner. We are all stronger together as a nation, as one human race- and it will come, unfortunately I don’t see that coming, yet. It’s getting closer. That’s all that I can hope for and that is enough, for now.
There are miracles and lessons happening every day around us. I have not had the same experience as the man I met on subway stairs, but I understand the forlornness, the sometimes apparent cruelty and injustice of the world. Still, I have seen so much beauty to know that the uncertain times are the falsities. We cling to anxieties like tails of a paper tigers. Leading the fear along with us on our trail. One man throws down his wheelchair. Another man takes of his bed and goes walking forward.
I feel more certain with the words written out. The aloneness releasing me outwards and my heart opening again. The words of the ancients and of Eckart Tolle, Abraham Hicks, Tame Impala, LCD Soundsystem, Camus, and Rumi. An eclectic grouping of multi-media and dimensional beliefs and sayings. The confounding impossibility of being present in every moment for that is all we ever have. The next moment is getting closer, for which I am thankful. I am ready to be ready for it when it comes and take wing, like seedlings, like hope spreading out its feathers and flying, with the wind guiding and directing our paths.
Does the cry for freedom not
from within you call?
His Blood is on the cross
But You paid blood money to build a wall
I scrawled a letter to the thief, telling them that if they were poor & hungry- it was wrong & hoped that they were nourished and enjoyed it. But if the person who nicked my food was just lazy or uncaring- I told them to “go fuck themselves.” I later left a postcard- apologizing for that tone along w/ a smattering of pesos if someone needed them.
JoshovasWitness 