What would you say upon receiving three clusters of pink hawthorn flowers?

How would the tones of your face reveal themselves if I told you it was 'heart medicine'?

Would your eyes dilate?

I mouse-sneak to spy on you.

I thought I knew where it could happen, but...

You are so good at hiding, you appear disappeared.

Perhaps, now that my longing has lengthened like a shadow near twilight,

Our entrainment has turned to beats, 

Waves canceling each other out.

I'm finding my patience for curiosity is short.

I just want to know if you know the longest word in the English language.

I just want to know how you smell after crying.

What would you say if I handed you a freshly propelled maple seed?

Would you get it when I tell you, Nature imitates Life?

Would your heart jump along that red road with mine?

Multiple Solitude? Alone-together?

Maybe it's not alone-together, it's more like isolated-and-lonely-together.  Stop and think about it.  When was the last time you actually LOOKED a stranger in the eyes, even when you really wanted to look?  No, you averted your eyes as soon as their gaze grazed you.  When was the last time someone offered to help you, to REALLY help you, when you were suffering, and I mean someone who wasn't your family member or really good friend?  No, they just stood there watching.  We're afraid of seeing one another, we're afraid of letting our guards down and of making the commitment to live life from the heart, to make real sacrifices for one another.  We are a world of beings playing out a disillusioned and moderate tragedy.  In love we temper ourselves, in politics we whine, in dreams we may fly, only to crash upon waking.  We cheapen our passions by consuming fantasies sold to us in an attempt to make us forget that we have the capacity to create so much of the world we live in.  Economics, nation states, religions; what a strange and convoluted, illusory real game of life, which man has so foolishly entangled himself in.  Even I play in this mummer's farce and I see beyond the veil of all this stupidity.  We really make things more difficult than they need to be.  We love a challenge, but would rather lay fallow and dead as we struggle.  Where is the fire of life?  Where is the passion of our hearts?  We second guess our every move, we over-analyze our choices, then idolize those who leap off the edge and land well, but it can't be us who jump.  We have no trust for others, because in our inability to accept our own role in the pain of our lives, we carry anger and blame and shame and all that crap which closes us off from real connections.  Authenticity is not a city we visit often.  We're suffocating under layers of player paint and the dung-masks of dogma.  Why do I shush myself when I was to sing-scream in the middle of the grocery store?  Why do I stop myself from dancing down the street while caressing the gentle hands of my fellow pedestrians?  I stop, I shush, because, no longer a child, my spirit has been suppressed by the dehydrated, blank, and catatonic despair of a population choked by the chains of the Meta-parent, the ultimate authority, be it God or Science or the State, that allows us to say, "It's not my fault!"  It is our fault!  We created this, we continue to create this, and we have the capacity to change it.  

What is a grown up person?  Is there such a thing as an adult, really?  I wonder, because it seems that we humans so badly need to create stories that keep us as children.  Not the children of loving parents who encourage us to dream and breathe and grow, but of parents who tyrannically control our every move and keep us from becoming beautifully independent, wise souls.  Why, as we age, do we let our lives become dross, colorless, and defeated?  Why do we so mindlessly devour the bland food of our romanceless culture decade after decade?  Why do we continue to rise only to our lowest of dreams?  Our world will stone, tar and feather, hang, or burn a person who lives an authentic life, and then make them heroes in their death.  What kind of necromantic story are we writing for ourselves?  If we cannot live in the ecstasy that the full spectrum of our capabilities as humans offers, what the hell is the point of bothering to exist? 

As we grow, as we age, we should find ourselves more alive, better able to express ourselves, more capable of manifesting our dreams, more inspired and clear.  We can only become such wise elders if we spiral through life's ups and downs, without allowing ourselves to stagnate and fester in one place for too long.  Our society, unfortunately, encourages this bogginess, and does not like it when we free ourselves from the sinkholes of despair.  When we know our own power, we cannot be controlled.

I demand a life of PASSION!  I take my life back from the mass boredom of everyday life and from the stranglehold of "power over".  I invite you to join me in creating a life you can truly love.  I invite you to join me in healing our multiple solitude, by remembering to play and gaze into the eyes of strangers.  I invite you to join me in trusting and giving generously and forgiving imperfections.  I invite you to join me in following our hearts and in shedding the garments of the false "authorities" found in government, religion, families, and other social institutions that have been built upon the fear of real freedom.  I invite you to join me in reclaiming the real magic of life and death and remembering the expansiveness of every last cell of our wildest dreams!

So Be It!

And I Let Go...

In my exhaustion, the fighting in my heart and mind subsides.  I give all the trying to the Mystery, I surrender it all to... what is it?  Fate or Destiny?  My breath feels clearer as I give in and crumble under the pressure.  The phoenix and the tower, explosion and destruction, sacrifice and incineration, these give way to fertile ground.  Even as I write, I create and destroy.  I choose the words that will live in this composition and those that will die or perhaps never have a chance at being included this time around.  My life is no different.  There are little pieces that fit into the puzzle, while other parts slough off to become pieces of something else.  In this moment I feel helpless as a new born babe.  Have I died and returned a new creature?  I've plunged into the depths of Persephone's domain, down into the dungeons of Hecate, I've sucked the blood fruit of a sizzling death.  This has been my descent.  Now, I take pause.  I stop to retrieve my articles shed, to reattach my very flesh and make my journey back.  I humbly hope and pray for new love, new warmth, and a new hearth, a new home for my heart.  

A Fall of Dreams

Through a window

I watch the day pass

Leaves turn red as blood, golden, brown

Cool air brings a rust upon the world

The sky, blue against it

A dream seeks me out

As I lay, with a head of fog

Joints unmoved, aching

The walls muffle the rustle of leaves

No, I can't even hear them

My dream, he floats 

Much like the leaves on the wind

Then, he falls quickly

And smashes to the ground

There's blood at the corners

I get to keep a piece of it, the wing

Three feathers to be exact

Two plain, one like a peacock's

Only they're the Raven's

Or Maldoc's, as he claims

I cuddle my treasure

Leaves still ride the air

Cracking against the wind

I don't know how to mend it

The wires need to be set again

The dream, he arises

Broken from the fall

Held together like the dying leaves

Wind pushing his wings

Coaxing them to release

I lay here, watching

Autumn embrace upon my world

The sun play upon the colors

And he perches, out there

Watching my little jerks

There's a strange chord

That ties us 

It binds us unknowingly

And we fall together

Our wings help us to fly

Debates You'll Never Win!

While I'm on the whole vegan rant, I want to say, that after obsessively browsing a number of discussion threads on various forums, I realize that it's all a losing battle.  People want to be right, and because food is enmeshed with ethics, morals, theories on human evolution and purpose, religious concepts and a variety of other sociopolitical issues, the passions fly.  People want to be right because they're afraid, mostly of realizing they're wrong which leads to pain, punishment, and "Hell".  The truth is, even science can't agree on one optimal diet or dietary system for humans.  As for the moral/ethical side of the diet debate, well, there again, nothing can be concretely proven as fact.  Some people swear up and down that animals were put here for us and that they neither feel, think, nor have souls.  I completely disagree with this sentiment, but am I going to convince a committed "Uberhuman" to think otherwise?  Only if they want to be convinced, which is unlikely.  The whole meat vs. no meat debate is about as reconcilable and provable as the God vs. no God debate.  The only truth that I can surmise from all of the philosophizing that happens between us humans is that the real truth is a mystery.  The best we can do is find the truth that makes the most sense to us at any given moment in our small lives.  

My plea; love and honor your truth, share it freely, embrace it, expect that others will see/feel things differently and maintain a sense of wonder about that.  

If your truth originates in fear, it's not truth, it's fear.  This is where all the self-righteousness, dogmatism, and proselytizing come from.  Fear is only helpful as a survival technique.  Most fear eats us from behind while we attempt to pretend it isn't there, but it always rears it's ugly head in insidious ways, whether we realize it or not.  Truth originates in love and compassion, mercy and forgiveness.  When you get down to all that, the details aren't very important.  The questions is what is your intent, what is your motive?

Here's another link that I found interesting regarding veg/vegan diets:

BeyondVeg

Also, I was totally banned from the forums on the PostPunkKitchen site.  I have yet to receive an explanation from the moderators.  It seems that they don't want any contrary views threatening their little Shambala.  No insight wanted (or is that incite?)!  Damn shame...

A Few Thoughts on Thoughts

"The most amazing thing about being human, is that we are conscious of being conscious." - Fredrick P. Harris (My grandfather)

I hear a lot about the power of thoughts coming from a variety of New Age and other spiritual sources.  This is what I have to say about it:

Thought alone may have a certain energy to it.  I'm okay with this assertion.  How powerful said energy is, however, is seriously up for debate.  Can I live in my dream world  just by thinking it into existence?  NO.  If that were true, I'd be there... and I'm not.  Some would say that's because I'm not "manifesting" it, I don't really believe in it.  I'm sorry but, what if my ideal world has unicorns, nothing but awesome comfortable Victorian-Faerie-Goth-Dancer fashion that fits me perfectly, cats who can speak my language, and cute little flying horses in it?  If I really, really believe, will I experience that world right here and now?  Ha!  As much as I'm a magical thinker, I have to say no.  Those things lie in the world of the imagination, and they can be very real, in a sense.  They're not, however, going to appear in super-corporeal fashion, they are fey in nature, apparitions flitting in and out of peripheral vision, and that's okay, because it's their role in this dense world.  The creatures, visions, and dreams of our imagination serve to remind us that the cold, hard objects that we encounter in our daily lives are not everything.  There is magic, wonder and a reason to hope for a better world.  There is mystery to balance the mundane.  That said, the world of ideas is only significant when we take action on the thoughts we have, whether we do so consciously or unconsciously.  Thoughts may "emanate" from our being, but they quickly dissipate when they are not given the added oomph of an activating principle.  The action can be very small, and very habitual, to the point of being completely unconscious, or it can be consciously created and moved.  I don't believe that thought alone has a power comparable to thought + action.   Perhaps this could be true on a more ethereal plane, but with the time, gravity, and solidity we encounter here, it's simply ludicrous.

There's currently a big trend that's all about the "power of positive thinking".  There's nothing wrong with positivity, and affirmations that help one to recognize how amazing and beautiful they are can be powerful.  Playing with the idea of what one can do as opposed to what one can't do is often the more open and liberating rout to take.  My question is, what happens when someone believes that they should only ever have "positive" thoughts?  Doesn't this shackle them to a moralistic concept, the failure of which could well lead to neurosis, guilt and shame?  The problem is not the percentage of positive or negative thoughts we have daily, but how conscious of our thought patterns we are.  Being able to simply observe our thoughts with compassion is more important than only thinking in the positive.  By doing this we have nothing to fail at.  We are empowered to recognize thoughts that come from a place of love, understanding and acceptance as well as thoughts that come from fear, insecurity, and anger.  In this way we can better understand our motivations behind actions and reactions, and make more effective choices as we grow.  It's perfectly natural for us experience a variety of feelings, thoughts, and ideas, including those we or our society deems "unsavory".  It is unhealthy for us to repress the free flow of these experiences, for when we do, we find ourselves a chaotic mess.  

I personally strive for balance.  I embrace my "negative" thoughts.  They are equally as important and valuable as my "positive" ones.  All of my thoughts and ideas have something to tell me about how I'm feeling and what's happening around me.  Do I choose to change certain of my thought patterns?  Absolutely.  Am I blind to some of my idea-loops and theoretical contradictions?  Yes.  Will I do my best to act upon thoughts that are in the highest benefit of all my relations?  Always.