Wandering Eyes

It's amazing how quickly a lonely heart stops calling when companionship is found. Even the simplest friendship can change a wolf's repetitive howl into a silent, watchful curiosity.

In truth friends are found in the strangest places. Kinships that seem strange and unlikely can be quite ordinary when reality is as shifting as a dream. Unfortunately the same can be said for friends and family upon whose shoulders you once rested are now turned cold as the dream and dayscapes change.

But as one's footsteps echo in silence as one's eyes seek some solace, its the world that provides the twists and changes from lonely sorrow into joy. In the leaves colors dance that have never been seen before. Color runs as vision taps into the interconnected psyche, the maya. In nature, you can never be alone. Laying upon the ground the Earth beats with life. Birds dance through the trees, water laughs as it tickles the rocks and its own banks. Every butterfly that glides by, every bee that hums, reminds you that you're alive, and never alone.

And yet, still a wolf will call again and again for the voices of its own kind.

And a human, the toolmakers, will find ways to transmute experiences to express the texture of a moment, the images of a feeling.

Then something strange happens... a simple connection is made.

It can be anything, eyes across the crowd, a song shared, the comfort of a lovers touch. And everything can change. That song that once you listened to alone, is no longer just yours. You realize that it's shared. It's part of that heartbeat of the world. And you realize that you are no longer filled with that need to call and call and call again, but that you are connected one to all. And you ever will be again. And instead of crying to the night. You smile.

I hope you can feel that.

I'm sorry for my delay and my long absences... I thought my journey had ended and so I no longer needed to write the story of that epic. But in truth... as long as life continues, no journey can end. The world is round and its edges cannot be reached.

So perhaps next week I'll explain what this journey's end, has begun.

Waters End

A few days ago, or perhaps it was yesterday, a woman, the mother of four, drove into a river with her children in the car. Only one child survived.

I don't know what happened or why. I don't know what this mother was thinking. But I can guess.

We are isolated, alone, with no support, no friends or family, no protection. Our government is a predator leeching from our lives and our friends are just names on a glowing page whom we never see. In that life, how can we be anything but alone.

And alone, the world is a enormous and terrible thing to bear.

Humans are social creatures by nature. We need contact, comfort. We are also tactile creatures. We need to be groomed and cherished and loved. And, when we do wrong, we need to be punished and scorned. We need to help one another. We need to be taught and to teach. We need to be accepted and included.

There have been many terrible things that have lead us astray.

Possession has been one.

In that age old message which may not have been spoken in words but echoed in the thousands of spirits of that time "We cannot own the earth"

We are a part of it. If anything, it owns us, for that is a much more true dynamic. And we must respect that and our responsibility to it.

Another has been denial of our most base and natural of things.

Like sex. And nudity.

Our bodies are lovely and natural, in denying them, how can we not deny and be ashamed of ourselves. Who else sees it most base and wrong that Adam and Eve were ashamed of their nakedness?

Why should they have been?

Why is it more accepted to see violence than nudity?

Which would you prefer your children to be exposed to?

Love?

Or violence?

We learn by observation. We always have. Never deny the power of exposure to media. It doesn't matter if it's not real. It is real. Someone created it and we are allowing it to be the major teachers of our children.

Last is the concept of God.

Not the creator or that power that moves through all of us. But the concept of something else controlling and taking care of our lives.

Jesus did not die for our sins. He died because of our sins. Because we did not hear the true message.

Walk together in love.

Jesus died because we killed him.

Doesn't that condemn us to sin and not heaven?

In truth there is no way to cast out from us that which we have created. If we do wrong, it is our doing and ours to undo. The responsibility for all things lies solely upon us, not some Almighty who will step in and save us at the last moment. No. Responsibility is ours. We must use it.

I know we feel powerless. But we got ourselves into this mess, we better get ourselves out.

Feel alone? You are. But that's only because you have made it that way. I suggest a way out. I suggest we make a way out. Today. Right now.

I don't know who reads this. I know I don't even really keep up with it. But if there's anyone out there help me try.

This is what I suggest.

Meet your neighbors.

It's not much but it's a start.

Personally I live with ten houses around me and I don't know the name of a single one of my neighbors.

So take a walk. Bring some cookies. Invite them over for tea. Anything. Say hello, ask if they're ok. If they need anything. If you can help.

Write a letter, reconnect with friends. Near or far, people are probably as lonely as you. Please, just say hello.

Then at home. Stop throwing things away.

I know it's hard, but look for the ways and means to recycle, to reuse, to recreate. Compost. Anything.

Connect. Teach. Learn.

If someone offers you advice, don't take offense. Listen. They've taken the time to speak and offer a different perspective into your reality. You can have the respect to hear what they have to say. It took courage to say, take the courage to listen.

Say hello.

Smile to those around you.

Compliment everyone.

Make someone's day.

Connect, so we can create change.

Please, start today.

Tap Tap Tap

Life rolls with that endless meddling slide and the only real oath I've made myself is to be able to look back and feel that I lived every day and lived with no regrets.

But then... you also have to figure out a way to survive that day to day.

I hear so many people talk about the drag and hating their job... honestly I just want to find a way that my life energizes me so that I wake and enjoy. To that end I may stay with my job, for, while there are days I don't want to go in and times when it drags, I enjoy my job and my coworkers. It's fun and there's great energy in it.

It's that energy that generally I'm feeling is lacking in this area I call home. It's almost stuck and most people seem to struggle with it. That bothers me, making me always half want to bolt away from here and half want to stay and change the base of it, ultimately twisting me into the stuck push pull of the area as well.

And to play the balance of adult life, always too much never enough. What an insane thing we've agreed to here. Can't make enough to support, can't make enough to survive. Always torn between work, working to get ahead, housework, social time and pleasure. Is it any wonder that it's our social lives that die?

I am one who enjoys work. I enjoy being always on. That way the times I do take to stretch and relax are that much more enjoyable though that brief. But my time is mostly divided into getting ahead, and working. I consider my work not only the job that pays me but the things I desire to get done in my life. And then making my home life more enjoyable, whatever that means.

What I do continue to hold to is care... care in life and in my work and in my relationships. Why do things carelessly? That seems the way our country has been dragged down - do everything quick and impersonally. We've lost our masters. I feel it is worth taking the time to make a masterpiece of ones life, everyday and in every way.

To strive for perfection... not to achieve it.

To live in joy, to strive for perfection.

Life trembles like ripples on a pool, waiting for the change, the heave, the turn. We all walk along the edge, watching as our gentle pacing causes these ripples to spread and trouble the still waters, for in this way we know we're alive. Yet in our tender pacing, whether we look or not, do we ever look to the farther shore and wonder, what am I doing and could I do more?

So many days I have walked alone. So many days I would sit beside water and just listen and look. But water is such a drawing place and it is rare to stand alone. One by one people would come and question me, but not the pool or their footsteps upon it, and always, always, I'd be sitting there, brushing the pool with my fingertips and knowing somewhere, somewhere, on that far shore, my touch was making change.

But I am not as patient as the water, to pace it's slow way into a canyon. I know only the brief flame of life given to the mortal, and so instead of gentle circles in the pool, I long to reach my hand down, pull up the tranquility of that surface and throw a wave at that far bank so that the change I wish wrought may happen now!

Yet isn't now that hardest thing to catch?
Like droplets in your palms must fall away, so the nows slip between your desperate fingers and no action can be wrought with such carelessness.

Isn't that why the one who cheats Death and traps it away must learn that heedless greed only causes suffering?
What would happen if we could have Now?
Now for our wants and our desires?

What then would tomorrow be?

Light fading in winter

I react to the light leaving these days. As a creature of the night I wouldn't think that the loss of the light would bother me as much as it does. Yet nightly, I find myself curled up next to my window watching as the last rays of the light fade into their misty glow. Then all the lights come on, every one in my room, as I try to make up for the gentle warm light brought in from our glorious Sol, our unnamed sun. Eventually I'll let the curtains fall and accept the coming of the night. Then one by one I'll turn off my lights, as they prick my eyes into irritation and I decide the comfort of darkness is much more desired. Then come creativity in all her guises, precious muse to whisper in my ear. Let the hours not be marked, exhaustion my only timer, and darkness the cover to my creation. One day it will be by light seen, but for now, it is in its rawest form, a fresh cut ore and with my own fires I will refine it.
And so the night continues.