From Notebooks

Last night we watched an ocean peel back from its bed

In vertigo-inducing seconds it revealed a new reality of canyons and plains

Now standing on a mountain top that was once a rocky shoreline

Green fields surrounded an inviting civilization in the distance

One that had adapted to dry land

It didn’t even occur to me that this should not be

Until I realized the ocean would have to return

We scrambled as the monolith rushed toward us  

That glimpse of a new reality washed away by the return of another

What if I had stepped towards that impossible moment?

They forgot that life was consumption. Their palate continued to change and their appetite evolved towards things they didn’t understand. Nourishment became provided by information and brief electronic connections. Money fed their souls, poisons filled their stomachs, and soot coated their lungs. Their need to consume changed the air they breathed, the water they drank, and the environment that provided the necessary products for life. In the span of a few centuries the necessities had been ignored and left for ruined in the shadows of their civilization. The things they consumed ended up consuming them. 

It later turned out that the rapidly aging catholic priest had slowly been driven mad by a crazy, mean little man down the canyon in a photo studio.

While the consumption of cigarettes has slowly gone down over the years, the consumption of cigars has been skyrocketing since 1993. Looks like those rich habits are becoming richer.

Pressure gets everything off

Fractured thinking ways

Opening cracks in the mind

Force reconciliation

Spanning eons, wey

Airborne seas of flame bursting

Out there in the ether

Galaxies spin round

Filled with possibility

Eating others alive

Releasing the bringers of life

Atoms, Molecules, Water, Acids, Bases,

Blargh…not so good at this right now… maybe ok earlier…not many people will read “wey” as Mexican for dude…

“This filthy country-I no longer feel any loyalty toward it’s institutions. I only wish I were free, had the power to live elsewhere. Hiroshima, Nagasaki-this-the moral power of this country is low, terribly low. Worse than in slavery days.

 And law or not, no matter how legal, the murder of the Rosenbergs violates a higher law.

What loyalty I still have for “America” takes this form:

I love the land-it’s great rivers, plains, mountains, and the ineffable desert; I love my friends, my kin, my unknown allies- I will stand by them to the end.

But for the cities, for our schools and churches and industries, for the government, for the meaningless documents embalmed of the past, for the mass of hucksters and enterprisers-no love. Fuck them. No loyalty. I will not defend them”

^ From the journals of Edward Abbey circa 1953.

a statement i can jive with, although my list of specific qualms with society has had 56 years to grow exponentially , the core remains the same. 

I love the earth, my family, my friends & allies, and those who have yet to be a positive part of my life. I exist to stand with them in whatever form I can, however distant we may be, through whatever situations may arise.

I have no love for the collectively twisted tenets of progress and growth, for their justifications, or for their defense. No love exists to be found there except in misguided madness

(from a few years ago)

Once you accept that thought can elicit a direct reaction from the physical world, without any apparent physical mechanism, except maybe the influence they can have on other thought-like processes….well that is when you have to start thinking realllly, really  carefully. …

If a house could implode

from the amount of stories stuffed within its walls,

this would be the one.

Slowly cracking cans

Timidly impolite but

The bubbles refresh

I haven’t read all of the books I want to read

I haven’t listened to all of the music I want to hear

I haven’t visited all of the places I want to go

I haven’t known all of the people I want to know

I haven’t had all of the conversations I want to have 

I haven’t loved all of the ones I want to love

I’ve never crossed an ocean

I’ve never even stood beside the Pacific

I haven’t fixed all of my faults

The list goes on forever..

So what have I done?

I’ve learned to look at these as opportunities instead of problems.

Wouldn’t it be worse if there was nothing left to do? Like the feeling you get at the end of a favorite book, but in real life. I don’t think I could handle that.

I corrected him, pointing out that his actions had just caused the whole situation to collapse. 

There was a moment of shock, then recognition, then a smile. He apologized to my wife and I before walking away from the scene. 

“Goddammit. He thinks that simply by accepting responsibility for his actions, he is absolved of them. Did you see that smile?”

“I did, and you know what? He may be right” the woman said as she turned to watch their former friend off into the distance.

“You can’t change the past. What more can you do?” she asked.

The man would not accept this.

“He could have stayed and helped” he said.

“Oh, he knew that you would never tolerate that.” sighed Isabella. 

Zack couldn’t deny this. Revenge had been promised before he had been able to clear his head.

“How is it that he made the mistake which led us here, and I feel at fault?” 

“Because none of us are innocent of faulty actions. We can only be conscious of our intentions and do our best. Sometimes it just isn’t enough. He may have made the original mistake, but you matched him. You displayed a lack of awareness as great as his when you declared the end of your friendship” explained Isabella. 

“But, he smiled at the realization of his mistake. He didn’t feel as badly as I do right now. I could have handled this better, but he’s not even upset because of some bullshit, self-absolution cop-out.” Zack struggled.

“How do you know that the sun isn’t warming his tears as we speak? asked Isabella. 

“Zack, did you ever stop to think that the reason he told that lie in the first place was because he feels as bad as you do right now?” 

So many things happen. Recently, possibilities have been coming out of the woodwork at an unprecedented rate. Or maybe they’re always there and I’m just getting better than I used to be at finding them. Probably a little of both. 

Writings from a year ago.  Since then the discipline has flourished, business is booming, but spiritual growth and knowledge of life is the same. 

How does one balance the two and be ‘successful’? Do you focus on one and then the other, or find a balance of both? 

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