the human condition

Monkey mind.

My mind swirls, always circling the drain; Selective memory. Plagued by memories of who I once was. And was not. Who I thought I was, and was not. There are phases to it. I relive, regret, retry, regain, reset, redo … Re. Again. Always again. Each day presents a new self discovery. There is no rhyme or reason to it. The whole experience can be uncertain and debasing, but I continue to try. How do you stop a moving train? Generally you get out of ITS way. Is that how to handle this runaway mind of mine? Give it space to breathe and exist on its own and then step aside? Who am I outside of myself?

Wise mind.

let go

Why do we do what we do? Why do we stay when we know we should go? But we don’t. We latch on even tighter and start to cope. We build elaborate contraptions around the situation and try living with it rather than without it. Fear keeps us bound, perverse joy makes us stay.

What is the proverbial “straw that breaks the camel’s back?” Rock bottom comes in every imaginable form. I’d like to think I can head you off at the pass, make a clean break. But the time has to be right. The stars have to align just so, and then, just like that, you are gone. The music stops and the rides close… finally, a time for rest. Wishful thinking.

The miles past aren’t erased. Now the rebuilding begins, one step at a time. Layers of yourself are revealed to yourself. You begin to dismantle the contraptions that kept you bound. The work is difficult, but more rewarding than any you’ve ever done. It’s exhilarating and terrifying.

Don’t be afraid. We are in this together; there is no singular experience. I will help pull out your thorns and soak your bones. You deserve a rest after that journey. Walking through yourself is exhausting isn’t it? Have faith in me. The other side is beyond imagination. Won’t you join me?

Sense of Self

Stuck and yet moving, at the same time. As if you were one of those inflatable stickmen that car dealerships like to use to drive in business; your feet are firmly planted, yet you’re thrashing about wildly from the ankles up. Your sense of self.

Like a Chinese nesting doll, each layer reveals the next, bodies hidden deep inside one another. They come as an interlocking, interdependent set of vessels that only function in relation to one another. Each body is another chance for revelation, another vessel of promise. Your sense of self.

A stranger in your own skin. A visitor, staying briefly, always at a distance; watching the film from outside the theater. Your sense of self.

Moving through life at an astonishing clip, you can’t help but notice the passage of time. For all the tacks and Trade winds, you still don’t win that battle. Time marches on and you flail about like a fish out of water. Your sense of self.

Metamorphosis

Give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

to change the things I can,

and the wisdom to know the difference.

~ Serenity Prayer

Inevitable change. Change. Is good. A necessary verb. To do. To change. Metamorphize. I watched a cocoon become a butterfly this summer. Change.

My fear of change is trite. By and large, who doesn’t fear change? But there is a fine line between fear and paralysis. And sometimes I am paralyzed in my fear of change. I can’t make the necessary decisions fast enough to compete with time, and I find myself facing another long winter alone, another year in a bad relationship, or another day in this soul-sucking routine … another …

The Universe around me will change though. And like it or not, I will be forced to choose something. Forced change. It is easier to pull off the Band-Aid quickly, yourself, rather than to have someone else slowly remove it. But in my paralysis, time often laps me and I find myself running in last place against all forces of change. And the winner chooses for everyone.

But this time, I am winning the race against time. I am changing what I can and letting go of what I can’t. Letting Go, long lost cousin to Change. Change for me involves a certain amount of letting go to make room for what I know. Intuitively.

This is where faith comes in. To proceed on the assumption that the unknowns will reveal themselves and that there is nothing to fear is the ultimate test of faith. The ultimate leap. And one that is scary to take. But take it I must and proceed in the face of fear. With faith.

I am leaping into a brave, new world where I initiate change, where I take the driver’s seat. I choose to see the world differently. I choose to see myself differently. I choose to embrace change and let the Universe facilitate, not force, my choices. Initiative. Takes a certain brash panache.

I choose love. I choose light. I choose to see the best in the world around me. In myself. I choose to let go of those constructs that don’t suit the higher image I have of myself. I choose to let go of the density that keeps me bound in this skin. I choose light, to be light.

Becoming a butterfly,

CCC

Gravity

We're being held down by a supposed force called gravity. Gravity fails me lately. It pulls at the corners of my eyes, tugs at my breasts, grasps my ankles. But now I can fly. I can leap single bounds and be free of the chains that wrinkle the young.

Your magnetic poles have thrown off my compass; all directions are skewed. I'm flying in circles trying to find myself again after the dizzying affect of your being so close. When will you return? I am ready to land for a moment on your shoulder. I am ready to whisper in your ear all the things you've longed to hear in your sleep. I'll wake you up.

Come fly with me.

I'll show you how.

Don't be afraid.

Faith

There was a moment when she wasn't sure she could return, certainly not the way she was. Like dragging nails across a chalkboard, the process of purging this life ~ that life. Living all the while, like a hoarder, with her past.The words don't come easy. They never did. They never do.

Faith is, the rain will come.

Faith is, you will wake up.

Faith is, in next time.

The Road Home

Well, this is it... the home stretch. To the finish line is where I'm headed. I have three days to pull this off.

Friday, March 17th, 2017

My first grand-opening show, but not my first rodeo. "I ain't no stranger to the rain," Keith Whitley sang. I work best under pressure. I am breathing deep and focusing like a thoroughbred in the shoot. I have the strength, the stamina, the resolve to pull this off.

I pay homage to my Mesa family; the unique threads that helped weave this whole thing together. And to my parents. And to all my friends, who undoubtedly support me, even when it's not so great. I am so blessed to have you all in my life. And to all the love in my life, thank you. Thank you for being there for me and thank you for helping me get sober and to love life for the first time ever. I owe myself to you all.

Hopefully this show will give something to you - from me.

Reciprocity. It's the name of the game.

It Will Implode

My words don't keep up these days. It's a struggle, an uphill battle to contrition. But that is all you understand; the language of my soul is lost on your ever-vigilant ego. The disconnect is felt deep within, mostly here. Always there.

Don't be fooled. I am clear. There is work to be done.

It is time to toil under my light. I the teacher, you the student. You must listen, but most importantly, you must believe. As in Narnia, to get out, you must acknowledge this new reality as something not to be known, but to be believed. Only then can you feel your way through the thicket.

Trust me, it is the only way out. Actually, it is the only way in.

There is no shortage of beasts you'll face. Some big, some small, but all fierce, and fighting for their lives. They won't let you sleep. Be prepared young one. This is a battle often fought, but hardly won. The scars run deep, the bloodshed obscene. You'll learn soon enough to let go.

I have faith in you. I believe in you. This is not your first battle, but it could very well be your last - if you make it so. You must be brave and confident. Know that I am standing right beside you always, whether you see me or not.

Be brave. There is nothing to fear but yourself. The battle lies within.

It Takes Two

You are alone and so lonely in this world. No one to call home. No one at home to call. It's a lonely existence and one you certainly didn't wish upon yourself. Or did you?

... if we are the creators of our own existence ...

Do you believe in magic? In what do you believe? I believe in two. I trust in love. I have faith in us. You should too. Have I ever given you a reason to doubt me? Have I ever not shown up for you? You have no reason to believe I would. I created you, why would I abandon you?

Yet, there is a plague of doubt, an infestation of sorts. You are eat up with uncertainty. Not sure where else to turn, you turn away from me ~ the very thing you need the most. Your pushing and pulling tugs at my heart strings. The rips in my clothes from the battle we've just fought. No one won. What do you want from me? You have all of me, I am here, inside you, but you must turn inward to find your light. I will wait for a spell.

I can see clearly, from where I sit, things you cannot begin to imagine. From behind the dense walls you've built around your heart I see the pulsating fear. A fear so deep, it prevents you from seeing your lovingly-built cage for what it is: a false sense of security. It's like a screen box that you could punch out of if you'd only realize your situation. You have the strength. The walls are false. The safety, unreal.

The very thing you fear the most is the exact thing that you will experience if you concentrate too long. Don't think me out of existence. Don't worry me away. Don't ponder my reality. Instead, soar with faith. Leap with love. Let go. Allow yourself to feel joy. Taste hope. I do.

Texas Tallgrass & Blackland

The Texas blackland prairies ecoregion covers an area of 19,400 sq mi, consisting of a main belt of 17,000 sq mi and two islands of tallgrass prairie grasslands southeast of the main blackland prairie belt; both the main belt and the islands extend northeast/southwest.

The main belt consists of oaklands and savannas and runs from just south of the Red River on the Texas-Oklahoma border through the Dallas–Fort Worth metropolitan area and into southwestern Texas. The Central forest-grasslands transition lies to the north and northwest, and the Edwards Plateau savanna and the Tamaulipan mezquital to the southwest.

The larger of the two islands is the Fayette Prairie, encompassing 6,600 sq mi, and the smaller is the San Antonio Prairie of 2,700 sq mi. The two islands are separated from the main belt by the oak woodlands of the East Central Texas forests, which surround the islands on all sides but the northeast, where the Fayette Prairie meets the East Texas Piney Woods.

Because of the soil and climate, this ecoregion is ideally suited to crop agriculture. This has led to most of the Blackland Prairie ecosystem being converted to crop production, leaving less than one percent remaining (and some groups estimate less than 0.5% to less than 0.1% remaining) and making the tallgrass the most-endangered large ecosystem in North America.

the great divide

The mountains in front of me are the lightest shade of pink as the sun sets in the west. Against the baby blue sky, the clouds and snow-capped peaks punctuate and command the eye upward, to where the Milky Way waits quietly overhead.

Once, I caught a glimpse of you across the great divide. And then you were gone. I knew the moment by heart; not my first rodeo. And then, there was just me; without anyone to call home. I went searching high and low for some semblance of you. No luck.

I returned.  Clawed my way out of the bottom, up the slippery slopes that got me there. You were not waiting when I arrived. Not to be expected - how would you be? No one could survive that. I don't blame you for leaving a dead carcass to lie.

But rise above I have and rise above I shall. It is time. Time to fill the moon and count the stars. Ashes spread across my face like warrior paint, I have battled and I have won. Be a witness to the uprising that is me. I know you know.

I see across the great divide.

What Contains Me

Nothing, yet everything, holds me inside.

Myself.

Silently watching, vaguely participating. Not interested in the games being played.

Long Way Home

Returning home from the top edge of the world, filled with wonder about what happens next. Where do you go from the precipice? Farther up, I presume, if you can fly, which I often do in my dreams. Perhaps there is the symbolism.

Mountain living is so reminiscent of the past, so close to my rawest surfaces. There is something about being 9,000+ feet above sea level and blanketed in copious amounts of snow most of the year; John Denver wrote Rocky Mountain High, didn't he? Always there is this feeling of falling off the emotional, as well as, physical reality. Coupled with the snow, one better have a damn good reason for returning to the frozen tundra that is my preferred part of Colorado.

Are you that reason?

The One must know this: I truly love the desert, it is good for my bones, for my soul, for us.

Las lomas, la luna, La Loba, call me, ache for me to return when I'm gone. I can hear the "Taos Hum" from far away, feel the pulsating amethyst crystals believed to be harbored safely under the Big Mountain. La Loba seeks the bones of the past so that she can mend the future. She is found freely roaming the Mesa sage. She has been looking for me.

"He climbed cathedral mountains, he saw silver clouds below,
he saw everything as far as you can see.
And they say that he got crazy once and he tried to touch the sun,
and he lost a friend, but kept the memory.
Now he walks in quiet solitude, the forest and the streams, seeking grace in every step he takes.
His sight is turned inside himself, to try and understand
the serenity of a clear blue mountain lake." ~ John Denver

Captain's Cabin

"Home is where the heart is," so it goes. Where is my heart? With you. So where does that make my home? Somewhere up there? Somewhere down here? Somewhere in between? Will I always be somehow underneath you?

Give me a home in you and that is where you'll find my heart. Will you keep your lights on for me; I'm weary and in need of rest? The arm's length is exhausting, the journey to you longer than a Green Mile. Won't you let me in when I come knocking?

Love bears down on my heart like an anvil, pressing heavier each time you appear. Decisions are made under the weight; I'm careful to balance the structure just so. You're watching from a distance, waiting for the balance to give, for the weight to come crashing down. Come closer to help me to hold the balance, I can't do it alone. The teetering...

The lines are meant to be read between. Fill up that space with your thoughts, there is room for us both here, and there. I can hear you if you think louder. Energies pass easily over distance, signaling your arrival. I know by the light in my face that you are here. You are blinding, reveal yourself to me. I can't see through your heat.

Your omniscience bridges the palpable distance between us. I know you know, you just won't let me know you know; your subtle Zen again. From abroad I study your features, trying to make out your face in the light; waiting for you to manifest in front of my eyes, to descend from the Heavens, to move the boulders between us. I believe.

1306 Arp

That house. My house. You know, the old rickety Money Pit that takes up one-sixth of the block? If those walls could talk, what would they say? Would they finally comfort me after all these fearful years? They owe me that much.

Growing up in that house was what I'd imagine walking the halls of the Hotel California to be. "Mirrors on the ceiling, the pink champagne on ice, and she said, 'we are all just prisoners here, of our own device.'" OK, so no mirrors on the ceiling, but we sure were prisoners of our own devices. But somehow the house itself made us prisoners in our own skin. For years I thought life was lived always looking over your shoulder, always on guard for a waterbug aka cockroach to come flying off one of those menacing walls.

It makes me wonder just how much influence a physical structure has to do with your overall evolution as a human being. I grew up fearful and distrusting because of, albeit among other things, that house. It taught me early that safety was a luxury. The walls at 1306 Arp still haunt me in my sleep. Why don't they just say it already? Their stoicism is maddening. After all, it's been twenty-three years. But, how did those brooding walls influence my decisions, my life choices? I know that I got out as soon as I turned 18 and never looked back.

I can still remember the floors. They creaked with every step. That made any teenage shenanigans impossible. Sleepovers generally failed. No one could sleep in that big, drafty bedroom of mine. The walls creaked too. The big Sycamore trees outside creaked. The faucet creaked. The doors creaked. The windows. Everything creaked.

Although, I did have a summer and a winter bedroom. As a kid, I thought this was so cool, when in reality it had more to do with essentials such as heat in the fresh winters and air-conditioning in the deep East Texas, sweltering summers.

what you dream

By night, I watch you sleep and wonder what you dream. I hold you inside me by day. Sometimes I listen to you from far away and know you hold me inside you. Even if you won't say it.

I feel my body, heavy, as if I'd myself painted the two-hundred-highway-miles between us. I must be on your mind despite the task at hand. Little wooden feet. I like the idea. Can't you hear them, clicking and clacking around... playing their brass bowls like flutes? The task at hand.

The storm is moving in. I wonder when the rain will start to fall. We are nearing the time of Resurrection, when I move across boulders to be with you; when you hold the snow off to be with me. Let's call Uncle Weather and see what Father Time and Mother Nature have to say about my Ascension.

See you at the top.

marco? polo?

Mountains, trees, and rivers all stand gracefully in the light of time, silently taking-in the world around them, exerting only energy enough to survive. That's how it is with you; silently observing your world, sometimes from afar, sometimes closer than inside you. Quietly exchanging energies between us, I thrive on watching the Watcher watch the Watcher. It's classic Zen.

From the Rio Grande, those mountains look insurmountable, towering high above the valley below; snow-covered caps that you love to ski. I wonder how long they've been observing this life unfold? At what point did they suddenly rise from the depths of the Earth, taking out everything with them? Reminds me of you, rising up through my thick mantle to unearth the infinity within, otherwise obliterating everything else.

Can we stand the test of time, like a graceful, sinewy river forging a path across the horizon? Are we full enough to support the raft of Us? Only time will tell, shall we stand strong in the presence of the Great Father Time. Will you climb aboard my rickety raft and set afloat with me? Shall we embark on this adventure? I'm going and I don't want to leave you behind...

Marco? Polo.

us and you

With all of this Us, what in the world am I to make of You? My judgment is clouded by the sound of your voice. I am torn in two by the thought of losing you. "Not a chance," you say. The way to tug at my heartstrings, remember, is confirmation. Validation. From you.

Reciprocity. Magnanimity

Gravity

We're being held down by a supposed force called gravity. Gravity fails me lately. It pulls, yes, at the corners of my eyes, tugs at my breasts, grasps my ankles. But now I can fly. I can leap single bounds and be free of the chains that wrinkle the young.

Your magnetic poles have thrown off my compass; all directions are skewed. I'm flying in circles trying to find myself again after the dizzying affect of your being so close. When will you return? I am ready to land for a moment on your shoulder. I am ready to whisper in your ear all the things you've longed to hear in your sleep. I'll wake you up.

Come fly with me.

I'll show you how.

Don't be afraid.

Juan da Fuca

"There is no constant but change," the old adage goes. I'm a living montage; I feel progressive and efficient riding this wave.

Where does an evolution begin, where does it end? What evolves and how does it change? Something grows from nothing, it is nurtured and soon longed for. Transition is the fluid movement of progression. I'm evolving in you.

Searching for answers where once there were none, I am suddenly illuminated by your light. Caught in the act of growing slowly, I'm like a time-lapse in your love, gently unfolding into all my colorful glory. The growing pains are eased by your touch.

Or is it more cataclysmic than that, like entire plates shifting at once. The Juan da Fuca has nothing on us. When we move, the Earth moves; our magnitude is palpable. As opposing forces, we leave nothing but destruction. We must work together to save all of humanity.

Do we want to save everyone, or just ourselves?