Journey

There are times when I need space to reflect, a mountain to climb. A venture into the wilderness, where I can become, momentarily, a lone animal following his instinct, reliant solely on his own wiles. Once I am there, at the peak of solitary vision, all I can think about is going home. And so when I return to my safe harbor from the world, it is new, it is warm, it is imbued with the light of re-discovered love.

Dirty Hands, Clean Mind

You’ve formulated these full, glossy lit pictures of perfection in your mind. You’ve established how you believe the world should be. You’ve determined how you want those you love to be. And now you find yourself putting up walls between yourself and reality, constantly on retreat, the ebbing colors of your idealism flowing into the eroding moat outside your acceptance. You hold on tight to your imagined versions of who you love, as they slip away invisibly from between your bestowed masks and costumes like a greased pig. You clutch at ghosts, you cherish empty husks, you bed with demons. You dig yourself in deeper, unaware of how alone you have become, how lonely, how lost, how stranded.

Those who love you become your enemies. They talk about you behind your back, unable to confront you with a reality that you can’t accept. There is no possibility of change, no potential for a different outcome, until you’ve come to the end of your own rope. Until you are ready to reach out from behind the walls of your idealism and step back into the world that exists beyond your limited desires. Until you drop your selfish ego and accept your diminutive status within the world. Until you drop the burden that you have created and free yourself to become involved.

To become involved in the nurturing and growing of living things, you must get dirty. You have to struggle, get down onto the ground on your hands and knees, work at the earth, sweat into your clothes. There is no easy way to create beauty that will survive apart from you.

There is nothing wrong with being a perfectionist, with being an idealist, with wanting the world to change, with being angry and bitter with the way things are. But if this idealism is preventing you from becoming effectively involved in your own life, then it is just as dangerous as greed, just as dark as blood shed by warfare. In order to act, a thousand other potentialities must be destroyed. The question is: is this action the right action? Is this involvement the right involvement? These are the things that frighten you. These are the things that hold you back. While your plants are withering. While reality grows ever more desperate, more detached, more inclined towards despair. The real question is not right or wrong; the real questions are: how selflessly can you act? How fully involved can you be?

If you can give yourself completely, then there are no questions.

Dirty your hands in the challenge of your world. It is best, of course, to think and choose the best course of action. But how many times have the options only become apparent after you have already committed yourself? In the streamline of successive moments, the right way will become manifest. You must believe this. You must have faith in what is beyond yourself of which you are but a part. You can’t out-think the physical manifestations of the universe. You can’t formulate a perfect philosophy to encompass each and every moment. You can only open yourself to learning, like a child. In response to reality, you will know what is the right way to act.

Open yourself to the suffering transparency of the light. Break down your walls to the invading hordes of the world.

It is only your mind that misleads you.

Confidence To Intuition

How do we descend into the thick of it, the thickened, coagulated density of emotion necessary to destroy illusions like a bird descendant upon its prey? By what authority, by what necessary quality, trait, experience do we find the strength to proceed intact through the cutting throng of desire and anger? How can we sever through doubt and despair, conveying truth and beauty to their highest destination point of divinity, through vehicles so dumb, so shredded by toxic interference, as our bodies?

There would seem to be two fundamental points of answer: possession of the confidence (point 1) to proceed beyond the superficial and into intuition (point 2). There are many other outlying tenets, no doubt, such as focus, humility, devastating life experiences and/or the ability to attune oneself so finely to pain that it becomes akin to bliss. But if we allow the complexities of circumstance and personality to fall to the side for the moment, these two points become apparent. Point one, confidence, being the conveyor, the arrow through the surface worlds, penetrating within. Without confidence, belief, conviction, knowledge, there is no means of fulfillment, no facility to proceed progressively to inner sanctums beyond surface tangents of perversion. Point two, intuition, being the explosive fruit onto the scene, the fecund address of the potential needs of future and present. The voice that speaks beyond oneself within oneself that knows exactly what must be done to preserve the delicate balance of life and death, of space and form.

How difficult to possess these jewels in tact, in full, in every moment of everyday, to reach across the void of ourselves true to form eternity. Our world crumbles out of balance all around us, within and without, flying apart at the handle that we hold so blithely, so close to our hearts. Do we possess the strength to listen? Do we have the faith for empathy? Do we have the knowledge to learn?

Universal Skin Care

Females got them all kinds o’ products that they apply to their faces, their hair, their skin. It’s probably mostly a slew of completely nonessential crap, but at some point, a guy kinda notices that in general, women tend to take fairly good care of themselves, at least in terms of immediate appearance. There was a point in my development, years ago, when I suddenly rejected the idea that female skin is fundamentally different then my own. And I was tired of having clogged pores and dodgy skin. So what were the womenfolk doing that was different then simply washing their faces with soap and water? I decided to look into it, surreptitiously, and observe, in an anthropological sense, how women took care of their faces.

I learned about the concepts of cleansing followed by exfoliation, toning, and moisturizing. It’s not quite as alien to guys as it might seem, given that men have to take care of their faces somewhat in terms of learning how to shave. Applying aftershave is toning, and applying an aftershave balm is moisturizing.

So that was just a general introduction to the personal development I underwent in defeating sexist notions of taking care of my skin. I realized that there is nothing wrong with wanting to have clean, healthy skin. This is not a topic, however, that I would discuss at the bar drinking a whiskey with the guys. Hey guys, what kind of toner you use? What? You don’t know about toner? Shit, brother, well let me clue you in to some beauty secrets. . .” Taking care of our skin is just not really something that guys generally discuss amongst each other.

I have discovered, however, that when it comes to talking about the art and techniques involved in shaving, that suddenly all the beauty secrets begin to come spilling out of the closet. Guys love to talk about their shaving techniques. It’s really a touching thing to witness, actually, after all these years of self-repression and denial. I discovered an on-line community, Badger & Blade, which demonstrates this very well, when I was in the process of learning about ‘wet shaving’, since I was having major issues of razor burn with electric and cartridge razor shaving methods. I mean, guys are chattering away about their colognes, their aftershaves, how many times they swirl their whisks to achieve the perfect crests in their preferred shaving creams . . . It makes you realize that guys have just been holding all this shit back, just waiting for the proper forum with which to express their skin care discoveries.

That is also the forum where I learned about ‘the oil cleansing method.’ This is where you mix up castor oil with other oils such as coconut oil, sunflower seed oil, or olive oil and rub it into your face, then ’steam’ it out of your pores by opening them up with a hot washcloth draped over your face for a couple of minutes. It’s cheap, effective, natural, and simple. Given my penchant for self-sufficiency and non-toxicity, it felt like just the right thing to do. After having done it for a few weeks now, I can definitely recommend it. When I moved out to the East Coast, my skin wigged out, because I was used to dry climates, and now I’m in extreme humidity. I was breaking out like I was a teenager again. The oil cleansing method has re-balanced my skin. And it also leaves the skin feeling like its breathing, relaxed, and alive, not all taut and stretched out like harsh acne soaps do.

So there’s not even any reason to rely on your conventional array of expensive and probably toxic cleansers and moisturizers. All you need are the oils you want, which you can mix yourself, and then probably a toner on hand to finish it up. This can save you a lot of money down the road. And this method of skin care, best of all, is gender neutral. It’s just about the simple conception of oil as the most basic and essential of skin functions.

Organize Your Self

I grew up with my momma cleaning up most of my scattered detritus after me. I’ve never been a terribly messy person, but I certainly wasn’t clean either. I considered myself organized because I would make piles in terms of accessibility: the most recent thing that I had just used would be on top, so I would know where to find something I used frequently.

Since then I’ve learned how to maintain cleanliness and organization. Having girls as roommates for a couple of years has helped, as they would yell at me about being messy until I started cleaning up after myself. Then after working in the housekeeping department for a few years, I developed a higher level of personal standards of organization and cleanliness, because I had to tell other people how to clean, and not only how to clean well, but furthermore why they should want to clean well. I would generally approach this issue from a philosophical standpoint regarding the broader issue of why working hard and applying yourself fully to work–no matter the given task–is a definitive life-skill.

I’m going to take the argument for why working hard is an important capability for everyone to have and broaden that concept a little more to introduce the idea that how we think, act, and organize ourselves in our private lives is deeply and intimately related to how we develop and achieve our goals professionally. This might seem simple to you in concept, but in reality not many people really make that connection. So let me see what I can make of it.

Clean Up, Organize, and Maintain Your Life

Yeah, I know. This is sounding like a self-help, motivational thing all of a sudden. But sometimes hearing it from other people is refreshing, because I can tell ya, hearing it from myself is refreshing. Look, you need to clean up after yourself. And I’m not just talking about your dishes or your clothes. I’m talking about behind your couch, behind the toilet, underneath the sink, those boxes full of junk in the attic. Every inch of living space that you leave to fester unattended is representative of a space within yourself. If you have a tendency to hoard things and allow them to pile up until it overruns your living area, then guess what? Chances are quite good that you allow emotional baggage in your life, both professionally and personally, to build up until they affect and infect your everyday existence as well.

Obviously, there’s differing levels of maintenance required, dependent on high and low traffic areas. But it’s all ultimately part of a whole. You’ve got to get a handle on the whole thing in order to know that you are on top of it, and the only way you can do that is by starting now in tackling all the areas that you’ve been pushing away and allowing to sit unattended. Once you’ve done a “deep clean”, or “spring clean” or whatever you want to call it, then you can settle back into the daily routine of doing your dishes, picking up your clothes, vacuuming your carpet, etc, and simply doing semi-deeper cleans periodically. But every single space, outer and inner, top to bottom, must be accounted for if you want to get your life in order.

Don’t believe me? I don’t got no psychology degree, but I can tell you that cleaning (please only use non-toxic cleaners!) is indeed therapy. We reflect our living environments. There are some things that we can’t control, like the guy on the subway who curses us for no good reason, or the pinecone that fell on top of our head right as we walked underneath it. But in the areas of our lives that are under our control, it is imperative that we empower ourselves to organize and maintain those areas in order to allow ourselves to develop.

I’m not saying to be OCD about it. But I’m letting you know that allowing your baggage to build up and sit for years in a corner is equivalent to effectively blinding yourself to your own problems, even as they culminate to become a visible monster, visible to everyone except yourself.

This baggage, this junk, this dirt, mildew, mold, mice, and other assorted benefits of laxness will manifest itself in your life in terms of your relationships and work life as well. You will be the person who never moves upward in job responsibility, who never moves forward in a relationship. You will be the person who wants to ignore their own hand in their failure to achieve. You will be the person whose computer runs so slow that it’s basically an Apple IIe in boot time.

Present Yourself Well to Everyone

We like to think that when it comes to friends that we can let our guards down and just let it all hang out, without being judged or condemned. But in fact, it is often our friends that are our harshest critics–for the very reason that they have greater insight into our lives and how we live it. Unfortunately, our friends don’t often want to tell us straightforwardly their criticisms, and so we rarely get the feedback from the people that are best capable of giving us that feedback. Instead, we get that critical feedback from strangers or hostile acquaintances, and by then, we aren’t really positioned to listen to them.

It’s important that we present ourselves well to everyone, from strangers to family members. Everyone judges. It’s human nature. We aren’t saints–we use our brains and our eyeballs and we compare and contrast other people with ourselves. With friends and family members, we CAN let our guards down, and we know that we can always come back to open arms. But only to a certain point. You see, if you keep acting like an inconsiderate slob or snob around a loved one, at some point, they will get fed up with it. And no matter how much someone may like you for your wit and company, they will probably not recommend you to their employer when you are looking for a job if you walk around all day with the crack of your ass showing. You can’t take your friends and family for granted. In fact, you shouldn’t take anyone for granted. You should treat every single person in your day with the same respect. Because it all comes back to you.

And another point here is that appearance is related to integrity. That ties in with my overall theme, which is that your personal life ties in intimately with your professional life. The way you look, the way you talk, the way you think. How you lead your private life has repercussions on the way your interactions on the street and on the job go. Call it karma, call it do-unto-others-as-they-would-do-unto-you, call it what you like. Just recognize that everything you do is related to everyone else, and that people may not be able to see who you are in your fundamental being, being as it are that they are not saints, don’t really give a shit about you, and have enough to deal with in their own lives, BUT, even completely random strangers on the street get a vibe from you. People in your workplace get a feeling from the way you talk, the way you carry yourself. Your friends know you for certain qualities. Your family jokes about how you always did this and that as a tyke. Who you are and what you do are unimpeachably interrelated.

Take All Criticism Into Consideration

I kind of went into this point a little bit above when I talked about how even the closest of friends can be your harshest critics. But sometimes a complete stranger will criticize you. Sometimes it will be your boss at work. And you will want to say “fuck you” and disregard everything they said to you. And that’s completely understandable, and in certain situations, that is exactly what you should do. However, there are also many times when you should be listening. Criticism, especially when it occurs on the job, should be taken as constructive, even when it sounds harsh and demeaning. Some managers simply aren’t good people, aren’t good managers, and don’t know how to communicate well with different people. But they are trying to get something across. And sometimes your friends, family, and even complete strangers are as well.

Taking a criticism of yourself into consideration does not weaken you unless you feel that it is so valid that you can’t see any way of answering it. So you need to take it head on. Let yourself be challenged. Take every criticism as a lesson from a teacher, and see how you can use it to develop yourself and make yourself stronger.

It’s like on American Idol. Paula Abdul thinks she’s everyone’s friend. She’s not. Simon Cowell is the one to listen to. He is honest, to the point of being brutal. If you did a shitty job, he will tell you that you did a shitty job, while Paula blathers on about dreams and how wonderful you are. If the contestant listens to Paula, and shuts out Simon, then he/she is most likely just about to be voted off the show. Simon may be harsh, but he is attempting to provide constructive criticism that should be taken into consideration if the artist wants to develop and progress.

Sometimes people just don’t phrase it to you in the right ways so that it can slip in past your ego. So you need to just drop your ego sometimes and really listen to other people when they critique you. Let yourself be judged. Learning to wade through other people’s problems and picking out what is of use to you and what drags you down is how you grow. Often in the midst of the bricolage of someone elses’ jealousy, desire, rage, and anguish is a gem of constructive criticism that is waiting to be taken into your consideration and worked on.

Alright, so I think I am just about cleaned out on any further burning nuggets of wisdom that I feel the need to bestow on you right now. I’ll plop out any new ones as they come along. I’ve still got a lot of growing and learning to do myself, but I’ve been thinking about these particular things that I’ve learned as I’ve been coming up against extreme change in my life, both professionally, emotionally, spatially, and otherwise.

Resumé Writing

I’ve been spending a lot of time lately working on resumés lately, both my own and my girlfriend’s, and I’ve learned a little bit about resume writing since then. I’ve never liked looking for jobs, most notably due to the self-advertisement that is required in the process. I don’t like having to sell myself, and I’ve never really put much effort into writing my resume in the past, so it’s not surprising that I haven’t heard back from many employers now that I’m applying for more challenging jobs on the other side of the continent. So I’ve been doing my homework and putting in the effort to really beef it up and present myself well to a potential employer.

One thing I’ve learned is that you can—and should—be creative with the format of your resume. There is no reason to present yourself according to a template in your word processing software, nor according to what “experts” might say you should do. There’s a lot of good information out there, of course, but you’ve got to take it all with a grain of salt, because ultimately, a resume is about presenting you, not anyone else. Like a wedding or an essay, the format of a resume exists to convey specific information. Within that format, you can be as creative or as traditional as you like, just as long as that information is effectively and powerfully conveyed.

Another thing I’ve learned is that making bullet point lists of your job descriptions and functions is just as boring for a potential employer to read as it is for you to write. They don’t really care if you had to answer phones or input data into a computer: they want to hear something interesting that you accomplished or contributed. Even if you’ve just been a shoe salesman or a clerical monkey, you’ve contributed a lot more to the success of your company than you might think. You have to pull out your viewpoint to the bigger picture: think of the numbers that can help convey what you’ve done, such as the revenues that were pulled in while you were a sales rep, or the amount of applications of students that you processed, etc. You want to convey not just what you did but what you were a part of.

When I help people with revising their essays and personal statements, I always make sure that any piece is written to assume that the reader knows nothing about what is being discussed, even in specialized fields like law, business, and medicine. I believe in describing things lucidly enough so that a “layperson” can get the gist of what is being conveyed. The more obtuse and jargon-filled a piece is, the more likely that it’s a bunch of bullshit. I’ve found that the same principle applies to a resume: never assume that the reader of your resume will read between the lines for you. Clearly explicate your accomplishments and contributions so that anyone can understand them and be suitably impressed.

And this is not easy to do. It’s not really the kind of thing I enjoy applying myself towards. But I’ve realized that if I’d like to get a job that I’m really into, I’ve got to put a lot of work into it. I’ve realized that I knew that my resume was weak, I just didn’t know how to approach it; after all, it’s not something you learn to do in school (though you should). So I’ve been looking at examples and formats and getting a feel for what works and what doesn’t.

Another annoying and time consuming process is that you should target your resume for each specific job you are applying for. Each employer is looking for certain things, which they convey through keywords in their job posting. The “experts” on resume writing say that you should cut and paste these keywords into your resume, but I feel that can be a bit conspicuous and even desperate. I think it’s just as effective to take the meaning of those keywords and elucidate it in new ways through synonyms and arrangements according to your own particular and unique experiences.

It’s a lot harder to create a good resume than one would want to think. It takes a lot of time, brainstorming, concentrated effort, and endless revisioning. But you’ll KNOW when you’ve written a good one. If you don’t feel confident about your resume then there’s probably a reason for it. It’s like writing a poem or story that will hold up to the minute scrutiny of a highly critical academic audience—it’s got to be hewn out of stone, every surface holding just the right amount of light to convey a whole perfect piece of understanding.

My Grandfather’s Rifle Collection

I’ve been spending the last few weeks researching my grandfather’s rifle collection, and I figured that I might as well share the fruits of my labor here, for those interested in history/firearms/collecting things. My grandfather, whom I never knew except as a wee babe before he had a sudden heart attack due to all the fried chicken he ate, was into the whole Wild West thing (my older sisters recall his house—which is now my parents’—adorned with pictures of cattle and the like), and he loved to target shoot, and was a card-carrying member of the NRA. I even have his sharpshooting medals. He certainly knew his guns, and amassed himself a handsome little collection of rifles, extending from the late 1800’s to WWII. 2 of the guns are considered ‘antiques’ (pre-1899, which means that I could UPS them straight to your front door step without any legal issues (kind of scary)), and the rest are WWI-WWII era, which makes them ‘Curio & Relic‘ guns (C&R). He obtained 4 of them through the NRA (I know this because I have his original receipts), and the rest who knows—maybe from when he was a Coast Guard or something.

In any case, I’ve been doing a fair amount of research on them these past few weeks, which have included: 1) an on-line appraisal to get some idea of what I was looking at, as I didn’t even know the first thing about guns or their worth; 2) a trip to a local gun show to talk to dealers and corroborate their info with what I knew from the general appraisal; 3) going downtown to the central library to sift through a Flayderman’s guide on antique guns; 4) scanning through my grandfather’s book on rifles that I had at home, as well as another book on bolt-action rifles I picked up at my local library; and 5) extensive internet googling and wading through the on-line threads of other people’s queries, historical information pages, gun auctions, and other various catalogs, cross-references, and resources that could be plundered for free.

In the process—which has actually been somewhat thrilling in a nerdy sleuthing kind of way—I’ve learned a bit about the history of each gun, as well as learned that almost every little mark somewhere on the gun has some kind of significance which can lead you to more information. Now let’s begin:

1) Remington Rolling Block Military Argentine Contract Rifle

Details: 3 bands; full-stocked; .43 Spanish caliber; Patent dates May 30, 1864; May 7th June 14th Nov 12th Dec 24th, 1872; Dec 31st 1872; Sep 9th Jan 12th March ? 187?; U” on barrel; “R” on stock; no other discernible markings. Over 1 million made.

History of the Rolling Block Rifle: The Remington Rolling Block was one of the most successful single shot weapons yet developed. The “rolling block” refers to the system of a rolling breech block on a pivot backed up by the hammer for centerfire cartridges. According to Wikipedia, the first rifle based on this design was introduced at the Paris Exposition in 1867, and within a year it had become the standard military rifle of several nations. This rifle is also well known for being the rifle that drove the American Bison to extinction in the 1870s-80s.

According to Guns Magazine, July 2005, the rolling block was “universally popular in military circles” because of its “simplicity. The rolling block is a deceptively simple and ragged action with few moving parts and an operation that is self-evident. Any untutored conscript could be taught the manual-of-arms with a rolling block in quick time. One merely cocks the hammer, rolls back the breechblock, inserts a cartridge in the chamber, closes the breechblock and pulls the trigger. In function, the hammer not only strikes the firing pin but progressively cams under the breechblock, locking it firmly in place at the moment of discharge.”

2) U.S. Springfield Trapdoor Model 1873, 3rd model

Details: Serial #: 216xxx; 45-70 caliber; 2 barrel bands. Model 1879 rear sight. Tulip-head ramrod introduced in 1882. Year of manufacture 1883. “U” on barrel bands; VP(graphic of eagle head)P (barrel proof marking) and “R” on barrel; 1882 stamped on stock, with “SWP” in cursive; SWP refers to Master Mechanic Samuel W. Porter who inspected the rifle at Springfield in 1882. (For a picture of Sam W. Porter, scroll down on this page at the Springfield Armory Historic site; he’s the dude in front in the black suit). 73,000 total of all types made.

History of Springfield Model 1873: This is a famous “Indian War”-era rifle, the first breech-loader used in standard military service. It is nicknamed the “Trapdoor” due to the flip-up breech-loading feature, which was first utilized on the Model 1866 to convert the slew of percussion rifles (muzzle-loaders) left over from the Civil War. The Trapdoors were used frequently by the Army against the Native Americans, and vice versa (Sitting Bull and Geronimo were both captured with their Trapdoors in hand). The Trapdoor was also used in the Spanish-American War. Manufacture of all models was terminated in 1893.

3) Winchester Standard model 1906 slide action rifle, Blued-Frame version

Details: Serial #: 642xxx; .22 caliber; 12-grooved pump forearm; “B” on barrel, as well as “P” with circle around it. Manufactured in 1924; 13,562 were produced in that year alone.

History of the Winchester Model 1906: The 1906 (introduced in 1906, of course) was essentially a modification of the most popular pump action Winchester made, the Model 1890, which was mostly used in target shooting. The 1906 was made to be sold at a lower price and available to wider audiences. The 1906 was also very popular, and 731,862 were made until it was discontinued in 1934 to make way for the Model 62.

There were three versions of the 1906: the first model, the .22 short, only accepted short bullets; the second model, the Standard version, was able to shoot short, long, and long-rifle bullets; and the third model, the Expert version, had a better stock and metal. My grandfather’s is a blued-frame version of the Standard.

4) U.S. Springfield model 1903 bolt action rifle

Details: Serial #: 1404xxx; 30-06 caliber. Year of manufacture 1932. Star-gauged barrel. Stock is stamped as a rebuild by Rock Island Arsenal, RIA over FK, inspected by Frank Krack, 1920-1930. Barrel stamped SA (Springfield Armory), with cartouche, followed by 10-30 (October 1930).

I have my grandfather’s original receipt for this gun. Purchased on Jan 13th, 1949 from the San Antonio General Depot for $15.00 + 2.85 S/H.

Signs point to this being a National Match 1903, which greatly increases it’s value, as only 11,000 of these were made and are superior target shooting rifles. However, there were also an unknown number of guns re-manufactured with star-gauged barrels for NRA members. Because of the rebuild stamp from Rock Arsenal, it probably points to the latter.

History of the Springfield Model 1903: According to Philip B. Sharpe in The Rifle in America, this is “one of the finest rifles ever designed and constructed.” This model was officially adopted as a service rifle in 1903, until its replacement in 1936 by the M1 Garand. It was used in both WWI and WWII, and is still utilized even today by drill teams and color guards, due to its superb balance. The 1903 is seen as the successor to the popular “Krag” rifle–the Krag-Jorgensen–which was an invention of two Norwegians.

Each year between 1920-1940, Springfield Armory would make a small quantity of specially selected 1903 rifles for National Match target shooting. These were distinguished only by their “star-gauged” barrels (meaning that they underwent testing to ensure uniformity, and were stamped to display that they passed the test), and the fact that they were selected for superior bolt and receiver quality, with the receiver and bolts made of either double heat-treated carbon steel or nickel steel.

5): Eddystone 1917 bolt action Enfield rifle

Details: Serial #: 376xxx ; Year of manufacture 1918. Barrel: JA (Johnson Automatics) with graphic. Sporterized with Fajen stock.

I have the original receipt. My grandfather purchased this on Sep 11, 1947 from the Red River Ordnance Depot in Texarkana, Texas for $7.50 +1.85 S/H.

History of the Model 1917: The “Enfield” rifle was originally contracted for British use by manufacturers Remington, Winchester, and Eddystone when Britain entered the war in 1914. The Brits then canceled their contract in 1917, as they had enough production ability by then on their own turf. When the US entered the WWI in 1917, the government enlisted these three large manufacturers for help, as they were already equipped for rifle-making. They had to re-design the Model 1914 used for the British to accommodate the .30/06 Springfield cartridge, as well as standardize all the parts for interchangeability and assembly speed. This new design was the Model 1917.

Enfields were made available to members of the NRA in the late 40s through the Director of Civilian Marksmanship for less then ½ the cost of a brand-new gun. I guess my grandpa took advantage of that deal–he bought one for $7.50 in 1947!

6) Remington model 03-A3 bolt action rifle

Details: Serial #: 3881xxx; Year of manufacture 1942; 30-06 caliber. On the stock: “P” with circle around it; RA, FJA with square around it. Remington Arms (RA) followed by the ordnance escutcheon and the inspector’s stamp (“FJA”), presiding inspector Lt. Col. Frank J. Atwood. Most likely a government rebuild from various parts. On the underside of the stock: 14, 22, 69 all with circles around them, and 33 with triangle around it.

I have the original receipt. My grandfather purchased this on Jan. 27th, 1958 from the Anniston Ordnance Depot in Anniston, Alabama for $15.00 + 4.50 S/H.

History of the Remington 03-A3: During World War II, the US suddenly discovered that all of its war reserves of rifles was pretty much kaput, as the government had charitably donated most of their stock of 1917s and 1903s to Britain after the Battle of Dunkirk. As rifles were desperately needed, the Model 1903 was resurrected, as all of the tools necessary to make it were in storage at the Rock Island Arsenal. The machinery was shipped to the Remington Arms Co. in Ilion, and they began re-making the basic design of the Springfield 1903, except this time with a few modifications. They made three different versions: the A1 Modifed, the A3, and the A4 sniper rifle. The “A” refers to “Alternate.” The most notable modifications for the A3 was the new rear sight, as well as the fact that since 03-A3s were needed in vast quantities—and quickly–they were modified for mass production, and thus were slightly less superior than the original 1903.

7) Ranger .22 bolt action target rifle

Details: .22 Caliber LR. Has target sights and front sight hood. No other identifying information marked on it. Judging solely by its appearance, it seems like a Savage Model 19 Target Rifle, given that “later production [was] equipped with extension rear sight and hooded front sight” (Gun Trader’s Guide, 9th Edition). These were made from 1933-1946.

History of the Ranger .22: The Ranger was a Sears Roebuck brandname made by various manufacturers. I looked up all the Sears models that I could find, and none seemed to quite match up with the version I had. In any case, this is a quality target rifle, and I’m quite certain that it was gainfully employed by my grandfather.

Update: I since determined that this rifle is in fact a Savage NRA Model 1933.

8 ) U.S. M1 carbine Caliber 30

Details: Serial #: 1895xxx. Receiver marked Quality H.M.C. (Quality Hardware); Stock: “RMC”, referring to manufacturer Rock-ola, with cartouche; Barrel: “Rock-ola”, “P”.

I have the original receipt. My grandfather purchased this on Sep. 4, 1964 from the Tooele Army Depot in Utah for $17.50 + 2.50 S/H.

History of the M1 Carbine: The result of a series of experimental designs for a fully automatic gun by Winchester, which after testing along with other models by the US Ordnance Department in 1941 at the Aberdeen Proving Ground, was developed into a semi-automatic gun, which became the US Carbine Caliber .30. Winchester’s engineering department was on an extremely short deadline to design the new semi-automatic gun; 14 days for the first model, and 34 days to perfect that design. The day before the scheduled testing of new models, they had all the parts assembled and complete, but discovered that there was a malfunction with the piston receiving insufficient gas. Pressed with time and sleep-deprived, the engineers took a last-ditch approach—they drilled a larger hole in the gas port, and hoped for the best. This turned out to solve the problem, and the gun outperformed all others during testing.

Large quantities of this new feat of engineering were desired, far beyond the scope of any one gun manufacturer, and a number of other companies were enlisted in the effort: General Motors, IBM, Underwood-Elliot Fisher Co, National Postal Meter Co, Standard Products Co, Irwin-Pedersen Arms Co, Quality Hardware, and Rock-Ola all manufactured M1 Carbines during the war. Not all these manufacturers were associated with guns in any way—Rock-Ola, for example, was best known as a manufacturer of jukeboxes. Due to the large quantities needed, and the difficulties involved with machinery and engineering, not all manufacturers always made all the parts. Rock-Ola and Underwood-Elliot-Fisher mostly manufactured the barrels, which were then supplied to Quality Hardware, Standard Products, and National Postal Meter. My grandfather’s M1 is an example of this: the barrel and stock components are made by Rock-Ola, while the receiver and serial stamp are Quality Hardware’s. From a collector’s standpoint, the Rock-Ola-issued components add a premium, as Rock-Ola only manufactured 3.7% of the 6,221,220 M1s (228,500). They also are valued as collector’s items because of Rock-Ola’s fame as a jukebox maker.

Now for the foreign rifles:

9) Japanese Arisaka type 38 bolt action rifle

Details: Serial #: 82xxx; Caliber 6.5; Series 22; Manufactured by Kokura, 1933-1940. “Mum”is intact.

History of the Japanese Arisaka: The Arisaka is named after the Colonel who oversaw its manufacture in 1897. It is called a Type 38 in reference to the 38th year of Emperor Meiji’s reign. Most Western thought on the Arisakas during and after WWII was that they were inferior rifles and not well-constructed. This was a bias that was quickly debunked by field tests and direct battlefield experience by soldiers. Arisakas are some of the strongest and most well-designed bolt actions ever made.

When the Japanese soldiers surrendered their arms, they ground out the imperial seal on their Arisakas, which is known as the “rising sun” or “chrysanthemum” emblem, in order to preserve the honor of their emperor. Arms which have been captured on the battlefield retain this insignia—or “mum” to collectors—intact. When my grandfather’s Japanese gardener found out that he was trying to acquire these Japanese rifles, he walked away and never came back. Having the “mum” intact may be a boon to collectors—but to many Japanese, it was simply dishonorable.

10) Japanese Arisaka type 38 bolt action rifle, half stock

Details: Serial #: 1990xxx; “S” on barrel; No series marking; Half stock; Manufactured by Koishikawa (Tokyo), which switched from “B” to “S” barrel proof mark in the late 800,000 range. 1906 – 1935. “Mum” is intact.

11) Birmingham Small Arms Cadet Martini Rifle .310 Model 4

Details: Serial #: 290xx; Commonwealth of Australia; Stock: C.M.F., N.S.W. (New South Wales) 13621 8 / 11
Barrel: +310 12-120 *; Kangaroo on top of receiver. Manufactured by the British B.S.A for Australia, 1910 – 1921.

History of the Cadet Martini Rifle: This is a colonial-era gun (known as the “weapon of empire”), manufactured by Greener and Birmingham Small Arms Co, both of which are British; they made this gun for sale to the Commonwealth states. In 1910, the Commonwealth Government introduced a system of universal cadet training, and they were issued the Cadet rifle. This rifle was also popular for small game hunting and target shooting. 80,000 made.

12) Italian Terni manufactured Fucile Corto Carcano model M38 carbine in 7.35 caliber

Details: Stock: 046xx and Terni cartouche; “PB”; Barrel: R.E. Terni, graphic, 1939 XVII, 046xx, stamped over with “6A”

History of the Terni Carcano M38: The Carcano bolt action rifle was adopted by Italy in 1891 as their official military shoulder arm. The Carcanos were unusual in that they are the only military rifle in the world which employed the “gain twist”, in which the rifling starts wider and increases in pitch towards the muzzle. Italy had a problem of supply in terms of arms and ammunition, because they made so many different types and calibers of weapons that they never had enough for any one type of gun. Italian troops often carried assorted ammunition on them that sometimes didn’t even fit the weapons they were using. Reflecting this confusion is the plethora of markings to be found on the Carcano. The dating system used on the Carcanos manufactured during the fascist reign of Mussolini included not only the date, but also the “fascist year”—so on my grandfather’s Carcano, for example, it is stamped 1939 XVII, meaning the 17th year of Mussolini’s reign in the year 1939.

The Carcano is also infamous as being the gun which Lee Harvey Oswald used to assassinate JFK. He obtained his rifle through mail-order.

References

Here is a cursory list of the references I used in compiling the information on my grandfather’s gun collection. I stumbled across an infinite amount of web pages that I didn’t mark—this list serves more as a guide to anyone else who might be doing similar research.

Books:

The Rifle In America, 2nd Edition; Philip B. Sharpe, 1947—This was my grandfather’s—perhaps it was used in determining which guns he wished to acquire. The author is opinionated and All-American.

Bolt Action Rifles; Frank de Haas, 1971

Flayerdman’s Guide to Antique American Firearms, 7th Edition; A good reference for antique appraisal and values

Gun Trader’s Guide, 9th Edition; Paul Wahl, 1981; My dad got this at a Big 5 Sporting Goods store in the 80s when he half-heartedly did his own research into the collection; he gave up and stowed them up in the attic instead. I was surprised at how handy this guide turned out to be in the end, even though it was outdated.

Websites:

Gun Appraisals.com — I used this site initially to get a rough idea of what type of guns I was looking at and their approximate value. The guy doing my appraisal did a really good job given that all he had to go on was some pictures.

Homestead Firearms — This site was useful for specific model and serial information on the Springfield Trapoor and Winchester 1906.

1903A3 Rifle Site — Good site for research into all things 1903A3.

United Kingdom’s NRA Historic Arms site — I found initial info on the BSA Cadet Rifle on this site.

Digger History Info — Great history and background on the BSA Cadet Rifle.

Carcano Info — Excellent information on the Italian Carcano, especially under the Model Identification section.

Cross Reference of Store Brand and Manufacturer — I used this cross-reference in an attempt to identify what model of Ranger .22 I had. Highly useful if you’ve got some identifying markings to work with on your gun, which unfortunately, I did not.

Markings on Arisaka Rifles — Highly detailed and useful information on what the markings on Japanese Arisakas signify.

Pocket History of the M1 Carbine — Concise details on the making of the M1 Carbine, as well as useful statistics on the numbers from each manufacturer.

Military Surplus Rifle page — Quick reference guide with links and specifications for all military surplus rifles.

Springfield Armory Historic Page — Some nice pictures and condensed history of all Springfield weapons.

Gun Data.com — Good reference for historical firearms; some of its data actually conflicts with some of the other pages (such as Homestead Firearms), but it seemed more accurate given some of the other data I had acquired.

Knowingly Into the Unknown

Standing on the cusp of the breaking wave of my life, I look out into the wide horizon and see only unknown, only uncertainty, only the undefined. And this is as it should be. If I knew any more about who I will be, and what my future will hold, and what I am supposed to be doing in the next year, then I’m afraid that I would start to feel confined. I suppose it’s in my Sagittarius zodiac sign or something. As much as I am self-controlled on many personal aspects, I could never feel comfortable with all of my future already defined. I’ve always been naturally allergic to plans and formulas and expectations. I am firmly in the Fukuoka school of acknowledgment that I know nothing, and will never know much of anything, and that no one else knows nothing just about as well as I do. That’s about the best summation of my view of philosophy, science, religion, and humanity in a nutshell right there.

Who cares, though, what I think anyway? Why do I bother scribing random scribbles across this computer screen? I suppose I am always hoping for the flash of inspiration that only too rarely ever fully hits. I am waiting for that cathartic spill, that cathedral dirge, that cataclysmic splooge of beauty that every now and then filters somehow out through my fingers. Tonight, unfortunately, is not one of those times. But the practice and training of forcing myself to write is good nonetheless, even if I know that I alienate my fickle imaginary audience. But part of why I write (as opposed to why many other people write) is for the very reason of combating the thought (in my own mind, at the very least) of writing as needing to be perfect, grammatically sound, soul wrenchingly deep, suspensefully clever, and/or breathtakingly beautiful. I wish to combat this Hollywood-ified ideal of writing that the industry of New York Times bestseller lists and college writing workshops uphold. I want writing to be about me, and you, and what our actual mundane lives truly constitute. And then, of course, I want it to be all of that other aforementioned stuff as well, but that’s secondary to the mission.

Because our lives be messy, imperfect, trivial, glorious, and filled with worldbreaking news everymoment, everysecond. If only we learned to pay more attention to it. The live-brought-to-you-now of our eyes, of our fingers, of our feelings. And while we might like to think that we’ve got our selves kind of nailed down and our friends supportingly cast and defined, the fact is that we only know our future just about as well as weather stations with the latest up-to-date data and supercomputer technology know the long-term forecast: with some percentage of certainty only for the next few days, if even that. From then on out, it’s all subject to change.

Because every little thing is a part of every bigger thing. Because every door that is opened into a new perception is another pillar demolished upholding the former universe, and another jack sprung up into the sky of some new one. Every part interacting with every other part combining into an incredibly complex whole that is unknowable, uncertain, and uncontrollable. No matter what anyone may think the future may hold, the only thing that is verifiably certain is that we don’t know shit.

So to get back to me and my little trivial bullshit daily life: like I said, I’m just a-sitting here up on the crest of a crescendoing adulthood, looking out into the open unknown that is my future and only knowing this: I’m looking forward to a few months of 90% chances of dancing, aguardiente drinking, malaria prophylactic taking, and numerous blog post making. After that, god knows. And she can keep it to herself.

The Eye in the Middle of the Storm

In seconds of self-awareness, Janet felt bliss in the middle of all of the noise. It was as if all this anxiety, madness, fear was designed just so as to enhance and demarcate clarity in the moments when it came, crystalline, dew-dropped, silent before the storm. There was no denying that even in her weakest, most insecure of times, Janet still knew that she was beyond all of it, beyond the stifling imposition of other’s jealousy or indifference, beyond her own vanity and ever-shifting self-image; she was somewhere already still, sitting neatly next to the stream, taking it all in, letting it all wash away of its own accord. Like a sieve, like a net of the heart, a purity that dirt could run through untouched. All that would be left of herself in the end were these treasured moments of beauty, when the light focused through her and everything she was and everything that she touched was perfect, in tune with everything that is. Then the light faded and she became human again, petty, insignificant. But the diamonds were there, hidden, nestled into the back of her heart, and she waited inside of herself quietly for the moment when the treasures would become illuminated into the outer world again.

Janet knew that these moments could be sustained, lengthened, and increased in frequency. But she also knew that she could not produce them herself out of thin air. She had to learn patience, and learn how to open herself to the light when it came showering down into her face. It seemed that the more that she relaxed and allowed herself to be herself, the more frequently that she felt ecstasy.

All of the noise, the fear, the anger, the gossip, the taking for granted, the holding onto things, the materialism, the fake spiritualism, the pseudo-intellectualism, the superficial, the one-dimensional, the apathy . . . all of it added up to barriers between herself and her own heart. She was already free, if only she listened correctly. The knowledge was there, flagrant, demure, unappealing direct and simple and baby-soft and harder than steel.

Janet slipped out of her seat on the bus and stood swaying calmly in the stuffy heat of a Phoenix afternoon. The double doors pulled apart, hissing, and she dropped down the steps with gravity like water, centered, moving with music and light. A man stared wonderingly after her, his hand looped in a supportive strap, craning to look through the graffiti strewn window. She had something that he could not see.

Currents of Thought

I sit and wait for the words to come, listening to the wind tear down through the mountains in the middle of the night. Attempting to get to the rooted source of beginnings, I know that this wind comes from somewhere much farther away than the Pacific Ocean. That in fact, we could never track down that first movement of air, the first current of water, the first shifting of pressure that brings the wind into our moments. Everything in life, whether it is the weather in the sky or the emotions within us, is a part of a process and flow and intertwinement so deep and complex and refined that we could never wholly define it and lay it out on the table completely visible. We have to step outside of ourselves simply to know this concept to be true, beyond theoretical formulations. We have to disassociate ourselves from ourselves in order to know how we are something much bigger, much deeper, much more expansive than what we know from our daily actions, our fleeting thoughts, our stormship emotions. We have to go far away in order to know where home is.

To truly include all of anything that any one person or thing is, you would have to include all the world.

In the surface day to day transactions that we know as our concrete existence, things appear so discrete, boundaries so insurmountable, shadows and reflections so determined. But the farther inward or outward you go from there, the more indistinguishable become the lines. At what point is there me, and at what point is there you? From outer space, we are the earth, a webbed set of links, determined by cycles and currents. On the level of molecules, we are porous chains, determined only by what can be embraced.

At all levels, whether surface, inner, or cosmic interactions, everything is interconnected. To speak of individuals as isolated from each other is to speak of a world that does not exist. It is more accurate, perhaps, simply to say that many people are disconnected from themselves without awareness of it. To be aware of your separation is to be aware of your greater connectivity. We formulate words to string them into creations that stir the pot of what we know, that push our perceptions yet further into self-knowledge. We will never know everything, we will never know ourselves completely, so hence the struggle, the foment of unsayable things, the despair and the beauty, the tragic events and the transcendent moments. The current moves, and a storm occurs, and a child cries in the night.

Dreaming of Dreaming

What dream do you choose? The dream of success, of money, of multiple abodes across the globe? The dream of idealism, of righteousness, of home always within your heart? The dream of bitterness and self-vengeance, drinking and wasting away all hope? The dream of union with your beloved, the dream of searching always for fleeting pleasures, the dream of yourself as beautiful, the dream of yourself as nada?

All dreams are dreamed by the dreamer plugged into a subterannean extraterrestrial world of subconscious desires. The pulls and tugs of what could only be understood as destiny and happenstance, one and the same. Everything moving according to the inner weight of necessary becoming. All players in a play determined by respective positioning in the spatial field of time, the temporal plane of existance. Even the rocks and trees stand dreaming, so rooted in essential is-ness that their dream is inseparable from reality. Mankind branches out far into the dark unknown, leaping across collective synapses, gene pooled neurons formed of generations of conscious suffering. So far into the emptiness that their dreams can become seemingly severed from what is. Conscious tears in the fabric of self, riven of the struggle to know itself. It Self as ultimately everything that is and could be. The stars and the stuff of legends, the matter of fear, the synthesis and culmination of evolution.

Leading us musicmakers to here, this point of knowing and not knowing, this movement into future. Into death of what we thought we have known and birth of what we will know, can know, because we have known it all before. Because spring comes after winter, and there is no philosophy that could deny that life is recurring, continuously—so life is recycled after death into life anew. The dream was a dream conceived to move yourself into yourself. The Dreamer at the end of the worlds dreams of itself in the trizillions of forms. The play of moonlight upon the water. The play of emotion across your face. The play of prayers playing at pray.

Ever More

This moment is you. Standing hopeless on the brink of your desires, your washed up dreams. All the fantasies that you cultivated in solitary stimulation. The world moves on, distant, primal, alien. You listen to your mind striving to form some narration that would fit you in, lock you into a perfection and beauty undeniable, eternal, broadcast across time and space to shine into understanding and love and sex and money. But you know, of course, that your spirit is undefinable. Incapturable. That the only things that come out of you that are beautiful are not your own. That this darkness, this doubt, this everyday struggle simply to look in the mirror and walk out the door into the unseeing crowd is the keystone to this very moment.

When you stand face to face with your death, you understand then that such moments are everything. That all the times of wasteful heedlessness—spent suckered into some suit’s notion of what you are supposed to want, given your date of birth, sexual orientation, and geographical location—were exactly that, a waste. That most of your life has been wasted. That even despite all of this waste, all it takes is one moment of truth, purity, and honesty to clear it all away. The tally is tipped every time by one simple look into despair. You could never be good enough. The world could never be enough. And yet, it moves, it breathes, it feels, it floods. Death and movement are one and the same. Periods are a pause in the formation of thought, like the pulling back of the sea before it moves to crash itself into the shore. Again and again. There is no stop. No end. No final dark night that has no meaning.

What do we call this thing within us that fears and hides and spits at the world? It has been called ego, it has been called self, it has been called humanity. It is our suppressed divinity showing forth as demonic manifestation. Let it shine. Let it out. You know everything that there is to know about yourself. You were born crying, helpless, misunderstood in your inability to articulate. You learned to buffer yourself by silence, conformity, and following the drawn lines of tradition. You found moments of freedom when you rediscovered connection, empathy, intuition. These are the tools that take us into the future.

Draconian regressive clutchings at domination and anger, addiction and blame, have defined our history. These egos. This humanity. These childlike gods, terrible in their bitterness. We all must grow up eventually, one way or another. To face our extinction or our transmutation. Both which appears the same to the uncritical eye.

The alchemist leaves behind his learning, leaves behind his doubt, leaves behind his fear. To make magic. To believe in what has been taught to us as impossible. To find in one moment the key that would unlock all of sleeping eternity. To move beyond himself, his attachment, and his desire.

Because beyond death there is a greater power. It has nothing to do with the transformation of lead into gold, or of water into wine. Nor the movement of mountains, or of the stars, or of your heart. What stupidity! It is the power and binding strength of communion. The severing of self to find union in your Beloved. The letting go of what holds you back and pins you down to find that you can fly, that you have been flying all along, that the world flies and holds you and cradles you and pushes you beyond yourself at every turn to look down into what seems inevitable and certain impossiblity. Can you handle it? Can you handle what you were given? Can you handle what you were made to become?

It is not one or the other. It is not you or them. It is not life or death. It is love, or it is Love. It is death, or it is Death. Nothing less. Ever more.

Behind and Beneath and Behold

Here’s an exercise in possibility. Take a look at the picture of the sky between the branches and needles of a pine tree. Look at how the lit sky in the space between the nebulous branches of the trees resembles constellations, milkyways, galaxies sprawled across the cosmic distance. Then think of this: scientists know that there is something dark and invisible (dark matter) that constitutes the unseen mass of the universe, exerting force and direction.

We can see the lights of the stars. Everything else appears as empty vacuum, empty space. But we know, indirectly, that this space is not empty.

Perhaps this space that we cannot see is in fact the majority of what is. What is seen is in fact the slim space in between. See what I mean? That what we know and can directly envision is in fact only the tip of the iceberg. That the trees, the formations that connect and form and breathe the universe, is constituted by what we do not understand, and can only sense indirectly by the undertow and impulses that guide our existence.

That in fact this visible world that we have investigated so thoroughly is in fact only a petty and slight extension of what is, of what truly forms our lives. And that to get into connection with this unseen mass of the cosmos is to get to know the truth. That most everything else is somewhat of a distraction. Fool’s gold. Glimmers and glints of surface residuals from the dark cavernous depths that lie voluminously beneath and behind everything.

Sea

It isn’t there, if you have to look for it, see. It’s already envisioned, already happening. It’s moving. You’re on it. You’re in it. You are it, every step of the way, every hurt, awakening, joy. The godhead, this beautiful presence. That’s what you’re looking at. Don’t look for it. It’s there. It’s here. It is, it be, it now. This has all been said before, but it has never, ever been seen quite the same way, through quite the same eyes, in quite the same form. Quietly, the world revolves into wholly new arrangements of recycled material. Spiraling coils that stretch into any space given. A beauty that is everpresent, evergreen, all inside everything that exists, as long as you can see it. Look at yourself. You really believe that you are anything else? Anything but you? Who you been listening to?

Because it sure as hell can’t be said. This is just kind of a reminder, you know what I’m saying? This is a memo between me and you so that we remember. Remember that nothing in the world is as important as what is manifestly occurring right now within us. Here. Beholden only to our own sacred knowledge of what we feel. No one can tell us that, not even ourselves. We’ve just got to be listening real close to the world which is ourselves in different times speaking in different voices through different movements that we are one, that we are many, that we are all in this shit together and that it really don’t matter what anyone holds onto—because everything has already been made into a picture that moves and defines and clutches at hungry bittersweet beauty when we all know, all we know, we already know quite well that we are this, peace, whole, center focus of all understanding and polyrhythm and harmonious atonal interconnectivity that thrusts and crawls and flies into love, into love. Into what we can only call love, belatedly and in sad departure because we are full, as the apple is full when it falls to the earth, in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of everything, falling out of fullness and inevitability into the future. Because it must be. Because it is. Because this wind has blown in this current out of the circulation of this sea from this sun in this exploding set of dust and stars and energy.

We Were Made to Connect

We were made to connect with one another, as a species, as an evolutionary cumulative formulation. We were made to mesh, to fuck, to fly across spaces, boundaries, and time into each other’s minds, mouths, and futures. Our eyes and skin are secondary to the ultimate sense that is only to be found within, which entails inevitably a subsequent reaching out. Because what is found there in that lonely place inside is not solely some infinite dark emptiness—what is found is everything living that has come before and is to come and simply is.

We were made to be strong with each other, to interlink into divinity through the tessellation of our bodies and souls. Alone, we find each other. Through each other, we find ourselves.

For the more scientifically inclined, this can be explained quite simply through the sharing of germs. When you love someone, you share their germs, their daily experiences—everything that contacts and interpenetrates them goes into you, to become part of you, such that essentially you two are one—but more than one: a new hybrid identity created from the intimacy of molecules that had individually completely different characteristics. This sharing, this interconnectivity—if properly aligned with the stars and signs and genetic happenstances—makes the both of you stronger. Where one is weak the other is strong. Bodily fluids and mental spelunkings are shared continuously, the diversity of bacteria and permutative emotions are biodiversified into a deeper beauty, an expanded harmony with external shifts and ebbs and floods.

The social studies or psychology major may understand this phenomena in terms of the survival rates of groups of persons subjected to dire situations wherein they are stranded, where their survival is dependent not only upon ingenuity and weather conditions, but also upon their ability to cope with stress, anxiety, and depression. Thus, groups which share strong interconnections and dependencies have higher survival rates. Those who separate and isolate themselves, thinking they will better survive only place themselves at greater risk.

We must be weak together in order to be strong. We must cling to the raft of ever shifting emotions, pain, misunderstandings, miscommunications, and fickle humanity.

In terms of evolution, if our ultimate purpose was to only be alone, isolated, and detached from one another, then why do we instinctively, biologically, mentally, and spiritually desire to bear or foster children? Children renew the cycle; they bring us back down the evolutionary ladder to day one, where we are developing our sense of selves, our sense of cosmos, where we cry and wail beyond language, where the universe centers around us, where we suck nutrients from our bearer’s breasts. Children bring fully developed adults back to reality, back to tomorrow, back to the everexpanding horizons of humanity, the need for not only movement forward but for movement to preserve, a rocking back and forth like the soothing motions the parent makes for a fussy baby. Nurturing, developing, recognizing the importance of all that has come before and what is to come.

Because no one man or woman is the pinnacle of anything but a moment of a spiral that must rise only to fall again as fodder for the next development in time and space. No one moment or thought or action can ever define anything except that current universal vision. The vision must be renewed, from up to down, from back to forth, from human to microbe, from man to child, from tree to fruit—continuously, like the shoreline etched by centuries of waves, a picture will be formed, is being formed, will be erased. We collectively are growing to greater heights, but these heights can only be measured by how inclusive they are of what is unseen, rooted, and fundamentally basic.

Humanity spills into ourselves, into each other, filling the spaces between what is known and what is felt and what is taken for granted. Beyond breakage, beyond war, hatred, and greed, we form a picture of one another that reflects our children, which reflects ourselves, which inflects and extrudes and proclaims our divinity and light and beauty. Only through each other, through ourselves, through the messy beautiful struggles through sex and through touch and through understanding, will we know this source.

To Be Here

The Zen Buddhists are oft quoted curtly stating, “Here. Now.” Attempting always to snap attention to where it is most needed, the present moment. Because the world is sinuously, continuously shifting. Because enlightment is not some perfect pinnacle to be reached and planted a flag into. Because the only way to be effective, relevant, and alive is to be consistently adaptive, morphic, rooting, exchanging. Boundaries must be extended until they are simply memories, snapshots of shedded patterns of the past. Trails as an imprinted arrow to the impromptu point of now, where we stand attempting to surf the unknown stimuli that floods every moment into our hungry receptors.

So many of us are terrified of what is to come, this dark mass of potentialities. We cringe to look at our breathing selves, at the very raw animal divine life that we are, existing, extruding so many things that we don’t even know where to begin to prune. But what is to come is just as frankly irrelevant as what has already occurred. What of course always takes precedence over anything, every time, is the everpresent here and now. To be omnipresent does not mean to exist outside of time. It means to exist so firmly embedded in this very present, now, now, NOW, that in tunnelling through this eternal presence you come to exist everywhere all at once, through the simultaneous intuitive deep superconscious connectives that link you through to all life that exists in the same moment in other forms, to see through their eyes as your eyes, to know the universe through yourself through the universe.

Such moments are hard to come by. Such concentration is required simply to relax. Such study and discipline and luck and love are required to allow and to accept and to embrace each fleeting moment to its fullest.

The first step is just to acknowledge the utter critical importance of awareness of your present existence. To meditate is not to sit. To enact yoga is not to exercise. These are matters of life or death. This is the purpose for which you are here. To be here.

The Mind Is The Greatest Of Weapons

What are feelings if they can’t be formed into thoughts? What are thoughts if they can’t be put into words? What are words if they can’t be turned into actions? What are actions if they are not dependent on what you feel?

Consciousness permeates all things. Intentions are broadcast before a movement is even made. How much more direct it is to simply be aware.

You could practice all your life learning how to disarm an attacker with a gun or a knife. Yet a true master of any martial art never has to fight. The mind is the greatest of weapons.

Studying as a Path to Action

It’s raining cats and dogs here, instead of snowing as it should. Rain is falling through a hole in the roof directly into my bedroom wall, bulging out the paint, and trickling down from a nail-hole behind my picture of two loritos.

I’ve been enacting a program of self-study, in which I am attempting to glean information on permacultural precepts and high-altitude gardening in order to draw up a proposal so that I can apply these ideas on the land where I work. It is somewhat like fitting pieces of a puzzle together. I now feel like there is never enough time at the end of the day, or on the weekends, and I find myself wishing that I was like the robot in Shortcircuit, able to flip through a book in seconds and retain all the information in my memory banks. Alas, of course, I remember little, so I’ve been using index cards instead.

I have to say that I am grateful for living in this age of information. The internet is such an incredible reference tool. Alls you gotta do is type in some search strings and a whole shit-ton of information is out there on any conceivable topic. It’s like people are just bursting at the seams to spew out their little insights and tidbits of wisdom. Look at how people are falling over themselves to post free and intricately detailed reviews and overviews on sites such as Wikipedia and Amazon. I guess we have to thank our corporate nation god for all of that wonderful idle time that office jobs give intelligent people. Without laziness and boredom (which is what drives you to read this very page in first place), there probably wouldn’t be much of interest on the internet at all.

It’s funny because I was a lazy ass motherf-cker in college (I can’t believe that was 6 years ago), and I prided myself on never studying and still passing all my classes without getting a slum village grade point average. That’s the advantage of being an English major and having reading and writing come easy to you. I wasted my time. I was bored. I was lazy. I hated the establishment. I despised academia. I couldn’t understand how anyone could devote a whole night in the library to studying, let alone their entire lives to some generalized, inapplicable ideas. I still don’t, to be honest. But I have found that when I am truly interested in something and I really want to learn it, whether it be Spanish, wines, housekeeping, or Permaculture, then I will gladly spend hours, days, and even months immersed in texts and on-line searches, my body in strange shapes of contortion to catch lamplight onto a page. Because this is knowledge that I know that I can and will apply in the real world. True knowledge is, indeed, an empowerment.

But of course, ultimately there is no superior teacher to actual live wire trial by fire, the hands-on training, the experimentation and eventual mastery obtained only through feeling, intuition, observation, and repetition. You could read all day about how to perform an Aikido reversal on someone coming at you with a punch, but until you actually put your hands on someone and attempt it, over and over again, you won’t be able to do it in a fight. I have found, however, that just having read someone else’s account of how to do it, and the tricks they have learned, gives me the confidence to quickly master my own approach to a technique. It allows me visualize the process, to learn what to expect, and most importantly, minimize my own mistakes by finding out what a master has already had to go through to get there.

No End

Like a tree embedded in the soil, nurtured by the sky, there is no true separation between you and I. All appearance is a veil, like the atmosphere over earth, protecting us from incinerating instantly. You could say that everyone and everything in this universe is really one and the same, existing solely in different space-time, morphic units scattered in morphic fields all stemming from one heart. This is the root of understanding, the empathic placement of yourself into another’s life, seeing the world through an other’s eyes. Like a sonnet structure, like a symphony, all life is on the surface but an empty form. But it is what moves through these forms that gives us meaning.

Does any of this make sense to you? What I am saying is that you–you, exactly as you are–are capable of understanding everything in this universe. Look inward to your heart. Look outward to your friends, family, and community. Feel all the world with your senses. All as one interlocked embrace, all eyes looking inward to the one, all one looking outward to the all.

Knowing the House

Playing house is an enriching task, I’ve discovered recently, having moved out of my bachelor cabin at work and into a new apartment in town. We discuss placement of furniture, items to be acquired, what kind of meals to be cooked. Eventually, what was once chaotic uncertainty begins to coalesce into a space where no more thought is required. The glass of wine goes here. The alpaca jacket hangs here. The blinds are pulled up in the morning, both locks are locked on the door at night. As settled life commingles with the onset of winter, I find myself struggling to retain the wildness within, without sacrifice of comfort or happiness. When someone else is reliant upon me for emotional support and constant stability, it is more difficult to find vent for things that I don’t even know yet I need to express, because I had previously used the space of solitude to give it form.
I have long been on the road to getting to know myself, and had thought to have made some headway. But this knowledge was based on myself alone–and now, finding myself with someone else, consistently, I am temporarily lost. The context has shifted. It’s like waking up in the morning and you have no idea for 2 seconds of where you are and how you came to be there. It has quickly become evident to me that it is much easier to know yourself when you are lonely. It is much harder to explore yourself when the boundaries between you and another person have become so blurred as to be at times indistinguishable.
It is a matter, as with most things, of letting go of preconceptions while looking at the true reality with full awareness. What I have been doing is struggling to maintain my self-identity as what I knew before–while in fact who I am is now a larger self, encompassing more, a mesh of two persons, like the definition of embrace. To embrace is to accept into oneself someone who is beyond oneself, such that in that moment of conjunction, the two become unified while still maintaining their own prior integrity. To put that less technically would be to say that who I am now is no longer what I had come to know, because my orbit has fallen in step with another’s. The gravity has changed. The light has changed. I keep looking for myself where I once was, but that person leaps away. The person I see now is looking me right in the face but I haven’t learned yet how to say it. I am now longer simply I. I am now me-with-her. I am now her-with-me. I am the same man-boy I was before, but I am also someone different. My role has changed, my function has changed. I was once only a lonely young one searching for his place in the wider world. I still am that. But added to that I am also man loving woman, steadily, every day, building brick by brick a house of dreams that floats on the visible world like a palace, accessibly to all only by connection to the heart stream, the flow of magic that is love, that is everything and everyone but that comes to be encapsulated quite simply between only 2 people.
So here now I build my house, searching wildly for myself out the windows while my own breath fogs up the glass. I then turn around to find myself being embraced by someone else. The vision clears. When living itself–simply living, breathing, eating, enjoying the fact of being alive–gains precedence, the search for myself loses meaning. Which is to say that coming to know myself is coming to know simply the moment in which I exist, which is never anything but now. Now, and now, and now. Which is life, which is death, which is tied all together in one ultimate, universal embrace by love. I’m getting too vague, so I’ll stop now.

Ancient Connections

I went on my first real hike of the year (finally) today, and watched as a forest fire sprung up on the other side of the ridge. I ate thimbleberries and right now I am drinking pennyroyal tea from leaves that I collected. I’m an idiot for not hiking more often. I hiked at least once a week last summer, but a number of things such as the World Cup and mosquitoes have prevented me from going thus far this year.
Anyway, I was thinking about some things as I hiked, and one of the threads regarded our civilization’s conceptions of “primitive” or ancient humans. We regard them inherently as simpleminded and lacking in sophistication. Even when there is ample evidence as to the contrary. We seem to have a hard time accepting that people who lived thousands of years ago could possibly have understood things on a deep level. And so when we come across irrefutable examples of their ingenuity, creativity, and intelligence, we inevitably attribute them to space aliens, or simply relegate them to yet another of the past’s “mysteries.”

Localized ancient wisdom, such as the understanding of herbs, plants, roots and how to make healing medicines from them, is swiftly passing away in the face of globalization and homogenization. But even as it is passing, something makes me think that this wisdom isn’t something that will just be lost forever. The only thing which can be lost is our ability to listen.

Shamans almost universally make the claim that their knowledge of plants comes directly from the plants themselves. I think that this is a claim that should be taken more seriously. Take the example of the Amazonian concoction of ayahuasca. It’s an amazing phenomenon to modern botanists and chemists, because the mixture of different plants which constitutes the hallucinogenic beverage is extremely advanced–on the surface, requiring a knowledge of chemical botanical interaction with the human brain that only modern science could provide. Yet ancient shamans have been crafting the brew for centuries, without science and without “proofs”. To say that they discovered the concoction through trial and error is akin to saying that we invented computer chips by banging rocks together. So unless you subscribe to the cop-out space alien theory, you have to accept the conclusion that there is a different system of acquiring knowledge than what we commonly accept. This system of acquiring knowledge does not rely on logical explanations and research. It relies, I would argue, on creative empathy and sensitive and attuned intuition–the ability to make associations between seemingly non-related and disparate things.

I think that we have a lot to learn from the earth and life itself, and that we have forgotten what it is to listen. We are so full of ourselves and our accomplishments as a species that we assume that we innately possess more wisdom than, say, a chipmunk or a tree. Yet the fact is that the earth breathes. Life is vast and delicately interconnected like the system of nerves and veins in your body. If a shaman says that he learned how to make ayahuasca from the plants themselves, than I would be inclined to accept his statement. I don’t think that plants talk. But I do think that if someone is in touch with themselves, than through the use of their creative empathic abilities, they can hear the call of things related to themselves, and the fact is that we are deeply interconnected with plants.

Humans are an extension of the earth. If you subscribe to the idea of evolution, which is supported quite firmly by scientific evidence, than you should know this. Which is to say that deeply embedded within our own minds lies the roots which connect us to all the world. The connection which we have temporarily forgotton, due to all the blinding surface lights of our modern conveniences, is to ourselves.

To Seek What Can’t Be Defined

A prevalent view of many spiritual seekers, it would seem, is that one who is truly enamoured with God must shed all worldly things–the monastic and ascetic tradition is one of self-flagellation and abstinence from physical pleasure and the love of another human being. I understand self-discipline and denial of desires and pleasures is indeed an instructive and, indeed, necessary practice in life. But to withold oneself completely from such things seems to me fanaticism that leads not to God but to masochism, which is simply another base pleasure, which was supposed to have been avoided in the first place. To accept and return the love of another human being is not a denial of God. It is a reaffirmation and mirror of divine love. To partake in worldly pleasures can surely be a distraction–but if the intention of the one who acts is pure, than the actions too are pure.

I am reminded here of the Zen tale of a master and his student who are crossing a river. The master sees a woman who is struggling to get across, and he takes her onto his back and carries her, even though a monk was not supposed to touch women, and sets her down on the other bank. The two monks continue on their way. After a while, troubled, the student finally says to his master as a rebuke, “You carried a woman!” The master chuckles and responds, “I set her down a long time ago. Yet you are the one who has been carrying her all this time!” Or something to that effect, that was my memory of the story. The meaning being that sins of the body are only sins when they are a distraction on the path to God. And they only become distractions when your intentions, the things you hold within your mind, are wrong.

The Sufi mystics of Islam discuss the purpose behind the act of prayer, where to stand, and then kneel, and then prostrate oneself completely is not simply a physical act–that in fact the physical act itself is but a hollow form–it is in the intention and focus of the person praying that the actions take on meaning. The form is but a vehicle for the inner purpose.

You can take that concept further, and see that even all religions and belief systems of the world are simply hollow forms. That all of the manifestations of this world are hollow forms, termed maya by Hindus. To be distracted by the forms, like the shadows on the wall in Plato’s cave, is to miss the whole point, the inner flame that gives all the outer forms life. People get so caught up in the game, in the nationalities and jihads and this side against that side, when really all it is is one flame, burning through all. All of the pain and suffering, simply to get to know yourself, which is everyone else. How many paths are there to the Path?

I’ve never understood how Christians, for example, can get so caught up in a name. They point to a passage in the Bible, and say that it is only through Jesus, and Jesus alone, that one can be saved. Yet what is the name Jesus to a God who is beyond name, beyond human understanding, beyond our feeble, petty, selfish definitions? What, really, is a name to any of us except as a means to understanding what is beyond names? God could be called anything and it wouldn’t mean anything because God cannot be named. The very attempt to name God is to create a separation from God, a duality that does not exist. Your very existence, as a separate entity, is a lie. All outer forms are meaningless without remembrance of the inner reality that gives them shape. These very words, attempting even to distance these ideas enough to make them words and ideas, are lies. The reality is beyond everything.

Enlightened Mint

Like maybe you think that you’ve got it figured out, what you think about this or that. But then you listen to someone else, who’s got a differing perspective, and you’re like, yeah, I could feel that. And you realize you ain’t got your world set in stone. Nothing is the way it has to be in your current understanding. It could be a complete negative of your picture. It shifts dependent on your attitude. Bright or dim, hot or cold. Who knows how you’re going to feel tomorrow. But hopefully, with a bit of maté and the beneficence of friends and the divine, you’re gonna be flowing with the good.

In any case, the world changes at every moment. I was thinking today of how skeptical I would be of anyone who would claim to have achieved enlightenment. Enlightenment would seem to entail a steady-state high, a point of being in tune with everything that is. But what is is ever shifting. So I would be partial to believing that enlightenment is really a myth. I believe enlightenment can be achieved–but only for a moment. And then everything changes, including yourself. Beware, in other words, of those who claim to have some permanent hold on spiritual insight. Because whatever insight you might happen to have may prove to be just as powerful in the next paradigm.

All I know for myself is that good things come when I allow them to come. I can’t make them come. I have to wait, patiently, and prepare the place for them to arrive. And then they come when they are ready to come, in their own good time.

Learning

As I get older, I am growing to learn myself. As I grow to know myself, I become more and more aware of the life around me as well as inside of me, and I become more and more aware of the need to pay more attention to this life, and care for it. The wildflowers, the trees, the scurrying rodents, everything. I want to learn their functions, their relationships, I want to know the names given to them by our inaccurate methods of labeling.

A belated discovery for me in life is that I love to learn. I didn’t feel that way when I was in college–which just goes to show that I shouldn’t have wasted my time with it until I knew what I really wanted to invest my time and effort in. Now I’m gaining a better idea of what I’m interested in–I want to learn how to garden, how to build water systems, how to fix my car, how to cook well with whatever I’ve got on hand, how to make a splint out of sticks. There’s tons of shit I want to learn, and I’ve barely gotten started on it. I kind of wish that I had realized this 10 years ago and started cracking back then–but I suppose it’s better late than never–and those last 10 years I’ve been learning things too–learning how to get to the point where I could see more clearly my goals and how to attain them. I think, in some way, I’ve always known what I’ve wanted. It was simply a matter of gaining the insight apart from all the other things people wanted for me.

Open Your Heart to Yourself

To your open your heart, steadily, day by day–this is the toughest thing in a relationship. For some reason, we have this societal notion that men function not by exploring their emotions and coming to terms with what they feel, but by holding everything back, giving little, taking more. Yet it is the strongest of men whom are able to relax their defenses completely and give themselves to faith in love, faith in life, faith in themselves. It is the toughest of men whom are able to see their enemy within themselves, whom are able to see the god within everything, able to see all things within themselves. Men who must take out their problems on their loved ones and the world because they are keeping love pent up inside are weaklings. A true human being knows how to recognize joy–and will work ceaselessly to preserve it.

Heat

Within you, like the center of the earth,like the center of anything, lies heat, a burning core of energy, solidified distantly by your outward form. It is funny that beauty is categorized often by what is dead. Because really what is beautiful is the manner by which movement is made, the flow of states, the unseen that is hinted at in between. All things move into one another, sharing the same core, that essential heat which is life–and yet they burn separately, forgetting themselves, thinking that when they sit alone and are lonely that there are none who may see them, who may know them and the things which may pass through their hearts. It passes through all of us, and in our struggle to know ourselves sometimes we destroy ourselves or each other, we pick apart the walls only to see that in another lays the same heat that is the burning of life to see itself, to know at last that life and death are one. To know that beauty is ours. To know that there is nothing that we can do to escape ourselves.

I am learning

What can you write that has never been written before? What can you do that has not already been done?

Thinking in such terms leads to urges to conquer continents, to climb peaks, to scavenge oceans.

When all along, everything that is completely unique and completely new and completely beautiful resides within your heart.

All I can really write is what I feel and what I know. I am learning.

Sagarmatha

Time to tear myself back down to a hollow reed, strip myself of all the fluff. There is nothing to be held except the breath when it sounds upon a note. Everything else can go to hell. One gets tied to all sorts of rules and legislation in relations with other people. But these walls we build around ourselves are meant to be broken. Can’t even take ourselves too seriously. What is in a name? What is in a face? What is in a heart?

On the peak of the highest mountain in the world, face to face with his aspirations, Ivan felt nothing but weariness. Now there was a long trek back down ahead of him. And what was there left in the world down there? Here in this place where no man rightfully belonged, with barely enough oxygen to formulate a complete thought, Ivan could see himself. Here, away from all the world, literally above it, the secret things hidden in his heart that drove him to drag himself here became evident. And they were all stupid. Stupid stupid stupid. Blind persistence and dedication to a purposeless task. Climbing a mountain just to prove something to himself. Well, he did it. He was there, standing on the peak. And what exactly had he proved? The whole thing seemed ridiculous. All the money, all the gear, all the training, all the sayings of goodbyes to friends who looked at him with the gentle pity of that bestowed on the harmlessly insane, all of the holding himself away from the women who would have loved him. He had left all of his life behind in order to do this, in order to get to this place where he now stood, and none of it seemed worth it. Was this why he had to come here? So that he could finally understand what he had been throwing away? Such waste.

Ivan turned and began the slow descent back into the atmosphere, back into the land of the living. He had wanted to just sit down and stay there forever on top, but he had not come there to die. He came there to see what it is to live.

Draft from October 3rd

When the lights are so faded that there is nothing beyond karma to sustain you, because when you know that who you are cannot be seen by anyone in your immediate vicinity, only by some stranger stargazer millions of years away; when that’s what it takes for someone to see your beauty, apparently, then you know that you’d better be able to believe in something beyond yourself. You better be able to focus on your future, knowing that your trail is what is seen, not your intentions. Politics is a matter of opinion. But what matters is what is lived. There is no question in regard to your life. You are either living in now or you are living in fear. And what can be respected in hesitation? Nature has no regard for your considerations. There is balance or there are accidents.

There is so much beauty around me. Sometimes I forget to watch the sun lapping on the sierra wind stirred lake waves. And I will be sitting in my cabin and drinking Jack Daniels before I remember to remember. That I am blessed. That all life is blessed. That every step forward in time is a celebration, and should be commemorated as such. No matter what may be left behind. For what is left behind is dust.

Waiting for Winter

Sippin on some green fire, thinking about the desperation inherent in much of human interaction. The desperation of seeking to avoid being alone. The desperation of seeking to be accepted. Desperate and passionate and hopeless.
Being alone with oneself is almost taboo in this day and age, without a TV, or at the very least, a radio. Being alone and plummeting to the source of your consciousness without attempting to distract it continuously.
I guess I’m getting older. I’m beginning to enjoy this feeling of loneliness. Because just past the loneliness there is knowledge, and beyond that there is the blessing.
I wait for people to come to me, and if they don’t, well, then I’ve got other things to do. Writing is one of them. Drumming another. Reading. Listening to some dope music. Studying some Spanish. Or just suppin on some good old green fire and speculatin on the bigger picture.
In other words, I think sometimes I can recognize that the world lies within me, waiting to be birthed. Just waiting to be fed and nurtured, just waiting for me to drop my ego and fear and live consciously. Just waiting to give itself to the world outside as soon as I can let it go.

Inner Outward

There is a place within our souls untainted by the touch of external things. Find this place and expose it to the light of the moon, sun, stars or any source of flame you can see. It is here that gravity unknown exerts its dark force upon all the universe. It is here that you find that you have been alive and awake for as long as you remember, and as long as you remember goes far past your birthday. You extend far into the future, here. Here there is wisdom never to be unearthed by any archeologist but it is writ in the annals of shamans and schizos and MCs. It is everywhere. It is nowhere but in the deepest heart of every person. All of these things, all of these things flow past like the wind on your surface, and you are balled up at the bottom, holding your breath, watching the dream of shadows moving somewhere almost beyond comprehension. Let them go. You know what you know, and no one can tell it to you. Everything in your life exists to awaken you to yourself. Listen to the silence in the deep, surrounding you, encompassing you. Release your breath. You flail, you struggle, but there is only one thing that can reach you here. It is nothing that can hold you, but it embodies you.

Believe me, I know of this loneliness. And I believe that it is something that can be shared.

someday somewhere the sun

Not alone, never alone, consciousness penetrates everywhere. Even in despair you can sense the eyes of the world there. Yes, you stand on the edge by yourself, but you are a particle captured in the flash, a wave brushing out against the sky, a piece of something beyond so deeply interwoven throughout your own senses that most of the time you don’t even understand your own feelings. What is this force that waits behind your eyes, that crouches within your body, unseen and unacknowledged by most of the transient surface world? Everyone knows without knowing, waiting for the swell to break, for the image to be framed, the silent eyes sucking all of the world into one stomach that is forever hungry, and when an individual stands up against the crowd they see what they want and it is never enough. But every sacrifice is a piece of a heart thrown into the flame. Higher and higher the awareness of light is spread. To know itself, life must tear itself into pieces. We look into each other’s eyes and know ourselves somewhere already lost and we move and we move and we need each other desperately and we are alone and we are hungry and we are standing and we are shadows and we are mountains and valleys and we are all together in this together, we are all horribly, terribly, beautifully tied to each other like a puzzle without a purpose and when my heart is empty of everything
then maybe I will be ready to meet you.

You Should Be Riding The Waves

Who would you be with no friends, no lovers, no daily positive feedback? What is it within you that sustains your mind through fasting?

Leaves are a manifestation of the sun. With or without the tree, the light would continue to fall.

The source of all beauty lies beyond visibility. The water drawn through roots cannot be touched for its flame. All of these objects are roadsigns on the path. Look ahead, sister, and remember where you are going. You are going far beyond understanding.

If you took your heart and coated it in amber, you could put it under glass and study it and calculate the amount of love it holds. But what would be the point? You already know without thinking that this extends back to forever from nothing. Your essence is meaningless without the constant flow of blood bearing the outside world within. There is no in with no out. Embedded in each and every moment, your union with God is closer than you are to yourself. Stop trying to catch a fish with questions.

Who cares about lines drawn in the sand? You should be riding the waves.

Nodal Progression

I went for a walk today to loosen the limbs and listen to the sound of wind blowing down off the mountains through the trees. Already fall is felt in the air. Another cycle wends its way in time, completing another imaginary circle in the void, the tonic key touched down upon in a new field of harmonics, a new light. I similarly felt new and old as my sandaled feet melded themselves to the rocks. 26, and yet I can still travel the same neural pathways in my brain that I remember traveling when I was 11. I thought of how in some ways I have grown, how in others I have dropped off. The tendrils of my mind adapted to catch the trickle of light, the roots of memory following the flow of water. What am I really anyway but a vessel of energy, reflecting its passage onward through all other things?

One area in which I can see growth in myself is that my fear of other people has diminished greatly since childhood. Humanity is certainly a force to respect as in accordance to all living things, but there is nothing greater to fear in us than life itself, I’ve come to realize. Because I used to fear myself and what power lurked within me. But that power is nothing beyond each breath. To harness any kind of real power, any kind of real force beyond the threat of violence and persecution, means being completely aware of one’s breath, one’s life-force saturating itself deep within from without. And to harness that kind of power takes a lifetime of humble servitude. And when it is gained, it is not contained, it is spread.

On this path to gaining life and awareness, I am still at day one, I am a newborn, struggling with my breath and the pain and the shock of miscommunications. What matter is it of my age or the season when I can’t see beyond the point of my own nose?

On the Continuum of Creation

Think of your spirit

as a fish in the sea.

When caught

and eaten,

it will taste of every moment

of it’s life left behind.

Seen in this light,

one recognizes

there is no good,

no bad,

only balance.

Every living entity is judged according to its capability to represent itself completely. A rock is undeniably a rock, because it’s history is made apparent to anyone who cares to study it’s markings. The things that show, of course, are the places where one has been broken. Broken and broken and broken again, the essence of temporal infinity is evidenced. Who are you, and do you really think that what you think reflects the world upon you?

Look into the face of one who is drunk, and you will see them completely, all of the emptiness and connectedness transposed on the same surface, an endless well of nothing and sprouted root of everything.

The spirit does not get drunk of poison. It is intoxicated by what is poured into the world at every breath, by each demanding pore of skin, each eye and stomach of every thing which serves as a cup formed to savor each moment. The spiralling ooze of time over constantly shifting surfaces. There is a direction to the wind as it blows. Bound by nothing.

Complacency is the Enemy of All that Lives

I am seated in my room, a candle lit on the table, the scent of nag champa settled into the furniture, my books stacked about like replicas of ancient rubble. I have been reading all afternoon, all evening, my concentration enwrapped within imaginary vistas of a soul’s spiraling journey. There is a quiet in the room, edged with loneliness. A good book brings back the moment of despair rooted in my life’s greatest depths. It is out of insecurity that I create. It is out of fear that I clutch carefully to the rock as I climb. It is out of hunger that I throw myself into the wind to live.

The mind is a delicate reed, easily obstructed, easily obscured, rarely honed to the purity of perception it was evolved to produce. This occasional glimmer of deeper darkness within, this seemingly unanswerable pain, seems to be the only way to sustain development. Such as in the way a muscle is strengthened–torn apart so that it will restructure itself in a manner more adaptable to the stress which tore it apart in the first place.

It reminds me of my teenage years, the length and scope of depression that I felt then–surely this was part of “growing pains,” the rush of body and mind reeling with the birth of awareness of individuality? After college, I have never again felt what I can rightly term “depressed.” But I have reminders of emptiness, lapses of loneliness. And I now almost welcome the feeling, that gift of knowledge of myself. Even as I feel like a child, raw and helpless against the void, unsure if the shadows of futurity looming are ghosts or demons or angels, or nothing but my desires and fears projected into emptiness. Because this loneliness, this despair, this acknowledgment that there is no one I can rely on but myself to pull me out–this strengthens me to continue.

I observe myself and others flailing in the waters and clutching to things and people to stay breathing. But in the emptiness right now in this moment of thought, I know that anything I grasp onto I will only take down with me, and it will take me down farther. I must be calm, I must allow myself to slip under the dark waters gracefully, even as the shock of cold numbs the heart, and give myself to the indifferent forces beyond me, even savor it as it becomes me, even rejoice as it spits me back out into the light trembling with suffering.

Complacency is the enemy of all that lives.

Involvement

Sometimes the world, the wide sea of circumstances wraps you up in its tentacled coils and suddenly you are acting and watching yourself act and having no idea wherefore or why. There are forces within yourself beyond your immediate knowing. Your life is indeed a mystery. Every new situation posits a crumb trail of clues to your heart, but the central motive must remain hidden, like dark matter, exerting an inescapable pull towards your omega point–by the time you have awoken, you’ve already stepped out over the edge.

I looked up at the stars tonight and knew their light within me. My life is incredibly beautiful, and it is a song I must sing. I don’t know what note will come out of me next, but I can feel it birthing itself in the barricades of my innermost being, and it feels good, it feels fucking good. And I enjoy this stillness that listens.

who are you?

introversion–the folding within yourself, the witholding of immediate definitive information of your feelings from the world. in the daily, moment-by-moment, play-by-play, press conference of your life, sometimes it is wiser to wait for events to fully unfold before offering up your honest analysis of the situation. it is nice, of course, to vent your feelings in the form of gossip, to feel reassured that your current assessment and course of action are supported by your friends and peers. but you are role-playing then, are you not? you are staking out a position, strategizing, acting the part of victim, or of hero, or whatever you may deem most favorable to your career as a human being. but who are you, really? did you stop and ask yourself that before you spoke in judgment?

yes, politics is a tricky game–even when you claim to not be playing it, you are playing it. we like to think that we are untouched by the ivory halls of justice and boardroom policy making–just as perhaps silver-haired men in suits surrounded by secret servicemen may like to think that they are untouched by us, the underground individuals–but those are thoughts bound by convention. for our every movement, thought, and manifestation of ourselves is political. politics is about more than power, despite what Chomsky may say–there are more to the dynamics of law and order and commerce than simple mafioso maneuvering and slick, shifty-eyed lies. there is also the fact of human interaction, in the marketplace of the everyday, in the information of the flesh passed subconsciously on the subway, in the gaze of the enlightened upon the statue in the park, in the brush of words sputtered out of my inversions–there is no escaping our connection to each other through ourselves. so look–look at yourself, take a good look at yourself and reflect on your ephemeral beauty. what is the use? what is the value? who is this that determines your worth? the eye of the beloved is in your mind. the light of the sun is in your spine. the music of the ages issues forth from your mouth. bow to yourself, and everything else. and let the movement of the world go on around you in its endless chorus of need. because there is nothing that you can take, and there is nothing that you can give. so when the reporters come up to ask you, Who are you?

You can answer them with a smile, and point back at them, and wait, patiently, til the end of the world, for their reply.

Road Trip Chronicle Installment I

in the accumulation of mileage there is, for a while, a sense of loss of self; distinct formations of place and circumstance become washed under by a flash flood of constantly shifting information; there are squatting hulks of red desert rock; then there are trees, pines, aspen, fire-charred, green, yellow, barren; there are haphazard stones piled on stone like giant rock piles against the rain pregnant sky; there are giant windowed edifices of neon built up out of the promise of money; then there is just road, curving endlessly to some point known to some strange people simply as home. where is your place in this? you stop to gather pictures to study and make sense of this wonder later, or perhaps simply to share with others, to point at what you have seen and give it name, as if it were something you have known. but there is really only one wordless moment of perception, where the thing in passing becomes defined in your mind, before you could ever capture it, or claim it, or settle into its city limits–and this moment exists only in juxtaposition and knife-edge balance with the cosmic extremes of non-existance and eternity. how could you hold onto a stream of water? i stood at the ramparts of the Hoover Dam and looked down at the massive construction of concrete to which so many underpaid workers had given their lives–and i did not feel overwhelmed by the ingenuity and brute power of money and technology. no, for water can perhaps be dammed, and re-directed, and bottled. but it is in the end the water which controls us.
so it is that the journey defines us. we craft our narratives and drive our vehicles out through the vast stretches of mountain and desert, passing like flies through the stationary lives of small towns, through the electrified grids of cities, through the barren rock strewn remnants of sea-beds, through the winding snow dusted mountain passes, through the on-going daily struggles of life and death and movement.
who i am is a constantly shedding piece of everything. i am a window, sometimes reflecting the sun of the world outside of myself, and sometimes, in the night, you can look inside and see the sun in my lampshade, where i am studying myself here to learn my way into now.

thought movement

crystalline mountain dew breath of the morn, i sucked into the outer deep and knew that this time was not the last. it would be forever. it had to be, simple as that and infinitely extended, mirrored corridor never-ending.
this moment, the shine, the gleam of it. i was here to do things. i would eat my meal with satisfaction, because i had made it. that kind of thing. abstraction itself could be called a blessing, if it wasn’t so undependable. it starts towards something and then disappears. i wonder.
i think i get my tenses mixed up frequently. but to tell the truth i’ve never really understood the delineations based upon time. past. future. present. as far as i can tell, there is just is. and then there isn’t. some people who are not “present” are still is. some events that have yet to occur effect now. kind of like this so-called boundary between life and death. as if there were some invisible barrier to be crossed into the impenetrable mystery. yet they are inseparable. death. life. i can’t really tell the difference. i don’t understand why these states have to be given names. happy. sad. is just is. i am forever. i am nothing.
in the amorphous journey into itself. so much lies in the mind. the drugs. the guns. the sexual deviancy. all of this is an extension of the mind.
scientific excursions, logical outgrowths. forgetting something? the mind. a wonderful, dangerous thing. sharp, almost aware of itself, buzzing.
thought is a weapon of destruction. creation is of no mind. thoughtless, active, fecund. the true mind is without consciousness. thoughtlessly rhythmic, like the heart. the thinking mind impedes, it puts stops, it backspaces, it deletes. movement is without thought. nothing. forever.