 Everything and Nothing depend on each other. Hope and Despair play off of each other. How does one free themselves from a trap, when the will to free one's self is a necessary element of the trap itself? 
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 Let it take me, those towns I move through, and those I claim to know. Let our Institutions fall— crumble down through the failed foundations of our own self-possession.   Souls Of No Nation Feel the fire’s flame cutting through our nights, its burning heat glowing in our eyes. Feel the teeth grinding, lungs heaving, knuckles cracking, slides racking… Fear’s vibrations colliding—dividing— and choosing sides. Stop. Turn away, relax your breath, and adjust your eyes… Can’t you see the face hidden in the shadow cast by its fired night? Can’t you see its narrowed eyes, the tight smile emanating from a twisted soul; the mind that’s taken Center while we burn at its poles; the eyes that know our fractured factions keep us weak, in conflict, unorganized and opposed? The identities we’ve been served keep us forever in chains, ensuring the blood we spill is spilt in vain… that change is only a slogan an old institution with a new name. We are not black nor white, we are not left nor right, we are neither American nor un-American: we stand as souls of no nation. We are people, we are lives— lives that have been distracted, disenfranchised, and confused. We are people whose attention and energies have been compromised. We are lives who have been divided by the rhetoric of a power that wishes to harvest our spirit, our vitality, to serve its interests. Join your fires, join your minds. See yourself in all who you are not… for you live within them, and they within you. We fight for freedom, not a flag; for Being, not for land. When this truth is felt, united we will stand. Not as numbers in a system— nor factions divided by city blocks— but as Beings, as lives, whose chance at a new future has been restored.  Join list.  You are already you. There is nothing you need to prove nor account for— nothing needs to be done to see yourself further realized.   Our actions are forever betraying our convictions, exposing the smooth contours where we've molded our hard truths to the form of our soft comforts.   The fog’s captives were held motionless and entranced— frozen in a bearingless nothing. There had existed within them only a moment of anticipation as the grey encased them— vacillations between the loss of one world and acceptance of another. As its vaporous cold snaked through their clothes and into their bones, it whispered a silent boast of how quickly they could be made to forget all they thought they knew to be certain.   It’s not that they don’t speak— it’s that we won’t listen. We hear only with our ears now—tuned for only our own tones. Their language is subtle and comprehensive; a language of truths without motive, born of a life we’ve turned away from.   What other species, upon being brought into existence, is expected to account for what they are going to "be" and/or "become?"   It struck me that taking life and giving life represent two perspectives of a single act.   How grossly misguided it is to interfere with the motivations of Nature.  Spring is coming, Nature is waking. Along with the Earth's new growth comes the yearly reminder of how far we've divorced ourselves from the Natural World. The common lawn serves as the quintessential illustration of our misguidedness. What is required to create a lawn? Did we not first have to remove the species that called our plots home? Did we not roll out turf or spread uniformed seeds: developed, grown, harvested, manufactured, marketed, packaged, distributed, shipped...? Do we not indefinitely expend resources—both our own and the Earth's—to keep them fed and watered? Do we not buy machines, gasoline, piping, and chemical agents to maintain the aesthetic appeal of these manifestations of Ego? What is the lawn but a rejection of Nature? Of course, the lawn itself is not The Problem—it serves only as a somewhat alarming exemplification of our behaviors and value-structures. We must go on to ask ourselves: If the lawn has become normalized—even praised and Valued—what else has taken root in our minds? What else have we normalized and accepted? What other beliefs and behaviors have we embodied? Who and what are we gifting our resources to, and what are we seeing perpetuated by doing so? Our mind's valleys have long ago been tilled and planted—alien seeds have taken root. We were recruited to the wrong side of a losing war... Disassemble your lawn mowers and sell them for scrap. Dig a hole in your lawn and plant in it a native grass. Reclaim your Self as Nature reclaims its land.   The suffering we inflict upon our own species is inexcusable. The suffering we inflict upon species other than our own is unforgivable.  Join email list.  We have traded Understanding for knowledge.  Join email list.  I was watching Worlds moving past and through my own. They returned my intrigue with wariness, if anything at all. Why do they view me with only misgiving and indifference? The glass's glare answered the question before it could be posed, signaling back to me the separation it represents. It was I who had declared myself as Other—watching, as a spectator, the Worlds of the Living.  Join email list.  Judgement is our prison: the bars, lock, and key. As we build its walls higher, our perspective grows smaller Until our confines of Measure become all we can see.  Join email list. In response to: Buffalo Field Campaign — Update from the Field: More than 18% of the Last Wild Herds are Gone  I saw an image of men killing Bison. They killed the Bison for eating the Grass, Grass they’ve taken for grazing their cattle-- sold to an Industry that steals from its growers, bought from an Industry that’s killing the Land. I saw an image of men earning their living, in a way we’ve been taught to admire. I saw an image portraying a lifestyle, the truth of which is rarely discussed. The frame did not capture the Deserts spreading, nor the Oceans dying. It did not echo the Trees falling, nor the Rivers’ silence. It could not show the Earth warming, nor Tomorrow slipping away. I saw an image of men killing Bison. They did not see their own reflections deaden with the Bisons' eyes.  Join email list.  Think of money as energy-- as food: nutrients. Who are you feeding? What are you seeing strengthened and grown?  Join email list.   Rebirth: Part I Standing on a dimming stage in the echoing stillness of our Plot-- fixed in the Silence of an audience deprived of intimacy: The Death of a world that never knew Life. Rebirth: Part II The Death of one world is the Birth of another. Listen to the Mountains speak and they'll tell you stories of the Ocean.  Join email list.   Go walking in a pine forest with open eyes, open ears, and an open mind. Observe the impact of the beetle kill that our forest’s interested-parties cried so loudly over. Look at how many homes the dead provide shelter and sustenance for. Look at the new saplings shooting up towards the Sun. Look at the nutrients breaking down from the fallen logs and returning to the soil. Look at how the survivors have spread their growing limbs into the opened air. Nature made no mistake. Death is no misfortune. Nature, now more than ever, is needing to do Her work. There is no tragedy in letting those not vital enough to survive die. Their cycles—our cycles—should be celebrated, not interfered with and mourned for.  Join email list.  Surplus is burden. Expectation is limitation. Hope is anxiety. Fear is confinement. A heavy pack is a liability. It does not help to carry more than you need.  Join email list.  Only those who do not know Life trouble over how and when they might die.  Join email list.  Our world is not crumbling. Those are mere numbers, those are just games. Listen to the roots warming, they're humming in the ground. Watch the crows snapping limbs: structure for uncertain wings. Can you smell Spring's fertility in the changing air?  Join email list.  Attachment. So many of us are hopelessly attached to our lives, our Things, and beliefs. Consequently, we are fearful and susceptible...easily unnerved—rigid, stagnant, unmoving. The gap in feeling and experience between attached and unattached individuals is often too vast to bridge. One is the log, wedged in the rocks, bowing under the force of the water’s pressure. The other is the leaf that swirls through its vortex before continuing on with the current’s flow.  Join email list. |
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