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?

​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.

Has your Something
been serving you better
than Nothing?

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.

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.

We have traded Understanding
for knowledge.

     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.

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.

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.

​Think of money as energy--
as food: nutrients.

Who are you feeding?

What are you seeing strengthened
​and grown?

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.
​

     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.

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.

Only those who do not know Life
​trouble over how and when they might die.

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?

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.