The Natural Guide

Springtime comes around and usually we just go with the inner directive to clean out stuff, reassess the place we currently inhabit - both literally and figuratively, and then plot new courses and forge forward with a renewed spirit and sense of clarity. 

Funny that we have the tradition of setting resolutions at the turn of the new year instead of at the changing of the seasons; seems our inner clock is set to do it a quarter of the way in, no?

What appears to be key though, is to quiet the conditioned mind and allow the space to let your beauty emerge, to give permission to your drives and inclinations to carve out the individual spot that brings you closer to the daring truth of new.  

Here's to plunging into the colourful blooming of you, no matter how dry the conditions. 

"It's hard enough figuring out who you are - why mess that up by trying to be someone else?  Who you are is both unique and new, and i may be just what the world needs right now.  Remember that the next time you do something that doesn't feel right to you."

~ Willie Nelson~ 

*Images of a bonsai Ebony Tree in bloom, despite current dry conditions.  



 

Torn in the Shadow...

...but still a Rose

   Love reigns in p

                   a

                  r

                   t

                  i

                   c

                  l

                   e

                  s

               of 

                       promises

      Stars sparkling 

                in hearts of 

                     forever-intentions

    Til and then, 

           morning light t

                         e

                          a

                         r

                           s 

                              our focus

                 exposing ground zero

                  just moments 

before hitting 

the

        blind spot

   of

        loss.

And yet...

              We bloom...

---

---

________________________

NOW

The shadow swallows the light 

and eats the shape 

of everything real.

I ride on the mouth of this dream, 

holding fast to the fantasy 

of memory 

and permanence,

While steering every action

towards erasing any evidence of it.

---

---

Marathon for Stillness

It's been nearly a year of constant searchlight movement; I can't believe how rapidly the sand seems to be moving under my magic carpet.  I barely remember what this journey was for, or what I set out to find, but I can say I've spent a lot of time looking back...reaching, sometimes lunging towards the past for reminders, and for the answers I need so I can move back to the future.  Been discovering things I never actually lost...deliciously affirming things...like the art of love.

 "Sometimes, a journey of a lifetime -though one gathers great gifts along the way- ends up at home having healed the disdain for its limits and origins. 

...there is nothing like the love of family and familiars.  They are a welcome thing to have when you have journeyed far enough away from the thought that you have anything to prove."

~Mark Pergola~

Curious thing about family - the blood thing is automatic; it's strong.  There's no reassembling or restructuring the auto-love of your own herd - no matter how far or long you run for, or how much fault you find...in the end, the madness is comforting in it's inexplicable perfection. 

My favourite family portrait:

 Mum, Me, and Dad in our bar after a Christmas party, all skunky-drunky.  :)

Sibblings (dad married twice before my mum)  - the only photo with all of us in the same country...EVER...it was for Daddy's funeral. :(

Extended Paternal Family Gathering for the same...erm...event...

GERMAN/AFRICAN Maternal Family Reunion in Czech Republic and Germany 2009 - ...JOURNEY entries for this coming...uh...one day.  Ha.

RELATED JOURNEY POSTS:  

            The Ongoing Attempt (Sept 2007)

            In A Final Analysis, the Story Can Now Begin (Oct 2009)

Ku-ing the Con of Love

"Con"

An unselfish act

Can only be born of love

Mystery solved.

~Mystic Urchin~ 

Questions: 

Does unselfish love really exist?  And if so, what conditions allow it to thrive?  Does it remain unselfish or does it eventually become possessive, fragile, and fearful?

I asked my friend what he meant by this Ku - just to be clear.  I wasn't sure what photo to post with it to be frank.  But then after this conversation - I could only come up with parental love:

ME: 

Having trouble with this one. Why did you call it "con".  Trying to think of the photo for this one and I'm stuck...expand a little for me - or gimme a figurative picture...

Love

URCHIN:
'Con' because it was something I spent a lot of time thinking 
about...is there really such a thing as an unselfish act?
Then I realised we only do unselfish things for ppl we truly love.
Charity is bullshit most of the time - we do it mostly to make 
ourselves feel better.

ME:
Ah yes - the old philosophical and psychological question in ethics 
and morality:  Does true altruism exist?  Nietzsche had a few 
interesting things to say on that one.  Ever got into him?

Yes I agree with you, but in more detached intellectual moments I have ventured to say that even what we do for 'love', is an effort to have that love returned; so the act therefore is not truly selfless since it still relies on some kind of return.

Tsk.

Anyhoo - thank you baby - i think i know where to dig now.

URCHIN:
No - the love I'm talkin about isn't romantic love - I mean love like what me+u have or that I have for Syd.... I have done things for frens + my child that they don't even know I've done...and not for love to be returned.
That's true love :)

ME:
I didn't misunderstand you - I wasn't thinking of Eros at all.  But usually the love you speak of, Agape, is thought among psychologists and philosophers to be quite rare, some believe it's impossible and only attributable to the gods and messiahs man has created.  But then that debate gets hot when the parent/child love is brought to the picture which quite arguably is the only relationship that comes close to real Agape (selfless) love - and usually from the parent more than the child.  But there are some logically sound and difficult-to-swallow debates there also.

It's all fodder really - as I do believe in self-less love for all kinds of relationships. I believe I love selflessly too and deeply - which is why I'm scared shitless of having a child!   But I do hear the posit that as long as the 'ID' is present, we humans are ultimately too self involved to truly be selfless.

Your thoughts?

The Split

It was an awful experience - the first two weeks that is.  I tell everyone -and it is really so- that it took me somewhere between 2-3 years to break it off.  As in, from the day I decided I definitely didn't want to do this for the rest of my life, to the actual day I tossed the dirty habit.

I put up no-smoking signs around the apartment and on my computer desktop. 

Then I stopped smoking on the lu. 

Then I began waiting an extra hour after I ate to have that post grub puff. 

I decided to enjoy my minty fresh mouth in the morning and at night instead of the smokey scent I would subject myself and my lovers to.

After achieving this - I was able to stop smoking in the apt, and I stopped others from doing so too.  Man did my clothes smell better.  My cats could breathe again, and the walls no longer had that telling sienna tint. 

This was all parallel to the time that others were quitting too, and as the idea gained popularity, so too did the number of ostracized smokers huddled in dark corners. It got more and more difficult to find smoker communities in New York!  

By year two - I was really only smoking in the evenings or nighttime on my front stoop.  But then I got myself two consecutive smoker roommates.  Once I had this company - I started smoking A LOT...again, but only on the stoop.  So naturally, I started pissing away my life out there to accommodate sucking up  all those sticks.  This was quite idiotic and uncomfortable in the winter time.  Thus I had the additional case to use against my addiction, "Woman you're freezing your ass off to burn your lungs! Hello?!"

I immediately ordered some gum, patches, and Zyban.  Tried 'em all - for the prescribed periods.  Each in their own way, made me ill, and frankly more nicotine dependent.  So, I tried to find other associations to cut. I stopped smoking on the stoop, in my building hallway, and only when I was out and about doing nothing in particular, or on an outdoor shoot or something; puffing outside of schedules as it were.

Around this time - the Big 'Rotten' Apple was getting dewormed by a hardcore campaign to ban smoking everywhere, with graphic print ads on every street corner or in the subways, and commercials on every local tv or radio station about the dangers of smoking... somewhat akin to the old "JUST SAY NO" fried egg ad of the 80s "this is your brain on drugs" thing.  But post 2000 things are way more graphic aren't they - and I started to actually get shit scared, and angry.  Angry because I realised that it was true - and if the tobacco companies always knew the dangers, especially with the preparation of other substances found in cigs, then they were earning profits while being guilty of attempted manslaughter...legally!  What?!!!   Made me think deep about my personal journey with cigs.  
 
 I didn't smoke because of peer pressure, I didn't smoke to fit in; for the first 4 years of my puff-tenure, I smoked all alone.  My parents smoked, I had access, and a big enough house to hide in.  The place stank of the stuff so I didn't have to do the aerosol-deodorant-toothpaste-combo cover-ups when they were around. I never got caught in all that time; I told them I smoked and the backlash wasn't the expected apocalypse.  How could it be when they were my examples?  Well, they appealed to me to at least wait til after I graduated from high school.  I was 15.   
 

But where was the fear then? Well, I'm deathly afraid of narcotics of all kinds - because somehow I was convinced by the media growing up that my life would be fucked and I would surely die if I took them.  That's the rap cigarettes get now!  Why didn't I have these ads then?  If I did - I KNOW I never would have smoked because I would have been armed with the appropriate fears.  And maybe my parents wouldn't have either - or even if they did still smoke, certainly their fear for my health  would have factored in some kind of apocalyptic appeal for me to quit.  I don't say this would be the case for everyone - but there definitely has been a clear lack of the fear-factor in deciding to smoke or not smoke.  When have you ever heard a nonsmoker (of our generation and earlier) say they decided not to smoke because they feared the risk it posed to their health?  No; they often stated their choice as one having to do with lifestyle, the unpleasant smell or taste, how it made them feel, undesirable social associations, etc. 

Getting pissed off and scared made me set a date.  Feb 7, 2008.  I did it.  It sucked.  I wanted to kill myself and  everyone for 2 weeks.  It's a bit like splitting up with a partner in a sense. I've suffered in the trenches of living and the glory walks of victories with one of those things between my fingers and lips.  Cigs have been on the path with me for a while man.  But then, unbelievably, I was fine. I survived the break up, I got over it, and I got real happy, and back in control.  Truth...I still miss it sometimes.  And interestingly - I have a relationship with smoking now that I never thought I could EVER have.  I can smoke socially now - maybe once every two months and be fine!  Who knew?!  I don't advise this though...it's not always a good idea to stay friends with your erm,...dangerous eXes.

bird photo taken on a side street in Prague - it was already dead.

Rocky Rows

 Colorado Rockies, 2009

To be able to practice five things everywhere under heaven constitutes perfect virtue. They are gravity, generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness and kindness. 

~Confucius~

"Blossoms" in Ku

 

A Chance Encounter
Succulent Like no other
Ancient yet brand new

~Mystic Urchin~