MERRY CHRISTMAS...UNCONDITIONAL YOU (31 days of faith.....day 11)

 

     Ok so maybe you deserve some sort of explanation.  I had a plan.  I should be on day 22 now...I am almost two weeks behind.

     Has that ever happened to you?  You get behind, and the further behind you get the more overwhelmed you feel...and then the less likely you will ever finish what you set out to do.

     BUT....

     The thing is....Do we really want to "cut off our nose to spite our face"?  We eventually have to keep going.  Right?


     In this case, this "series" is called 31 days of faith....My goal was to be done by January 1st.  Not gonna happen now.  And guess what?  It doesn't have to happen that way.  You know what DOES have to happen?

     LIFE......

     Things happen.  Schedules change.   Different Responsibilities take over.   John Lennon said it best "Life is what happens to you when you are busy making other plans"....

     BUT......

     This doesn't mean we have to let go of our original plans.   I guess we can choose to let go, or change our mind if we decide with our heart that the direction we were going was wrong.  But we can ALSO choose to start again, and or keep going in that direction...EVEN if we will be much later than we thought we would be.

     What if we woke up each day and knew the following to be true?....

     There is no RACE....There is no final goal....it's all only between YOU and ...YOU.

     Someday we will die.   What happens after that, is between YOU and your faith.   What happens up until that point is only between YOU and YOU.

     Be gentle to YOU.   Look in the mirror, and tell YOU that you love YOU.

     UNCONDITIONALLY ....


     Then...go on an adventure with this NEW friend who you discovered you LOVE deeply.

     Start over...Go back to the Beginning.  Give yourself a break.... Or start NEW.... Be FREE...

     AND....

    If you don't feel like you love yourself unconditionally... I hear you...I hardly ever feel that way.  But when we get this way of NOT loving, we have to realize one thing.   THIS IS A LIE AGAINST OUR NATURAL STATE.  We were born to love ourselves....and know ourselves... when we let go of that love and that assumed knowledge; trusting other voices over our own....we not only lose who we are meant to be in this world, but we lose the chance to find REAL love from someone else.   And the greatest thing we will all think about when we are about to die is LOVE....

   Reading this you may be all alone.  This may seem scary and depressing.  But it's not.  You are never alone.  If you believe in GOD this is definitely true..  Talk to him....or her.  He or She will only love you, and  teach you the way you should see yourself.   If you don't believe in that, that's ok.   Look in the mirror...and say I LOVE YOU UNCONDITIONALLY....and repeat.

     Breath...DEEP....you can do it.   I am too...

    Starting now...

    And if I slip....I will try again tomorrow.

    I will try to pick up this  "31 days of faith in the New Year"...and I will finish....... not sure when...BUT I WILL FINISH.

     And I will do some other things in the mean time....

    Like Remember who I am...That I am filled with LOVE and JOY...

    and of all my challenges in life, that will be the only one that will matter...

    Because that is who we are....That is our natural state.  Anything else rips us away from ourselves ....and from each other.   And we are here together for a reason.

    LOVE YOURSELF....BE YOURSELF

    AND...

     HAVE A MERRY CHRISTMAS

    

lost and found in downtown or "magic is all around"... (31 days of faith....day 10)

  
     A few days ago I went to downtown Los Angeles.  The Arts District.  Murals and other purposeful graffiti,  filled up my line of vision like a yellow brick road.... a path leading me to a secret quiet urban Brigadoon.... or any other fantasy land that I found myself traveling through in my dreams and in my youth; including the fortress that existed underneath my entire town that I called home as a boy.  I knew where the entrance was to my secret clubhouse...and I designed the whole layout on art pads that i drew on while watching saturday morning cartoons like THE BANANA SPLITS.

     Do you ever get beaten down by your surroundings?  Do you ever feel the need for change?   Do you get depressed when you realize, you are stuck?  You can't move...Nothing is ever going to change.  And then one day you take a wrong turn.  You go down some road that has been there your whole life, and yet you have never been on it.  This is a new world.  Your self...Your body...the molecules that form your body have never taken up this exact space before.   That's amazing.  New things can happen....Newness is all around you.   And it took nothing, but getting lost.

      I submit this....to you...but also to myself.  Let's get lost....get lost, and do it with joy.  It's all an adventure, and as much as I want to get lost in the backstreets of PARIS....I often will find myself with the problem in front of me that, that is not going to happen today, or anytime soon....so it leaves me at a dead end....no answers.

     Then one day, one thing leads to another....including a location scout for a short film I wrote, which, the fact that it is going into production, was also a matter of fate and seemingly subtle and meaningless choices....so one thing leads to another, and I end up in a nook of Downtown in a city that sometimes literally destroys me with it's ironic dichotomy of magic and callousness ...L.A....Hollywood U.S.A.    When I was walking around the neighborhood the walls came to life, almost in place of the missing population.  Yes there were very few people around.  It was like I stumbled across Greenwich Village in NYC a few years after some sort of Holocaust, and now the few artists who remained were rebuilding.  I started to breathe deeper than I had in days....or even weeks.   I felt as if I had been transported to a new world ...a new city.... a place to start over.   And all of this happened just miles from the place that was tearing me apart.

     Change can simply be about two things.... PERCEPTION...and just a little bit of EFFORT.  Not even alot of effort.   Ya know?  It's simple geometry sometimes.  We want change in our lives, and all we see are problems.  It's too hard to turn 180 degrees and walk the other direction....so you stay where you are...stuck... And then just turning a simple 45 degrees doesn't really feel like much of a change at all...you can still see the same view...nothing has changed...therefore: stuck.   But tell that to a rocketship blasting into space.  The change of 45 degrees can be a million miles once you get to where you are going.... One tiny turn can change your whole life.  So we can't belittle it, and choose to do nothing and remain stuck....we have to stop saying NO to the tiny answers placed in our path....saying "what's the point?"    the point is... you don't know until you try... and it's not magic... it's science and math....which once upon a time certain scientists and mathematicians were probably burned at the stake for being a Heretic, witch, or wizard.   so.....

     Magic is all around us yeah?   We are never stuck.  Because even when "stuck" we can create a new world right where we stand.  Or maybe there is even a new world or new city right down the street.  Just take one little turn that you maybe never took before.

     I might even see you there.  I will be wearing a brand new hat, and sipping on coffee while shifting my look back and forth between a notebook where I'm writing down this very blog, and a grand painting on the wall across the street which I will be imagining it is a doorway to the next land of wild magic and exploration.... I will call this land Dolce Nouveau....But for now you will see I am just so happy in the city I am in....

MIDNIGHT IN PARIS and other thoughts on time travel (31 days of faith...day 9)

    

     So the title of this Blog page is "giving up time travel for the rain".  It is also the title of my new spoken word poetry album that you can find on CDBABY.COM (yes, shameless plug).  But here's the thing... sometimes I don't want to give it up.  Though that is meant to be the other meaning in the title...to imply that it is in fact, a struggle at times. 

     For those of you who have no idea what I am talking about...One day a few years ago, this phrase or title popped into my head...a friend said it was a cool title..though at the time I didn't even know what it meant... Then eventually I used it to title this blog....still not being sure what I meant by it...I really just liked the way it sounded.  Then months later I saw a movie that, with the help of a few glasses of chardonnay and a bowl of popcorn, made my eyes wet for almost the whole duration of watching it...There was a longing in me to vanish to another time, like the hero of the movie did....to ESCAPE...to get away to something that maybe made more sense then whatever the present moment could offer.  It was called MIDNIGHT IN PARIS.   The crazy part was the end of the film...once the hero is at peace, with himself and the time he is living in, it starts to rain...and he walks in it with no umbrella...and soaks up the moment....truly living in the present tense....

     Then it started to all make sense.   This title became my mantra.  I was going to enter a journey to leave behind the fantasy of escape...and enter into the reality of the moment.  Sounds easy enough.  The thing is, it wasn't easy.  Not only was it not easy, but I discovered it was not even exactly what I wanted or meant...or even what was needed.  

     Then I started to realize, time travel is sort of possible...and we all do it....we live in the past.  We relive moments we regret over and over again. We relive them so often, that it is like we are there again.  In fact, there is a thing in acting technique called "sense-memory".  Actors can actually relive times from their past through their senses so they can act out a particular moment.  I mean your body remembers so much that you can actually feel like you are back at that time.  I think we all do this everyday.  I do.  Science says our whole body regenerates every seven years.  We should let that body go..let that "self" go...stop "time traveling"....

     And time-traveling isn't just to the past...It also can send you into the future...and don't we all do that?  And we can even be tricked into thinking it's a good thing.   It's good because we are imagining an amazing future...a future that HAS to be better than today.   We live in expectation of tomorrow.  Meanwhile, today is standing there with arms wide open, and we miss the whole thing. 

     So now this title that popped into my head one day, because I have always loved time travel movies of all sorts, started to carry so much more meaning and weight for me.  I have so many regrets of my past.  But now I see not only am I not defined by my past, but my past has amazing things in it too...amazing things I choose to ignore because of pain and regret and fear.  But either way it is the past...and I don't live there anymore.  

     And then there is the future.   One day I am light as a feather because hope overtakes me, and tells me that everything is going to be ok.  Then the next day I am faltering because I realize that there is no way in hell anything is ever going to work out.  Then the next day I sit down to my computer and write this blog entry and force myself to study that whole concept, and see that none of it is real.   I was the master of everything I was feeling.  And though if i could, I would choose light over dark...I also see that both can be misleading, as both are unreal.  It's tomorrow...it's not here yet... I believe we should choose to have faith in the good that can occur...but My goal is to have faith and then just trust...Trust in tomorrow...so I can LIVE in today.  

     So now that I have that all figured out...I have to tell you a secret...it's very important.

     Since I have clarified my goal and the definition I have given to "time-travel", I am forced to reconcile with a passion that I mentioned in the beginning that I will not give up....what i speak of is ESCAPE.

     I still need ESCAPE.  and that's ok.   In fact I can even take it a step further.   I think living in the past and future and not living in the moment, has actually hindered my ability to ESCAPE.  As a creative, or SO-CALLED creative person, this has been a huge and ironic detriment.   You can't really escape, unless you are living in the moment.  Whether it's fantasy or real, the only thing that can exist, can only exist right now in this moment. 

     what would happen if we let go of everything we thought we were...everything we thought we could be...and then accepted everything we are...right now....

     Yesterday I took a trip to downtown los angeles.  It was section of the city that made me feel like I traveled thousands of miles away within minutes...and a whole other life was being lived by me in the few hours I was there....I think that kind of escape is ok and needed sometimes...I will tell you more about that trip later...

     In the meantime... here's to today

here is the link to my album that now through the holidays can be downloaded for only 5.99

http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/briangaskill2

     

    

DIRTY PRINTS IN THE SNOW (31 days of faith...Day 8)

  

     Well since I have to catch up from the weekend still, I thought I would share a poem I wrote quite awhile ago.  The poem sort of touches on part of the subject matter of yesterday's blog....though I wrote yesterday's blog today so it's still fresh in my mind.  Yeah I know....complicated....if you're not keeping up with this saga, it's definitely ok to just start from here, and forget what I just said.

     And here we go...this one doesn't appear on either of my spoken word albums....I wasn't sure about it when I was making the choices of what to record....but tonight I like it....and it reminds me of my home back east in new jersey, that just got quite a bit of snow from what I can tell in old friends facebook pictures...

     And it reminds me of who I dream of being....I will dream of snow tonight...and the crunch of footsteps that i will leave on my journey....

Untainted Snow

Give me the courage to walk in untainted snow

To leave my prints where none were before…

I see it all, a little to the left,

As clear as the dreams of God on a moonless night.

I claim humility as I refuse to step forward

And destroy this perfect moment

That will never be meant to be touched.

It is only meant to move me into understanding

That each snowflake has its place

And is so much greater than I.

Then I see the shadow of a creature…maybe a deer,

That startles me awake from this lie lived in fear.

As this shadow makes it’s way across the snow

The perfection is still there, as it was before.

The prints were part of His plan…and it could’ve been me.

Then I run like hell, or more like a gazelle,

Through the woods-through the night

Praying this lucid moment stays

As I give speed from my fright.

Then it happens I am lost again

Not knowing who or where I am.

Not knowing that in the view from above

I have left paths for all who will come.

But give me the courage to be aware,

That I am here because you placed me here.

And give me the courage to understand

That my dirty prints in your untainted snow

Are all a part of your plan.

 http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/briangaskill2

REALITY IS EVERYWHERE (31 days of faith....day 7)

 

     Ok, it's time to play catch up.   it's Monday night, and I'm now writing Sunday's blog.  Ughh...  I am going to cheat.  I have to.  Or maybe it's not "cheating"... You ever do that?  Get behind on something and then feel bad, and in order to fix the problem, you end up doing something that you feel you have to make an excuse for?  That you are not perfect and kinda had to cheat a little...and so on?  But what if we truly operated under the idea that there was a reason for everything.  Sometimes that reason is a lesson to do better next time... And SOMETIMES that reason was that other things were meant to occur....things outside your plan...and when you continue to stay focused on what you are missing and what you are behind in....that is all you will see...right?   Something like that.

     I'm always hearing that when you focus on the negative, you create more negative.  If you focus on the positive, you create more positive....it's the "SECRET" of life in case you haven't heard about it.  Hey I think it's valid...I'm sure it often is.  But I think I just realized something that is even more obvious, and tangible...not metaphysical, but actually physical....

     Imagine this.  Something terrible happens....or your life simply is not going the direction you want it to.  You see nothing that you like...nothing that helps...all you are focused on is what is wrong.  What if it wasn't that focusing on that created more of that...but simply that, if that is all you are focusing on, then THAT is your entire reality.   But you see REALITY is not defined as YOUR entire reality...but just REALITY....REALITY is everywhere...outside of your own perception...so I'm just saying this...TURN YOUR HEAD...look someplace else....a new direction.

     There are amazing things happening all around us....and even to us.   That's just a reality...not even magic.  So if you are a cynic, this is easy to believe.   So look around and see that there is a world outside of your own personal hell.  And when you say, "fine great, but it's not good that is happening to me....I'm still behind, I'm still in debt, I'm still brokenhearted, I'm still in pain....taking in the rest of the world and good things around me didn't make it go away."   Ok maybe not...But what it did show you is the REALITY of the world is huge, and you are not the center of it...And if you can take it a step further and see that we are all one...all part of the same world, then you will see that the good that is happening around you, is also happening to you.

     When you create something.....write a poem, a story, a blog....paint a picture....write a love letter, or even conceive a child....it all comes down to that moment and when you chose to make it happen...and if you waited a day or so, and now you are late, just know there is a reason for that.  You don't know the answer to it yet...but look into the eyes of your own child, and imagine if you happened to conceive a child at any other second...you probably wouldn't have that exact child...

     so...

     Everything is happening the way it is for a reason....but

     There are other things happening too....so take a second to look around and see everything you can....life is so much bigger than you and me....

     Well definitely bigger than me....I can only speak for myself....

      Here's a good thing...I am so grateful to you...for listening to my thoughts and letting me work this all out before I get to new years day.

     And I am grateful that I got behind this weekend, cuz I really enjoyed my time with my daughter...and I actually wrote a blog just now that led me to thoughts I never would have had at any other time....

     So again...thanks for listening....I know I may not be breaking any new ground here...but the truth is each of us don't have to worry about if we are breaking new ground or not...we just have to break it...for ourselves.

  If you want to hear more of my thoughts and poems in spoken word, you can download my album GIVING UP TIME TRAVEL FOR THE RAIN at this link

http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/briangaskill2

THE CEREMONY OF YOU...(31 days of faith.....day 6)

     There are rituals we all do that make us who we are.   We all have them, and they can be wonderful and empowering.   I think we should all be "who we are"...and fight for that right....however ,"ritual"  is not always a good thing.  We wake up every morning and exist in ritual in many of the hours that follow.   We stretch for a moment and face the day by showering and dressing and stepping out into the same landscape we faced yesterday...going to our job, or caring for our child, or just wandering, and thinking that maybe life has just not worked out for us....and you see therein lies the problem.  Ritual according to Merriam Webster is "always done in a particular situation and in the same way each time".   another word is habit....and usually a bad habit. 

     Most of us, as we get older, lose so much of who we are that we find ourselves fighting to hold onto even the negative parts of who we are....because we can't stand the idea of losing everything.  Maybe we can at least hold onto this one thing...Bad or good, matters not...it belongs to us...and no one can take it..........

     When I woke up early this morning to get my daughter, to go ice skating with her Brownie friends, I knew we were going on an adventure.  We were going to take the train to downtown Los Angeles (She said she had never been on a train before), ice skate (which I have hardly ever attempted in my life) and then back on the train, which would lead to further adventures with friends of mine in Hollywood....and then right before sundown a surprise concert in an old California mission, in the middle of Studio City...where we listened to Jazz standards and had free Hot Chocolate and cookies being shared by all, like for a moment Studio City became Bedford Falls.  I knew not how any of this day would unfold...and none of it was ritual.   The reason the idea of ritual came up in my head was the picture I took that is above.  I took it at the Train Station in the morning.   it says this.....

      "California, which had the largest Native American population in what is now the U.S.  became a place where many tribes disappeared .  European diseases such as smallpox spread through the living quarters of the overcrowded missions.  Indians were no longer allowed to practice their religious and ceremonial bathing.  This spawned further disease......"

     And so on.....

     So.... I went on an adventure today.   It was nothing insane.  I didn't jump out of an airplane, or stalk a Lion's Pride in Africa.   I just took a slightly different path....a path that took me to places I had never been before, and even places you have never been before, that might not seem like a big deal,  might hold keys to answers you've secretly been looking for, for years....whether you knew you were looking or not....

     The first thing I saw in the morning was the mosaic above, teaching me about the rituals being taken away from a race of people, and the tragedy it caused.  "Ceremonial" is actually the FIRST definition Merriam Webster gives for "Ritual".   So am I saying ritual is a bad thing?  That we have to break away from our rituals?  Rebel?  In the case of the Native Americans, the stripping away of their ritual had terrible and painful results.  But I'm still going to stick to it...Quite often we have to leave our rituals behind.  We have to enter new territory, outside of our comfort zone....Yes me must rebel against ourselves....and one of the ways to rebel, conversely to what i just said, is actually to KEEP certain rituals, and also find new ones...as long as we do the following...

     Every RITUAL you have in your life...add the word CEREMONIAL to the front of it.  for some of your rituals this will seem silly and pointless....you are not going to have a CEREMONIAL RITUAL of wandering aimlessly in the morning and repeating thoughts in your head that you are just not worth the space you take up in the world....even though lately you might find yourself doing things like this as "ritual".   And if you do make it ceremonial....maybe it will become clear that it is a ceremony of doing it ONE MORE TIME...and then letting it go.   Then think about brushing your teeth.  Subtle, yet this is a good thing...Now think about how much more power it has if it's not just boring RITUAL...but becomes CEREMONIAL RITUAL....do this everywhere.... put CEREMONIAL in front of the things you do all the time, and you will suddenly start to find yourself editing your life of what is important, and what is not....and adding new CEREMONIES in the process.

     I believe with all my heart that every single one of us is a living ceremony in this universe, and if we use that word to describe our actions, then many things start to come clear....

    When you wake tomorrow, or the next day...or even right now.... start to explore what could be the CEREMONY OF YOU....and then fight for your right to this ceremony, because you are worth it .....(just as the native americans were worth it...but they lost in that case.   fight for your right as you think of all those who lost...fight to win)

    and maybe I can even get the guts to listen to my own voice that has come to me today through divine inspiration (like a harp player I met at the farmer's market today who said all his music was already there...it wasn't him...it came from someplace else...and he told my daughter to keep singing her own songs and not worry if she can't remember words to other songs....thank you sir)...and through mosaics on walls in train stations to other places that broke my patterns and destroyed my RITUALS.....and maybe I will listen to myself and start a CEREMONY with my life...even with just my moments....and with the moments I spend with others....

     ok I'm Hungry now...excuse me while I go get some ceremonial dinner....

                    love,
                               me


    

    

    

    

Jack Zullo in a woodland clearing (31 days of faith...day 5)

          Once upon a time (sometimes you just have to start your thoughts in the most obvious way possible...when you aren't sure how to start, it may be best to jump on the mythological story-telling bandwagon...so) ...Once upon a time, there was a man who woke every day to a world that was exponentially changing; as if every night he slept in some cryogenic freeze, waking to new landscapes filled with a future he couldn't keep up with.  He secretly gave himself the nickname of Buck Rogers to illustrate this private joke.  He didn't share this name with anyone, besides the boy that sometimes looked back at him from the mirror...the boy he used to be.

          One day the man was driving along, stuck in traffic that wouldn't let him move forward.  He almost wanted to pull his car over, park anywhere, get out of the car, and walk.  He almost wanted to leave his phone in the car, even leave his keys in the car...leave everything that he feels naked without, in the car....and be free.   But he was on his way to do a public reading of a screenplay.  In the screenplay he had to  feel things he didn't want to feel, But he knew it would be a great release since he didn't get to be an actor much these days.   So he was in a place called limbo.  Limbo was all too familiar to him.  wanting to go...not wanting to go....frozen.... still.... in between.   But he went.  In his car....not walking like he wanted to.  He was already late anyway, so he had to get there....to be where he had promised.

          He was wrapped up in "life" all day.  For the last few days.  For the last few years....So as much as he liked the screenplay, he didn't have time to prepare.  However, after he first read it on his own, he knew that not much preparation was needed.   All he had to do was breathe, and let the audience in on the loss he was feeling in real life.  Because that's what actor's do.  Just let people in....into a private thought....a private world....as they artfully juxtapose their world with the writer's world and make the illusion of everything being "ONE"

          He was told afterwards by the writer himself, that the phones had stopped tweeting in the audience and you could hear a pin drop.  The man was happy that he did his job well.....But what a strange job.  The man was very vulnerable at this point, so he crossed his arms and stood in a corner amongst the crowd...not knowing where to go, what to feel, what was real, what wasn't.  Then it happened....JACK ZULLO

          Jack Zullo was a friend of the man.  They didn't know each other well, but Jack always made the man laugh, and the man needed to laugh.  This Time though Jack just looked at him and wondered what was wrong.  The Man was so closed off.  Jack always seemed to be trying to remind the man, that he should be happy , and should "take the bull by the horns"...Well Jack didn't say that really...that was the man's grandfather....but his grandfather was past, and everytime a voice came to him that made him laugh and encouraged him...he heard his grandfather....and missed his family....and then something else happened.  The man, who had been standing there with arms crossed barely breathing, jutted his arms into the air like for a second he was Rocky Balboa on the museum steps in Philly...he was pretending to be excited for the sake of Jack Zullo, but as he had his arms in the air he could feel a release inside of himself....he could feel a tear just behind his eye, but a happy one....like the ones that snuck up on him everytime at the end of "It's a Wonderful Life".  And then Jack Zullo said ..."There he is...I just saw the boy in you"...Jack Zullo smiled and walked away.  And then the man walked out into the night...

          He didn't go back to his car...He turned his phone off.... and he walked through the city streets, wondering what was next....wondering if he could please just once travel through some sort of mystic hole in space, right next to the flashing DON'T WALK sign....and end up in the woods somewhere.  The woods would be covered in snow...Just like that soft silent snow he remembered from the woods behind his house in 1984.  A time when dreams were just being born...A time when being "unplugged" just meant not having on his Walk-Man...for a second the man stopped and closed his eyes in the middle of a Hollywood street....and for that second he was back in the woods...away from everything that would later drag him down into manhood....He threw his arms in the air, and caught snowflakes on his eyelashes.... And as quiet as the snow fell; just as quiet he thanked Jack Zullo.  Thanked him for reminding him of a fact that he only believed  could be true in the movies...but now will start to believe and feel it in his REAL LIFE....

          it is this.... Everyone says it's time to grow up, and step up, and be a MAN....but he was a MAN...a sad MAN....a broken MAN....with no answers or solutions.   So in truth what he needs to do, is be a boy again...believe the world is his full of endless possibilities...and that world doesn't have to be a "used to be" world....a "used to be" boy, that hides in the man's mirror....that world can be here....now....the boy can be here..now...and he can start fresh....fresh like a clean blanket of snow waiting to have new tracks put in it...or even waiting to be formed into a new MAN..a snow man...

        And then as I continued...oh shoot, I mean as the man continued ...to walk down the street....he started to believe that even in LOS ANGELES, California.... maybe he could see a white Christmas this year....

          thanks Jack.....and everyone who keeps reminding me of who I really am, and that it's not that bad....

         I hope in some small way, whoever is reading this...can walk away away with the same feeling...and if you do, Thank Jack Zullo.

31 days of faith...DAY 4.... DANCING IN THE STONES

lips grazed over stones glazed
with morning frost
as she danced with the past
grinding so close,
so not to read all that is lost...
only walking that line
that lies between numbers
one step forward
another back...then it comes to her...
and she only runs
only forward
in the moments that are now,
with her new friends
among the stones
that will never take a final bow...
but only wait
backstage
where no one is allowed
until she is ready
to see deep into the show
behind the scenes of all the things
she thought she didn't know
but she was always there
dancing with the stones
always on the run
but never really alone
as they held her through her life
and last moments, standing tall...
accepting no damn pity
as she readied for her fall...
yet no falling will ever come,
as she finally comes to home
dancing in forever moments
she will forever roam
and graze the lips
of future seekers
looking for a friend
among the stones;
illusionists
who only pretend
that stones are not alive
and that there will ever be an end...
there is just a now
she whispered
to the passing wanderer...
who danced with all the stones
and smiled as he thought of her...
and then sat on a bench by a tree...and wrote about living and dying and fragility...and then he breathed deep past himself into the earth around him and knew that this was enough for now...for today....and that was his prayer...his poem....and he hoped his life.

31 days of FAITH....DAY 3.... I still think Charlie Brown rocks

         

          I had nightmares this morning.  Well, at least one nightmare.  Or is it a "morn-mare"?  Screaming, crying, crashing glass, and so on....Yeah ya know, one of those.  One of those ones that wakes you up, and there is no way you are going to go back to sleep....and why should you anyway?  I mean yes it's only 5:30 in the morning, but you have things to do...and other things to worry about.  Ok, yeah i know worrying does no good...it even says so in ancient scriptures and texts of all kinds, that worrying will do no good and not make you live any longer...but it says it for a reason...WE ALL DO IT!  It's impossible to stop.  except for this......

          Nothing is impossible.  I guess maybe it is true that in our lifetime, some things may not ever be possible....BUT...the truth is there is only one thing that is IMPOSSIBLE...and that is, being able to prove that anything is impossible.  The way I figure it is, as long as time is moving forward, there is absolutely no way to know for absolute certain what could be possible in the next moment.  Ya hear me?

          Man, I don't want this to turn into some sort of preaching blog.  Or something that you think I'm trying to teach you something that is so obvious, you wonder why I am writing it at all....Know this......I am only saying what is on my mind...If anything I am preaching to myself, as I still try to wake up from my "morn-mare"....Trying to convince myself to face the day....as you do....as we all do.

          In an old Peanuts comic strip, Lucy proclaimed to Charlie Brown once, that the meaning of life is to go back to bed and hope that tomorrow will be a better day....or maybe Charlie said it?  Of course the creator, Charles Schultz is being funny and ironic...But sometimes after years of repeating that same humor over and over, we start to believe it, because it's easier that way....Then Annie, and her little red head, belted out that she could always count on the sun coming out "Tomorrow" because "it's always a day away".....a very hopeful notion....except for this.... it's ALWAYS a day away...it's never here and now.

          So I'm not going back to sleep, not only to not go back to my morn-mares....but I'm not going back to sleep because I don't care if the sun's not shining today, and I have so much work to do that seems impossible to get it all done...and that like you, my heart broke years ago, and sometimes it just seems too hard to deal with what life and this world turned out to be...but I just don't care anymore.  OR MAYBE I DO CARE....for a change.

          Say it with me ok?  So I am not alone...   "I care" ....

          "nothing is impossible"

          "today is the best possible day to be alive"

          ok?  are we on the same page now?

          I will leave you will this thought though....I woke up feeling like death....with the world crashing in around me....then I sat down to my blog to search for some faith....no, to FIND some

          when you are needing something, don't choose to search...

          Choose to find....

           Make that choice, and....

           You will always find what you are looking for.

          I'm not super deep or anything, I swear...and I don't think I am....I'm just figuring this all out right now....just cuz I chose to try to do it out loud...with you...so thanks.

          and I sorta already knew it I guess... but saying things out loud for yourself...finding things yourself ....over and over again...new each day....that's the only way to make things stick sometimes.

           But I still think Charlie Brown rocks!

          

          

         

         

31 Days of Faith...Day 2... BEYOND THE WALLS

     



          I pretty much think everyone should at some point in their life be required to journal...but not only journal but, write journal entries with the knowledge that they will be read by others.  It's eye opening.   You wake up in the morning, and start to feel the pressure.  What will you talk about today?  What do you feel today?  What's so important that you have to share it?  Why on earth did you ever say you would start to journal/blog in the view of others? 

          You stare at the computer screen, and wonder if you should do this entry later in the day....after you have experienced some life.  Maybe then you will have something to say....some knowledge to impart.  Maybe then the sky will open with divine inspiration, and all your words will live up to your wildest dreams.  The thing is you don't have time to do this later, and you made a promise to not only blog publicly, but said "blog" will explore daily what is occurring in your life to "believe" again...to have more faith....you took on a responsibility....one you could usually ignore by just day dreaming.  You day dream so vibrantly that you convince your soul that it's all really happening.   Meanwhile, the world keeps spinning, time keeps moving, you become "middle aged", and you wake up one day realizing that you didn't do anything...the day dreams were never enough....

          But....it's ok....you are now awake....and that alone is no small feat....

          So you sit down to share this all with whoever wants to listen, and you suddenly discover you have nothing to write about. Maybe you should just give up.  Go back to dreaming....but NO.

          I think I have heard it said that the devil is in the details....the thing is maybe that's true, but if it is, then so is God....so is every universal force that holds the world we know together.  You look up and see rainbows on the ceiling coming from the morning sun and it's kiss to a prism hanging in the window.  Outside the window, you sense a whole world before you even can see it.  You have faith that it is there.  You wonder what you will do today, and then remember you have to pick up your child from school, do homework, go to gymnastics...and continue to look for work in a career and economy that seems to have failed you....WHOA...wait a minute....I guess that's the devil part.   I mean not your child, but all the overwhelming negativity that comes from just waking up and being reminded of how hard things are and all the walls that are in your way.   But now try this... "God is in the details"....yes, she is...

          Think about your body.  Think about that it is mostly made up of water.  It is held together by molecules and atoms that according to science class you once took aren't even touching?  yet we not only stay held together, but the form we are in is different from everything around us.  Eveything seems to have it's place.  Including the wall in your way.   Then for the first time in a long time you get curious.  You have been staring at this wall everyday when you wake up.  But today you turn your head to the left....Or maybe to the right.   And yes, the wall seems to go on forever.  There is no way around it.   Is this the end of the story?  Did you know the world is round?  I know that's a stupid question...that we all know the answer to...but I said I would write everyday..so I'm just thinking....

          Thinking this....The wall exists....maybe it even goes on forever....maybe you have to get to the other side....maybe you have no tools to climb it....maybe no matter how many metaphysical self help books you read, you can't figure out how to walk through it.  So try this...turn around....see an open road.....or maybe a field full of flowers and no path besides the one you are about to make....and start walking....remember the world is round, and the adventures you are about to take will eventually take you the other side of that wall that was in your way for so so long.  

          One more thing though...just for the heck of it....before you get too far on your journey, after you have spent some time creating your new path amongst miracles and flowers and even maybe tall buildings....turn around one more time at that moment when you finally feel in your bones that you TOO are a miracle...that you too are a prism that can take in light and make rainbows... go back to that wall one more time....chances are it may not be there....chances are it never was there....no matter how you look at this morning though...look at it differently then you did before....If you see nothing worth sharing...or doing, or being....or nothing worth living for.....then i promise you, you are not looking close enough. 

           Wait, where was I?  oh yeah...there is a whole world outside my window....and I can't wait to see what's there today....beyond the walls.

31 days of faith: day 1...FROZEN

          I woke up this morning thinking about the new year coming.  Two thousand and fourteen.  On the first of that new year, 31 days from now (including today), I may make some resolutions.  I will resolve to do things differently, and proclaim that 2014 will be THE year when everything changes for the better. 

          And then, a few weeks after that I will lose my footing, and start to realize that it's the same as any other year...and my hopes and desires are unfounded, besides the vague possibility of luck striking.

          So the new year has become trite...a pointless habit...a meaningless ritual, to give me a momentary feeling of things changing and moving forward...just enough to keep me going, but not enough for any real change.

        The other day I saw the new Disney animated sure fire blockbuster...FROZEN.   Back in the year 1975, or thereabouts, I fell in love with THE DISNEY DREAM..."when you wish upon a star" and all that.  I even wanted to be an animator for them, which I guess was probably my first thoughts of wanting to be in "the biz".  From that day on I believed In fairy tales.  I could fly.  I could dream my way to enchanted kingdoms. I could someday find a love that would last forever.  The thing is, I believed so much and so long, that I didn't even notice when I stopped believing...when it all became only stories, and not reality that was possible.  When did it become stories that bring tears to my eyes because I am looking back on a faith forgotten, and feeling a longing for something that isn't really possible at all, besides in the escape of watching a movie?  And then I saw FROZEN with my eight year old daughter and, like movies tend to do every so often, it woke me up for a moment...a lucid moment of remembering what it feels like to believe that amazing things are not only possible, but probable, and maybe even what was always intended in my life...(and in yours)

          And maybe on new year's day this  year I will promise to have FAITH again...and everything will change.  I looked forward to that for the rest of the day, and then my daughter crumbled because, like me, her mood changes depending on her level of hunger...and she's so stubborn (like me too i suppose); refusing to admit the reason we were butting heads until getting some food down her gullet and then apologizing.  I didn't notice until the next day that I had pretty much forgotten about my magical quest to change my life on new year's day 2014.

          So now I have 31 days to wait until the new year...until my magical quest will begin.  I must prepare.  I must...wait a minute.  No, I mean I don't have to wait a minute...I'm just saying "hold on a second"...Why am I waiting till January first?  that's what I have done every year for as long as I can remember...and no change...I am liar.  I have lied to myself for years..maybe decades even.   I believe in my dreams, but I only see them as dreams...as ghosts...ghosts that comfort me and are very real..but not real enough, or solid enough, to change my life.  So I'm going to do something different...

          for the next 31 days...31 days before I would normally resolve to change the way I do things...I am going to everyday make a move in some subtle way...or huge way (depending) ...to believe again...to have faith again...to stop being jaded...to forget what bitterness is...to refuse to make another excuse based on how life has beaten me down, and that's just the way life is...that's what life is meant to do...right?

          Disney is a huge corporation, and In Hollywood they are sometimes known for being cheap...They are the bad guys....part of the evil empire, and so on...why would I let myself be inspired by them?  It's all a lie...But no it's not...."a dream is a wish your heart makes" is the most real thing that is out there...and damning big business and using it as an excuse to stop believing in what my heart told me when I was only five years old is cutting off my nose to spite my face and all that...basically flat out stupid.  I want to believe again...and it starts now...

Today I am releasing a poetry spoken word album on CDbaby.com called "giving up time travel for the rain"  ...over all I guess it's about trying to give up the past ...and give up ideas of the future...and live in the moment...live right now..believe right now...and then and only then will maybe things change in your future...my future..cliche... but so cliche, that we all think we believe it and understand it to be true...if ony we really believed...if only we could really do it...

Well today in celebration of the album coming out, I will begin to try ...and document each day on here...for the next 31 days....

My new year starts today....and I don't want to be FROZEN anymore.... see you tomorrow.



and look for "giving up time travel for the rain" on www.cdbaby.com