The Crimson and Cold

First light. I'm parallel parked in some town somewhere. I am in a vehicle with the window ajar. The cold intrudes, advances, and engulfs. I watch as my breath creeps toward the dashboard and slips out the window.

Bits of my soul, I muse. 

A man approaches. I motion him in. He opens the door, sits beside me, and shuts it. He cups his woolen sheathed hands together, purses his cracked lips, blows into them, and rubs. I twist the key, the engine cranks. No ignition. I give it another go. And another.

Finally.

The engine starts. He gets to talking. We're off.

He's providing counsel like, "You should go back," "You need to change [this], [that], [and the other]," "You ought to see if..." 

His voice trails off—muffled by the drum of underinflated tires and the hum of wind blustering through my slightly rolled-down window. 

We drive through a neighborhood that reminds me of my late grandmother's. A patch of grass and dirt hemmed in by roads flanked with homes.

I mumble, "Only larger..."

I've interrupted his monologue. 

"Huh?" he says.

I ignore him.

On Pieces of Me

Revised: Originally published 
February 21, 2012, 12:35 AM

Art: Via Jeremy Kyler: Abstract 
Self-Portrait, oil on canvas, 18x24

Details fascinate me. I am interested in Intra and Interpersonal matters, mindset, persona, and interplay. I’d like to understand what constitutes a whole or drives an outcome. I realize that it is bits, elements, encounters, events, and their deliberate, skillful, or accidental arrangements that do so. Still, I want to know precisely which bits, and the nature of these arrangements.

Everything that exists shares an enduring bond—although ties can be tenuous or even indeterminable, you can be sure it is all entangled. As humans, our communication and involvement with other living things, entities, and objects elicit various outcomes which  present new challenges, opportunities, and insights. Our experiences and relationships are impactful, shaping our thoughts and behaviors over our lifetimes. Some things are more evocative than others. Who we are is determined by genetic and environmental factors. These factors are in play since conception. I now use this understanding to reflect on my past and to help make sense of my present. It is essential to familiarize ourselves with what influences us to think and behave as we do—the bits matter. These are mine. 

On Children: 'How Does Your Garden Grow?'

Revised: Originally published 
Feb. 21, 2012, 12:35 AM

Life is replete with experience. As we progress through it, we eventually graduate to a state of adulthood. It is here that we are finally free to make all our own decisions. It is the precipice off which "No! I don't want to!" or "I'd much rather..." may finally leap, to spread its wings and take flight! Adulthood is the arena inside which "But why?" may ultimately propel itself from the top-buckle, on to the adversarial "Because I said so!" and deliver its felling blow.

As children, many of us are told what to believe, what to do, when to do it, why to do it, how to do it, what is appropriate, and what is real. Prevalent normative messages and social conventions of both primary and secondary social groups (feel free to read about the defining characteristics of each group for yourself), significantly influence people's behaviors and ideas. These social forces inform previous and preceding generations' parenting styles.

Poetry: "A Late Night Lamentation"

A man can try to do his best.
In life he'll rise to pass its tests
despite the eyes upon him.
The lies of those who shun him
will serve to grow his callousness.

For those who ballast palaces
will rue the day.
Come due, they'll pay in like
what malice fills of chalices;
a redress of past grievances
will serve to sieve their needlessness.
In darkness shine a light!

Their wanton greed, a rotten fruit.
Their doomsday apparatuses.
Their lavishness and peppered pews,
a coup d'stew with poisonous yew
and toothsome civil "savages"
warrant cerebral lavages.

"Taster #1 - "Walking Through Time""

Falling back in love with the Earth one meter at a time walking 4.6 kilometers. There are one thousand meters in a kilometer. The Earth is about 4,600,000,000 years old. In this video one meter equals one million years.

"Our filming day at Schumacher College in Devon started very unpromisingly with torrential rain. The plan, now under threat, was to film from a drone as part of our coverage of Dr Stephan Harding’s unique Deep Time Walk. Stephan wants to help us “fall in love with Gaia, our living planet”, and has developed an ingenious way for us to physically feel our way into her extraordinary life story. Fortunately, just in time, Gaia decided to take a kind view of our efforts, the rain cleared, and everything came together. Particularly, as you’ll see, with the extraordinarily powerful – and surprising – final step of the journey:

There is a way to experience the walk yourself – using an app developed with Dr.Stephan Harding. It enables anyone to participate in a 4.6km Deep Time Walk anywhere in the world with your smartphone.. You can find out more at deeptimewalk.org

"Selva Oscura: The How & Why Beneath a Who"

Have you ever told someone, who has endured some form of trauma (e.g., sexual molestation, emotional or physical abuse, childhood abandonment, a significant loss, PTSD, et cetera), "Stop evaluating your issues. No good can come of that. You are simply "recommitting" to (i.e., "justifying") the pain that is associated with said issues. What's the point? The past is the past. Quit crying over spilled milk. Don't dwell. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps," and so forth? I find such an approach about as patent an oversimplification of trauma as I've ever witnessed.

You see, on the contrary, the internet (and history in general) is awash in personal accounts of painstakingly reflective people who move forward and re-imagine their world and place within it while delving into both overt and repressed memories, despite the accompanying distress. That, to me, is as courageous an endeavor as any. That is confrontation, forgiveness, and self-reconciliation - an on-going process (i.e., The Great Work, magnum opus). What the former seems to encourage, or disclose in its advocacy, however, is avoidance.