The Unfolding of Primal Grace

“I’ve gotten convinced that there’s something kind of timelessly vital and sacred about good writing. This thing doesn’t have that much to do with talent, even glittering talent… Talent’s just an instrument. It’s like having a pen that works instead of one that doesn’t. I’m not saying I’m able to work consistently out of the premise, but it seems like the big distinction between good art and so-so art lies somewhere in the art’s heart’s purpose, the agenda of the consciousness behind the text. It’s got something to do with love. With having the discipline to talk out of the part of yourself that can love instead of the part that just wants to be loved.” ~ David Foster Wallace

 

“I have this — here’s this thing where it’s going to sound sappy to you. I have this unbelievably like five-year-old’s belief that art is just absolutely magic. And that good art can do things that nothing else in the solar system can do. And that the good stuff will survive, and get read, and that in the great winnowing process, the shit will sink and the good stuff will rise.” ~ David Foster Wallace

Actually, it would be easy to throw up my hands this morning. It’s the news again, and how fascinating it is to watch so many surreal, nonsensical strands come together on occasion. Back at the old Noetic Cafe online message board, at the turn of the century, every once in a while someone would mention Indra’s Web. I think it’s Hindu. Wherever it’s from the bottom line is that everything is interconnected. All of it, this, whatever. I can twist the concept around quite easily, to explain how it is we have all, as a nation, ended up smack dab it the middle of an adult graphic novel. Or a Netflix original. Sigh. I’m keeping it short today. And I have a fulfilling event to hold in memory, or maybe just subconsciously, on through the coming day. It was coyotes who gave it to me. Back around 4:45 AM I heard them start up. It’s been weeks if not months since I have heard a really good coyote chorus nearby; and this morning they were quite nearby. And there were three gunshots that followed the coyotes’ first bark and wail. Yeh, I hope nobody was hurt. No play-by-play today. It’s the feeling I’ll be carrying, the dream. How the wails seemed to lift me up into a dream-like state. How the unfolding of such primal grace, in the center of twilight, can exist at all. How I am here to experience it all. Yeh, gratitude. Best leave it at that — I gotta get me ready for work. Independence Day is right around the corner. The heat of Summer is  . . . . oh, never mind. Gotta go.

Peace out ,y’all. Goof gloriously.

Memories of Now

“It’s being here now that’s important. There’s no past and there’s no future. Time is a very misleading thing. All there is ever, is the now. We can gain experience from the past, but we can’t relive it; and we can hope for the future, but we don’t know if there is one.” ~ George Harrison

“Sometimes I feel like if you just watch things, just sit still and let the world exist in front of you – sometimes I swear that just for a second time freezes and the world pauses in its tilt. Just for a second. And if you somehow found a way to live in that second, then you would live forever.” ~  Lauren Oliver, Pandemonium

“It’s dark now and I am very tired. I love you, always. Time is nothing.” ~ Audrey Niffineger, The Time Travelers Wife

Recently I solved an age-old (for me) mystery — one that would have ceased to be a mystery if I had only taken the time to google it. The issue was one of grammar, or syntax, or both. I’m still not clear on all that kinda stuff. Yeh, I call myself a writer, while admitting to not knowing some basic grammar. My maternal grandmother would have not been amused. She was a reader, but also a substitute teacher, English being her specialty. Ya see what I mean, dude? But I was going to say . . . . the mystery was ‘what does using square brackets around a word or phrase signify?’. So I just looked it up. It basically means that the one using the brackets has admitted to tweaking the content of a quote to some degree — or the editor has gone so far as to make it so, on purpose. All this considered, I am going to try it out right here and now. I’ve never done this before so give me some leeway, if you can find it in your heart to do so. I’m making an effort to grow, k? The last quote here, above . . . . Instead of “It’s dark now and I am very tired. I love you, always. Time is nothing.”, I’ll say “It’s dark now and I am very tired. I love you, always. Time is nothing [new]”. Time is nothing new; thus we oughtta be friggin used to it by now. I remember when my massage therapist asked me (why she was asking me this is anyone’s guess) if time is an illusion. I was face-down on the table, so she couldn’t see my face as I responded. All I said was that I have trouble with the term ‘illusion’. And I do. It’s like compared to what? For some reason this reminds me of a paraphrased quote I remember from some French quantum physicist: “Entropy is the measure of the lack of information about the true nature of a system”. Let that sink in. So, how can you call time an illusion? Yeh, compared to what? It’s not an illusion, we just have yet to get it. Like, ya know . . . . to really get used to it? Why all of this came to mind is that this morning I was scanning memories about my ex-wife, from whom I was divorced in the early Summer of 1979. Boy howdy that was a friggin long time ago, dude. I was earlier sitting out on the deck, at four o’clock in the morning, listening to barks barking angrily in the distance (probably coyote stuff, and the yotees were just shadows in the darkness). For some reason she came to mind, and the odd thing about it was that I realized that my memories of her did not until then contain any hugs and kisses. I had forgotten what it feels like to hold her. Well, I remedied that. She did and said a few things back then that effectively distorted them memories from that moment on. And I finally am starting to re-piece the whole kitten kaboodle. Listen babe, I remember now, and you can’t stop me. So was the love real? Yeh, it was, because it still is. All for now. Don’t worry, I remember now.

Peace out, y’all. Goof gloriously.

Slapstick and Legality

“Nature is not our enemy, to be raped and conquered. Nature is ourselves, to be cherished and explored.” Terence McKenna

“We have been to the moon, we have charted the depths of the ocean and the heart of the atom, but we have a fear of looking inward to ourselves because we sense that is where all the contradictions flow together.”  ~ Terence McKenna

“Nature loves courage. You make the commitment and nature will respond to that commitment by removing impossible obstacles. Dream the impossible dream and the world will not grind you under, it will lift you up. This is the trick. This is what all these teachers and philosophers who really counted, who really touched the alchemical gold, this is what they understood. This is the shamanic dance in the waterfall. This is how magic is done. By hurling yourself into the abyss and discovering it’s a feather bed.” ~ Terence McKenna

Tis likely prudent to step lightly here, but I was just thinking that it would be most delightful if somebody would go all Soupy Sales on the President, you know, like all cream pie in the face. This thought is really just an attempt to get a cheap laugh, like back in the day, you and your friends getting good milage out of a bong. A bong and patchouli. Maybe a black light and a phosphorescent Jefferson Airplane poster? Feel free to experiment. But about the pie in the face thing — I just don’t want the Secret Service coming around here and saying, “Alright, dude, where’s the meringue?”. Geez, I told you it was cheap. So, do you remember Soupy Sales? Funny guy; slapstick. I love slapstick, don’t you? I say that anybody that doesn’t feel somewhat purged after a few good laughs over an old Three Stooges skit is probably in need of medication. Their “Niagara Falls” skit is right on up there with Abbot and Costello’s “Who’s on First?”, or Lucille Ball’s incredible mirror-image reflection slow-dance with Harpo. Anyway, I got my medication yesterday, when I swung by the dispensary on my way home from work, to pick up some stash. I never woulda thought that weed would be legal to any degree. Ever. Period. But I got my card. At the moment I am seeing the love of my life, Lori Mellon, as the victim of a gotcha, face all scrunched up in mock scorn at my gotcha. It’s legal now, Lori. Just as a side note, I should note that no degree of scrunching could at all hide the radiant beauty of that face, it could only enhance and enrich her perfection for me. Lori died 22 years ago, but I won’t get into that. Before she left she once told me that weed would never be legalized. Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk. She hated the Stooges, and thought that Trekkies are “freaks”. Freaks?! And your point is, my love . . . ? Damn it, I’m making myself cry! The point is that the loss of Lori greatly contributed to the depth of my PTSD.  I experience it as a perpetual fear that I am going soon to lose someone else as well. Ouch. There’s panic behind them there words. Think I’ll go out and look at the post-dawn sky, then feed the cat, medicate her, water the chickens.

Peace out, y’all. Goof gloriously.

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A Morning of Yawns

“One of the tasks of true friendship is to listen compassionately and creatively to the hidden silences. Often secrets are not revealed in words, they lie concealed in the silence between the words or in the depth of what is unsayable between two people.” ~ John O’Donohue

“Your friends will know you better in the first minute you meet than your acquaintances will know you in a thousand years.” ~ Richard Bach

“We understand more than we know.” ~ Margaret Atwood

It is a morning of yawns. If only that was an omen for the day. Not likely. It’s a speedy world out there. Sluggishness is weakness. I tell myself to relax and enjoy the ride, and it, for the most part, works. Meanwhile, the yawns feel pretty good too. I’m having difficulty thinking of anything to write about. One thing that is on my mind is Idiot Compassion. Basically that means allowing, out of compassion, someone to walk all over you. It’s obviously not a good idea. Tends to play hell with your self-esteem. But at least you were compassionate. Nuff said. Rosie the cat is laying on the bed to my left. She’s kind of logey this morning. Me too, right? I’m at the tail-end of the coffee and still no wake-up call. Oh, well. I always perk right up when I get out and about and moving. It usually calms down the racing thoughts as well. There are benefits, beyond the paycheck. Now, come to realize that this is about all I’ve got this morning. Whatever. There’s plenty of time to write later on.

Peace out, y’all. Goof gloriously.

Heat and Dust Up the Yin Yang

Engine running, AC on, and her dad is going to bring her a biscuit from the cashier at the hardware store. She’s a good dog. She is.

“I believe someone made a grievous mistake when summer was created; no novitiate or god in their right mind would make a season akin to hell on purpose. Someone should be fired.” ~ Michelle Franklin

Heat, like gravity, penetrates every substance of the universe, its rays occupy all parts of space. The object of our work is to set forth the mathematical laws which this element obeys. The theory of heat will hereafter form one of the most important branches of general physics.”  ~ Joseph Fourier 

“Certain things in life simply have to be experienced – and never explained. Love is such a thing.” ~ Paolo Coelho 

It might be proper to sing praise to the coffee before me. This morning it is having more of a positive impact than usual. Dark, rich, woody, French . . . . oh, wait. I’m drinking Starbucks Morning Joe, which I started drinking just for the name, and that Pensacola lad on MSNBC, and the fact that the lad abandoned his Republican jersey to take a stab at confronting the bad guys who are, chop by chop, almost succeeding in imposing fascism, or something like it, on our country; and if you watch the right TV channel you will end up believing that putting babies in jail is like way cool. Imagine that. Evil is afoot in the land. Do not doubt it. I should note that Morning Joe also plays guitar — he’s a rocker. I’ll put my money on rockers. If you think about . . . . or if I think about it, the heart and soul of rock and roll can knock the bad guys and gals down enough that they will not break as many things before they put their toys away and go home. And they will. Mark my word. Picture Roger Daltry, buffed up like a Greek god, roaring “We won’t get fooled again!”. That sort of thing. Hey, it’s my fantasy, k? But, anyway . . . .

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Yeh, I’m bummin’ from the heat. I learned to cope with it down in the Keys, but ya got a big old ocean right there, and the persistent southeast breeze. And yet, here? Bone dry. Dust up the yin yang. There’s a fresh fire burning up near Moreno Valley. It’s hot! It’s only five days past the Solstice and I’m already fed up with Summer. Of course I have the memory of sleeping on the cool, finished concrete slab of a floor, in my little concrete cottage on Windley Key, box fan at my head, box fan at my feet. Sweet. That memory has connotations as well. That afternoon I’d had a major bicycle crash in Key Largo. I and my gear, and my sandals, ended up a little too spread out on the northbound lane of the four-lane stretch of US 1. The accident was not my fault. That night it was a solid sleep on the floor that slathered balm on my weary soul. Remember, if you sleep on the floor you will never fall out of bed. That’s an old Taoist maxim, goes all the way back to Alan Watts in the 60s. That explains a lot. Soooo . . . . here I am sitting on a rock and roll mood and it is right up on time to get ready for work. I’ll go out and have a look at the bare, Summer sunrise first. I’m sure it will have that orange-y brown tinge of smoke from a distant fire, and from dust on the wind. But the low-50ºs morning chill is like a cup of just-so chilled lemon Italian ice for breakfast. The day will be hot. National news will become a tad more dire. And I will be groovin’ on pretty women’s smiles, and rockin’ out to whatever tune I can muster, inside or out. If I can find a tune by Taylor Swift I will be all set. She has still completely ignored my lunch invitation. But it’s still on, should she change her mind, or even if it comes to her notice at all. I ain’t changin’ my mind, though. Taylor? S’up, girl.

Peace out, y’all. Goof gloriously.

The Pelicans’ Gift

“For the artist himself art is not necessarily therapeutic; he is not automatically relieved of his fantasies by expressing them. Instead, by some perverse logic of creation, the act of formal expressions may simply make the dredged-up material more readily available to him.” ~ Al Álvarez

“Trauma is hell on earth. Trauma resolved is a gift from the gods.”  ~ Peter Levine

“Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.” ~ Mark Twain

Upon waking from dreams there was magic afoot in the land. Not a bad way to start the day, right. Yeh, buddy. Midsummer’s Day just past, Full Moon in Capricorn coming right up. And I am sitting here on my assets, crafting words, some in appropriate ways and some in ways as plucky as the day is long. Truth be told, I know this mood. It’s a personal rarity for this one to be entangled in any kind of orthodoxy. Which makes it a rare kind of day, one where the pluck will indeed hold the Trickster’s hand throughout, and they will make mischief together, along the Yellow Brick Road. I would rather it be a boulevard instead, but I did not write the story now did I. I’m drawn to Scarecrow, up until them Flyin’ Monkees (sic) show up. At first, of course, seein’ how they struck terror upon the band of protagonists, without so much as a Howdy Doody. But in the end, after the old hag melted “like brown sugar”. Sugar? That leads my thoughts to Willy Wonka and all that candy, but that, my friends, is a different fantasy. Listen, I gotta feed and medicate the cat. Bisy backson.

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There is a foreboding, subtly couched within the morning. Perhaps foreboding is too harsh a word. Maybe trepidation. Point is it’s gonna be friggin hot. I was out yesterday for about 40 minutes. 90º and windy; a blow furnace. And maybe ‘couched’ is not quite right either. I don’t have a couch, just this chair. But have no doubt that I will become One with the chair; whereas with a couch someone else can always sit down as well, and then One goes poof when One becomes two. Don’t think about that too much, and for heaven’s sake don’t look for hidden meaning. Nor should you plan for me to discuss Duality in these pages. Who’d ya think I am, Bill Nye on mushrooms? I can’t go that route myself. Likely I’ll plug my pre-frontal cortex into Netflix and call up some more episodes of Star Trek Next Gen. I’ve been watching season 6. After five years they had gradually comes forth with deeper story lines and sharper, more modern production values. Lately I have come to suspect that this retro-fascination with these lovely re-runs is because those were the years when my quest to reconstruct my world after the bicycle accident, NDE, and head trauma, became more intense. The show’s episodes were so often morality plays, drizzled with ethical challenges. By watching these old episodes I get a look at some of the building blocks I stacked, out from the cornerstone. Of course another type of building block was through observation of seagulls, ospreys, and kestrels. And pelicans. Pelicans hold a special significance, for they gifted me generously. But that story is not for the telling today. Hey, maybe I should write about Wade the pharmacist soon. He helped me more than he will ever know. The pelicans’ teachings bore fruit when I began to make bicycle rides to Key Largo with Wade, barhopping just a tad. A Rumrunner here and a Rumrunner there. Coconut oil and early-90s chic bikinis. One time Wade even asked me if i wanted to write up a summary about Prozac for his CMEs test. I declined and put my feet up, poolside. Yeh, buddy.

Peace out, y’all. Goof gloriously.

Purring in the Workaday World

“We must be as courteous to a man as we are to a picture, which we are willing to give the advantage of a good light.”  ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The boldness of his mind was sheathed in a scabbard of politeness.” ~ Dumas Malone (written about Thomas Jefferson)

“Courtesy is a silver lining around the dark clouds of civilization; it is the best part of refinement and in many ways, an art of heroic beauty in the vast gallery of man’s cruelty and baseness.”  ~ Bryant McGill

Sigh. I’ve got courtesy on my mind today. Pretty much been with me since waking. There were dreams, but no details carried through into my conscious mind. My bad. Certainly I have . . . . oh never mind, I have a bad habit of talking about myself. If what some people tell me is true then I am the only one. I wish! But that is all so irrelevant this morning. Our national crisis, it seems to me, is scandalously highlighting something which started as a lack of respect from some people, and I ain’t namin’ names, k? From there it metastasized. Look around. No, really. Forgive me, but I am shaken, right down deep, by the bold and mindless hatred that is oozing up from our society, for I have seen children tortured, right friggin out in the open. On TV. By people who are all butt-hurt that they can’t do more of it because the whole world is watching. Nuff said. I’m feeling depressed and subdued this morning. It’s been not too long ago that I all but backed down from a bully, and it is starting to get to me. If the dynamic does not abate I’ll have to deal as well with the emergence of my Cougar totem. Sigh. Let’s leave it at that for today. It’s time to wake up that big cat and head on out into the workaday world, purring.

Peace out, y’all. Goof gloriously.

 

A Blend of Compassion and Surprise

“Looking from the window at the fantastic light and colour of my glittering fairy-world of fact that holds no tenderness, no quietude, I long suddenly for peace, for understanding.” Daphne du Maurier

“It seems to me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are still alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger for them.” ~ George Elliot

“It was long since I had longed for anything and the effect on me was horrible.” ~ Samual Beckett

“One of the deepest longings of the human soul is to be seen.”  ~ John O’Donohue

The Greater Bear, Ursa Major, rules the day. No, not Jack Nicklaus, he was The Golden Bear. The bear I am taking about is the one in the sky, the one that has Orion and his dogs all ruffled up. The Greek myth of Orion is compelling, as Greek myths usually are for me. At one point, when all sparked up while hunting with the goddess Artemis and her mother, Orion declared that he would kill all the animals in the world. The Earth goddess got all pissed off at him, and she sent a giant scorpion, which dispatched his ass from this world. I don’t know. I’m into the mythos of life. The Greeks were great at myths. Anyway . . . the fake rooster has begun to crow; timidly, as usual. A raven squawks in the distance. As of yet the morning is mostly about quietude. No traffic on the highways even. I’ve got a workday ahead, after two days off. Yesterday I had my monthly massage, and it was better than usual, so I feel all loose and stuff. She, the masseuse, hit on several levels. Energetic, emotional, and them good old muscles and bones. We usually chat on through the massage session. Yesterday was different in that while she was working on my back, several times, she would dig in a certain way, or rub something the right way, and it would stop me in mid-sentence. Each time I lost my vocal facilities it was because some primal energy was released to flush throughout my whole upper body, which is seriously banged up from a few bicycle crashes. That rush simply overrode speech and language for a minute or so, simply because the body notified the mind that something more important had come up, so shut the fuck up. There were also several times when I quietly cried, briefly, as some muscle memory – from the crash that nearly, or actually, killed me – emerged with a mission. PTSD stuff. Memories from trauma events can be stored in the body. Each time you awaken one of them memories, watch out. Trauma creates a powerful memory that initiates PTSD. Those brief periods of crying were also silenced, they had no soundtrack. That too was overridden, just like the yakking. It was in a way fun. Why? Because the rush also stuffed the monkey mind in a box, while the emotional stuff has it’s way. Each time this happened I could hear a non-verbal sound from her, some kind of a blend of compassion and surprise. A caring, sharing, release of empathy, Her voice, non-verbal or not, sometimes gets very close; I suppose she is leaning over. It happened these few time yesterday. The closeness had a profound effect. Massage therapy is cool because there his so much going on. She talked about my angels as well. Could they totally heal me? I told her that some scars from injury might serve needed feelings – part of who we are. I didn’t get into the Wounded Healer thing, who in Greek mythology was exemplified as Chiron, the centaur; considered to be the greatest and wisest centaur. What’s it all mean? So what, so it was a good massage. That’s what you pay for right? No. Let’s just say it’s not about the money, and leave it at that. I’ve got to, at the moment, get on with the day. I’ve got Joseph Campbell’s myth of the Hero’s Journey on my mind. The medical marijuana has opened me up to the worlds of mythos and Dreamtime. I’m kinda liking it. I’ve heard of one psychiatrist who said that the jury is still out on the efficacy of cannabis indica in treating PTSD trauma, and I’m like all “dude, I don’t need no stinkin’ jury, k? Just sayin”. Perhaps I’ll write about it one day. I’m thinking a slim volume, with color photos. This stuff is fast becoming an important part of our culture. It bears watching is what I’m sayin’.

Peace out, y’all. Goof gloriously.

The Magic of Presence

“There’s something so beautiful about people who are heartbroken; they think about how they’re feeling much more. I think when you’re happy and when you’re in love, you don’t need to think about it, it’s just there. Love is one of those things that is so simple, you don’t need to think about it when it’s good, you only need to think about it when it’s bad, so when music is all that you have and you’re lonely or you’re missing someone and you write a song that says exactly how you feel, there is sort of a gratification you get from that, it almost helps you move on.”  ~ Taylor Swift

“Eduard had already been on that road several times but he had always decided to go back because he’d still not received the signal to go forward. Now things were different. The signal had finally come in the form of a young woman with green eyes, brown hair and the startled look of someone who thinks they know what they want.” ~ Paolo Coelho

Magic is in the air and in the Earth. Today, the Summer Solstice, is an easy time to experience the Magic. I know I will. I came out of my NDE journey, back in 1984, knowing that magic is not only real it is an underlying force for love that kinda sorta dreams us into this place, reaching from some strong place within the void, reaching deep, then putting it out there on the other side. Mother Nature, Gaia, takes the queue and sculpts forms from consciousness. I’ve long endeavored to understand the nature of the NDE. Upon return from my NDE journey the Light Being (Brighid) who brought me back to form and function let go of my hand and said something like “Now you need to re-occur“. The world of the NDE is far from physical. It’s like a shamanic initiation, an astral voyage, during which you must essentially blow yourself asunder, and like Osiris, scatter your fragments to the wind. That’s how you get there, to the place where the Light Beings reside. Given a choice I chose to return to this world of form and function. To do so at the end of the journey I ultimately had to – as the Lady said – re-occur. You can’t know what it’s like unless you’ve been there. It was way cool to die then come back, with presence. We talk about the Soul, the Higher Self, whatever. Yeh, alright. But it’s really and simply rudimentary in some ways, in many ways. First, up front, we are creatures arisen from Nature’s clay, an amalgam of flesh and bone. To that add presence, which requires consciousness, without which we know nothing beyond the daily grind. If it all clicks we emerge as presence, as life. I find it easiest to feel this foundational magic upon the Solstice or Equinox. I feel it today, enough so that I can actually write about it, pretending that my words actually hit the mark. It’s all about love. My soul is longing for romantic love; whether or not I can find it is beside the point. You may feel the love differently. Love and magic are entangled but they are not the same thing, the same force. This morning it is easy to see this level of stuff, perhaps because I now have my medical marijuana card. But that’s not all. Blessed Be.

Peace out, y’all. Goof gloriously.

Deep Feelings and Wild Horses

“Don’t part with your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.” ~ Mark Twain

“It is important not to suppress your feelings altogether when you are depressed. It is equally important to avoid terrible arguments or expressions of outrage. You should steer clear of emotionally damaging behavior. People forgive, but it is best not to stir things up to the point at which forgiveness is required. When you are depressed, you need the love of other people, and yet depression fosters actions that destroy that love. Depressed people often stick pins into their own life rafts. The conscious mind can intervene. One is not helpless.”  ~ Andrew Solomon

“It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it.” ~ Oscar Wilde

With all of the valid uproar over the US border/child abuse it hard for me to get started with this post. My bad. I don’t actually want to write about the issue. It’s too sore for me. But I may do so anyway. In fact I will. These blog posts have no plan or outline. I just sit down and do it. Period. I never know what might come up, or out, whatever. One of the problems I have is that no single emotion stands out; none is stirred up more than any other. It’s all one trembling mass. No, fear is not one of them. That seems to have been transcended at some point. Basically, I made fear go sit in the corner. But I have not lost rationality. Good. It is indeed good to feel so intensely about this appalling issue. It is extremely rare for me to feel this deeply. About anything. My psyche meds usually keep things fairly steady. No, I am not the drugged robot that people seem to imagine is the only product of these drugs. I have no doubt that it is that way with many people. All I can say is that you have to use these drugs; you have to apply rationality and work with them. My former psychiatrist encouraged me to do so, but I suspect she is probably an exception to the rule. It’s in the way that you use it. The reason this comes up here for me is that I have no doubt that ICE is willing to administer some numbing drug to detained immigrants, if they are not already doing so. Put it in the water. Whatever it takes to make detainees oblivious to their plight. If they would stoop so low as to abuse children on a mass scale, to commit atrocities with the aim of forcing their agenda on all of us, they would resort to anything. But enough of that for now. I need a break from this, but only for a while. This is history in the making. This is evil incarnate. I feel compelled to follow the news as thoroughly as my mind and heart will allow. But today I think I will head north in search of wild horses. The prospect sounds so appealing, so profound, so poetic. So mythic. For the first 17 miles just north of the Colorado border they have open range land, and many of those yellow road signs that caution drivers that wild horses range along that highway. Last time I went up there I ended up at a dead stop in the highway (there is very little traffic on that road), surrounded by these beasts. There were six colts in that herd. It felt magical, and indeed it was. One other car was stopped there as well. The woman in that car had her face in a cell phone, snapping away. I suspect she was soon posting her photos on Facebook or some such. And me? I forgot my friggin camera, so I had to view the experience only with my eyes and heart. I’m taking my camera this time, but if it happens again (this was the second such encounter for me) I will make sure to keep my heart and eyes open while I snap away. The camera is equipped to connect with the internet but I have no desire to do so. It’s about the horses for me. Part of the totem, symbolic meaning of a horse in to set your spirit free. That’s what I will do. With our national freedom being slowly pared away, leaving open sores, I reckon we need as much free spirit as we can muster. That kind of thing starts at home. And I felt right at home with those horses.

Peace out, y’all.