I Used To Have The Courage To Write Two-Line Posts

And now I don't, but the next post will be about sparklers so it will all be worth it (even without sparklers, but, I promise sparklers and more than two lines, so, ha!).

Gotta Post Quickly Before The Chariot Turns Back Into A Pumpkin

Awesome moonset tonight and then I looked at the clock and realized it's been exactly six months since the start of my dark night of the soul. I'm guessing the moonset is the semaphore of change. Dark nights apparently start benignly, long before catastrophe really strikes. You'll know it when you look back but you'll never know it in the moment. Mine was about Zen books and walking everywhere and reconnecting to me. Then I looked at lemons in a tree, heard the hummingbirds overhead and looked down at my glass of wine from a post-funeral reception. There was a cool reflection in the wine glass and I shot it with my iPhone. That was the beginning and I was innocent in the moment, as I have always been. You can vomit on your dark nights but I realize that mine will lead me to greater heights and it all starts in about 15 minutes and you'd better believe that the slipper's gonna fit. 

RIP Peter Green

BFF!

The coolest thing that has ever been said to me was by my best high school friend -- and, perhaps I wasn't her best friend, but I'm willing to admit my vulnerabilities. I want to admit my vulnerabilities. On the back of her senior picture to me, she wrote:

"...don't change (too much)"

And that stuck with me. The necessary canonical part of me that jammed energy into the world, that rocked other worlds up and down. Holy shit, really? don't change? I'd never considered the impact of me upon my environment. It's important to note here that this was a platonic relationship and the lack of other motives strengthens the impact and genuineness of her quote. To that end, she's someone that to this day, I can surf on into her house (like I did a few nights ago) and talk deeply and introspectively and there is trust and respect and loyalty, AND, her husband (thanks B!) trusts the situation. I mean, how fucking cool is that? And, I have done the work, put the energy into this where my trust is honored and respected. Namaste! 

Too much

Those two words of her quote are playful but also a caveat because of course we must change and I have. She gave me a new word this week, adaptability -- something that I know about but haven't considered too much, and, not that I haven't adapted, I just haven't pondered it. It's time. It's also painful, but it's time. Someone told me just yesterday that you cannot transcend until you have confronted grief directly and compassionately, with grace and acknowledgment. And hah, I definitely haven't been there, but, here I am, with open arms, navigating the darkest waters, turning things loose that need to be turned loose and looking to the horizon, perhaps Kerouac style, but more likely and more accurately Pirsig style (fuck that was a long sentence!). Pirsig bled in his book and, then, THEN!, he lost his son. That's grief and I surely don't know what grief is! 

This ↓ BTW, is the worst album cover of all time, but, it's an amazing song. Namaste!

Fake Coolness Requires Polarity

But what is coolness anyway? It's really just the work you need to do to get back to the center, to equilibrium. It's always easier to dish out hurt, there's no real effort or thought required, you just act and don't think. But coolness, as we know it in Western terms, requires some sort of fake, if not sick acquiescence. But, the dopamine hit is large and in the meantime the Crazy Horse Memorial just gets chipped away at slowly, all the while hundreds of thousands gawk at Mount Rushmore. I mean, don't get me wrong, I can find coolness in everything, but the coolest of the cool have mental and emotional discipline, an ascetical bent that can kick your ass and my ass combined. I mean, if I dropped a world class selling album, I could only be so cool as to follow up it with a song like Over & Over -- it's iconoclastic, humbling and full or grace, and maybe it does require a listener's acquiescence, so maybe I am just talking in circles, over and over!

Demian!

Shoot! I think I was looking for something, not directly, sub-consciously. I referenced it twice, once in my "Power and Money" post from a few days ago, then again to my eldest daughter:  "about that book I bought" for her on her birthday this year. 
I don't think it's a particular quote from Demian this time, I mean, it could be and I can quote it upside down and inside out -- no, Demian stands alone! Demian is strength. It's elemental. Demian simultaneously builds and destroys, just depends which side of which you need. In that sense, Demian is balance. It's equilibrium, but it's brutal equilibrium because it's a really bright light on the soul -- there are no dark corners and it can cause vulnerability, perhaps even desperate vulnerability. But that's the point, it forces harmonic convergence, an inner-peace like none-other that rides just between the moment gone and the moment to arrive. 

Demian

Demian

Demian

Demian

Demian

Demian

Demian

Demian

Demian

In Complete Darkness The Tiniest Spark Is Fucking Bright

After that title ^ you'd have to bare your soul to write anything good and shred your soul to write anything great. I ain't got that in me tonight. Perhaps someday, but I'm always waiting to prove myself so I can justify that an autobiographical piece has worldly worthiness. I know it doesn't work that way. I'm a monk in an Audi; I'm the crow with blue eyes and the duality is loud. Just look at that illustration over there ->

I once put a 9V battery across my top and bottom braces -- do not do this!!! It's mofo-highly contraindicated! That sucked but tonight is harder -- god likes to play jokes and you just have to laugh otherwise god is likely to play another one. And despite the vastness of the universe, almost everything gets reduced to a choice of two (unless you are a computer scientist and then you've got null). Black/white, yin/yang, plus/minus, you get the picture. So, when you are flattened, you either shake your head out like the cartoon character after the anvil hits it, or, you don't. And, where's the fun in choosing don't? Plus, once that spark hits, the one you really need, then there's no doubt, just direction. For tonight, I'll take it. It sounds like a Cars' song but that cheapens it. I'm going with Todd is god. 

Power and Money Die In Transparency

The best thing about Gerry Rafferty is that, when you type Gerry into the TIDAL search box, only Gerry Rafferty appears. Gerry bled and we should respect him for that:

Whatever's written in your heart, that's all that matters

You'll find a way to say it all someday

Power really defiles. It's sick and certainly not transparent. I say it all the time -- because it's patently true -- you and I both get the stone at the end of our lives, no one hides from that, it's the great equalizer. So, people abuse their power, they spew their abuse, they manipulate, and then Gerry Fucking Rafferty comes along and bleeds truth and there's nowhere to run after that. I mean, who writes this shit? It's worth repeating:

You never wanted me to get too close

We love and hate the ones we need the most

I tried to find a way to you

One thing I could say to you.

Whatever's written in your heart, that's all that matters

You'll find a way to say it all someday

Gerry didn't want no power, he just wanted to bleed transparency and we should respect him for that. I hope he was loved. Surround yourself with good people folks 'cause money don't buy your way out of pain, and, despite Gene Simmons' take on power, power can create powerful illusions of truth, but power don't hold shit to someone bleeding his/her soul. Bleeding always wins. Bleeding is transparent, transparency conquers all. And, if you don't believe that, just wait, 'cause "The tree does not die. It waits."

Resilience / Knock Me Down

Knock Me Down! Resilience! 

Can't have one without the other.

Lot of folks can conspire together,

Or, you can knock yourself down.

Either way, if you are dialed in to the energy layer,

Things speak to you, and you know you know, but it's nothing if you don't listen to it.

Sometimes those smallest voices are the loudest.

"Hey Ray - I never went down Ray - you never got me down Ray." -- I mean, I'd use another name other than Ray, but the sentiment is the same.

I use two words with my girls all the time, perseverance and resilience and resilience always wins!