erotic beer cans

On a similar note to my last post, fremenine and I went on a beautiful hike near the Mississippi River where prairie has been planted and the Culvers Root has come up. While there we saw discarded beer cans near seats of limestone, a drawing of a penis, and a sign that had an arrow with "To the Vagina" scrawled on it. Initially I felt disgust and horrified at the stupidity of man at these signs of the bottom of the barrel culture, but upon further thought processes and discussion with fremenine, one of the only really open minded people I know, I realized that, although the artists of these so-called profane works were perhaps rooted in a base sense of humor, they were also simply expressing that which our culture keeps hidden, and which maybe needs to be made open.

I mean, really, our obsession with the penis, scrotum, anus, vagina, nipples, and associated muscle formations border on the absurd. The most hidden of human artifacts, the most obsessed over. A coincidence? I think not.

Are the eyes, the hands, the skull, the toes, less erotic? This whole thing is erotic, folks. Remain calm, don't panic.

river of being

Some of us stop to smell the roses and some of us say, isn't god amazing, that he made roses that smell so good? I think there is such a huge, un-raftable rift between those who can appreciate that a rose with any other name is still a fuckin' rose, and those who think that a rose is a gift from god.

It is with great displeasure that I have to live in a world that seems like nothing less then a monotheistic orgy of self-induced pain and suffering, stemming from a compilation of books (ironically nicknamed "The good book") that induces a fairly pure neurotic inner horror. I am sometimes amazingly irritated at the fact that I have been born into this world, am actually traveling through my life, this bardo plane of pure natural beauty, and I have to contend with so many others out there like me, who are passing through this glistening pure bardo plane of unbelievable sensory delights, yet find some sort of grasping terror in their hearts at the thought of the nothing, the oblivion, as a friend put it recently, that sets us free, into the most amazing mystery of all. And in the terror they reach out and grasp this pure fiction, God the benevolent omnipotent micromanaging motherfucking anal retentive CEO of the galaxy. What a small way to live, is my opinion. And yes, I have my moments of terror as well, as I gaze into the darkness that is the resting place of our minds (egos?) after this path we follow has come to its inevitable deadend, down the yellow brick road, to find the fat little man behind the curtain. Inexplicably, it turns out he is us, we are him. None of your pastors, teachers, or political leaders talk about that much, or know what that means.

It seems that we who do not give up our ghosts and allow ourselves to be possessed by the holy spirit of the bible, who the gnostic christians rightly believed was satan himself, the dark side of this cosmic endeavor, a rutting Pan-like underlord who personifies the beastly yang concept, the oozing serpent of our dark soul, we who do not allow ourselves to be possessed by this beast, are struggling to find a way out of here, like a jilted joker or a thankful thief. We see the Destroyer as the Divider, a meaningful and important concept that has had enough sway in this world already, we've had enough. I believe what I am trying to say here is basically sacrilegious, no doubt a word coined by the religious, just as pro-life is coined by those who insist on the biological primacy of human birth, meanwhile not understanding what life means at all, in all likelihood. The cosmic understanding of life is deep deep deep. Is this rock I am holding alive? Is this daisy, this frog, these dust motes in the sun, is the love in my heart a living thing, are my thoughts a living part of nature? The pro-lifers idea of life is limited, the pro-choicer is trying to keep the options open, keep the Divider at bay while we desperately go through our lives looking for some meager happiness, clutching to the shreds of love left to us by the Destroyer culture, those hell bent on the pure destruction of everything biological, a form of life found lacking by monotheists.

What is lacking about life, lust, love, and lunacy? What is bad about this, good about that? Who decides? Mostly, we do, via consensus, and of course, this has its place and is a structure formulated by tribes to maintain a degree of safety and contentment with this amalgamation of skin, bone, thought, and feelings we call our lives. Here on earth, we are blessed with a beautiful green planet that is neverending in its wonder and beauty, pain and suffering. It is an example of the plethora of life, existence, samsara, maya, the great dream.

We dream each-other and communicate through our hearts. To be possessed by the holy spirit is, perhaps, a death sentence for our very souls, as we give them up to a maniacal power, a skulking and terrible death force. Maybe our basic endeavor is to give it all up, give up all of our ideas, our definitions, all the ties that bind, before we can see what really truly is, now, here, alive. Why do we need a religion, a career, a political affiliation, box of who we think we are? Don't all these limits, these ideas, these screens we see ourselves through, do nothing but bind us to them in a way that destroys our freedom to live as a spirit being, both matter and energy, light and dark; to evolve, to transcend, and become rooted in the universe?

The options seem obvious when one realizes the truth of our own personal drama. The Tarot, the I-ching, our DNA, the mytho-poetical quantum collective unconscious all show us the truth, the journey we all share on this circular planet, in this spiral galaxy. Yet, we try to pretend one thing or another is who we are, rather then becoming the river of being that we are.

bear dead

I would rather be eaten by a bear then be afraid of being eaten by a bear.

Synchronicity on guard

It seems that things happen together when things are happening together. Maybe the dream dreams us? We don't know, which is all for the better.

Fulfillment, that is the question. Following your own bliss is not so easy.

the rain falls

We think of the rain as some sort of thing, that falls and makes us wet.

The rain, although it is also collected condensation on particulate matter grown heavy in the clouds, is also a life giver. The rain takes from the earth and sea and regenerates the system, the river and lakes without end. The rain is falling outside my window right now, and I hear its splish splash.

The rain speaks many tongues, all familiar. It says, here is the life you need to survive, here is the metabolic juice your body stews in, here is the kiss of the earth, wet and juicy. The modern man is concerned with staying dry and comfortable. The gardener and farmer is delighted with the heavenly gift of rain, and may become soaking wet in his or her endeavors to communicate with it. The wetness is commonly understood as discomfort, but I think it has more to do with our human decision to wear clothes all the time.

I will do mostly indoor chores today, but may venture out into the rain to finish a stone wall. Working with stone in the rain is dangerous and destroys lawns, so we tend to not do so.

I love you Sunshine, my friend

Your path was one of hardship and pain

You live on in memory and spirit

We all meld at some point

We all flow back and forth

All things flow back and forth

We are all things

wife

"'She was someone who could not be rushed. This seems a small thing. But it is actually a very amazing quality, a very ancient one. She did everything at just the same pace as before, she could tell the time of day or night by the moisture in the atmosphere, and she went about her business as if she would live forever, and forever was very, very long. That is the kind of mujer my mama was. When you look at me you see her, but I have lost 'forever; therefore I sometimes hurry.'"

--- from The Temple of My Familiar, by Alice Walker

VERY MUCH THE ENDLESS TIDE

around we go across the dirty days made of wind and rain
the stars mostly hide behind the smog of exhaust and hairspray

I'm made of sand

glacial terror
night sweats
balance beam

tense eyelids
floater fencing

the world pissed off at me

ground champagne
density demons

make an effort make an effort

you, forever

You, forever, always

I see the truth in you

(deep inside the onion layers we go, each day, crying the tears that drop so easily
from our sunburned cheeks

we remake the day each time the sun rises

each time the sun falls we begin the endings again)

I wish I could help you as much as you have helped me, but I can't
I can't, I have no more resources, I have done as much as I can now, no more or less
I know I can do more

I see you beyond this, this trite modern moonshine
there has been effort on my part, I swear, more then you realize, maybe you realize that

In this ending the beginning looms near
The weaving of our trailing parts calls for so much talent and grace
The question in my head is a gong (ding, dong) going off every minute
where is the path I should take, where is the path I have followed so long?
Is it there in my dreams or have I labored forever for nothing for good or bad?

so much more then I could have ever imagined, this effortless painful cleaving in two and coming together to rewrite this poem that we began with hesitant phrases
the old words color the new

the vision that birthed this twilight tinged tune was of you
in the ocean, forever, always
your feet bare in the sand, by the lapping of the moonset waves
you, free, forever, always
and happy as the breeze

Failed again

Once again I failed at a following through with an idea/intention/activity, all the way to the end. It is the story of my life, and yes, that is a bitter statement.

Forget my food habits, forget my life, forget this blog. I am better at incoherence and non-linear reality.

Dawkins funds Summer Athiest Camp

Arch-atheist Richard Dawkins has helped launch a summer camp aimed at changing the way children think
By Rachel Helyer Donaldson
FIRST POSTED JUNE 29, 2009

Richard Dawkins, the evolutionary biologist and author of The God Delusion, has helped launch an atheist summer camp for children. Alongside the more traditional activities of tug-of-war, swimming and canoeing, children at the five-day camp in Somerset will learn about rational scepticism, moral philosophy, ethics and evolution.

More: Here