Some days are dark

 I don't remember who I am without grief, without pain

What it's like to traipse the world as though no one is missing

someone important not where they should be, so I need to be, for them, to hold, for them, this space;

I'm not sure when the me I was got replaced with a sack of pain

every day again to overcome 

not metaphorical, not emotional, not just 

physical, demanding, excruciating immediate

a false urgency, a constant claim on my will

and secret, practically a secret

because if I cried all the crying and screamed all the screaming there
would be no life left in me

and I owe this life to the choices I made 

A loosely-ordered List of Important Notes about Reality (Aia)

Reality is Relative (CAI 2024)

PLEASE NOTE:

Consensus Reality is an ongoing, mutual decision of physically-embodied, encapsulated energy, agreeing on their experience. 

Mattering:

Mattering is a decision to solidify. Solidifying is a decision to Matter. 

Mattering requires constantly creating One's Body

EVERY ONE MATTERS. 

Physical embodiment is rare. 

Intentionality Matters.

Energy:

One's energy engages An Other's.

Engagement can be generative, flow-through, depleting, or any combination.

Energy can be attracted, encouraged, blown in a direction, sucked in, pulled through, pulled in, pushed out, pooled, shaped, sculpted, circuited, dissipated, ignited, snuffed, reserved, reversed, amplified, exploded, channeled. 

Any energy is useful. 

All is energy.

Probability:

Chaos breeds order. 

Order breeds chaos.

Some disorder is required for favours of the possible to occur.

Nothing is impossible but almost everything is highly improbable.

Probability lines vary in density, strengths, and reach. 

Probability lines are "visible" with a sense of the human body. Or imagination.

Near-future-probables are the clearest and most precise to know and engage

Any future-probables beyond the immediate moment are subject to infinite forces that are not only difficult to manipulate but also create myriad effects that blur and obfuscate what is probable. The further future, the more chaos impacts on probability lines.

Isness likes a trick.

It doesn't matter what we do, we've already done it.

Everything we do matters completely. 

PLEASE NOTE:

Fucking around with reality is dangerous and can attract unwanted attention.

Chance:

Chance favours Luck.

Luck is neither good nor bad. Luck is neutral. 

Luck can be attracted and Chance will often follow. 

Chance is energetically expensive and draws attention.

Chance is energetically expansive and ripples the fabric of reality.

Timing:

Timing is everything. Every Thing.

Timing is as timing does.

Every Thing happens.

Allow and Indulge.

Timing is always perfect. 

Keep time to be in time.

Every-day notes:

Kindness and grace are Self-generative engagements that feel fulfilling.

Unkindness and judgement are Self-depleting engagements that feel fulfilling.

Empathy is a form of engagement that deserves energetic consent.

Every One loves something sweet.

Pain and joy are equally energetically rich.

Internal feelings and thoughts of one's body impact energy within and outside the body. 

Movement attracts energy.

Isness

The Universe tends towards uneven distributions in pursuit of order.

We are not at the Universe's complete mercy; we have already decided.

Any Ways, but not All Ways.

Anyway.

Asking Out Loud

Integral alignment attracts the favours of Chance.

Sound vibrations Matter. 

Speaking channels vibrational energy through intentionality.

Singing is the best prayer.

ACCEPT: Just because it's not real doesn't mean it's not true.

PLEASE NOTE: You don't understand and you don't have any control.

Doing

Much can be done. 

Doing can be generative, flow-through, depleting, or any combination at once

PLEASE REMEMBER: 

Consensus reality has a strong gravitational pull on energy

PLEASE NOTE: None of this is real.

BE AWARE:  All of this is true. 

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Uncomfortable to love

The Colour of Love (CAI 2024)

I try saying

instead of, they don't love me

I try saying, they

find me uncomfortable to love.

And I'm sure that's true 

I'm sure if you find yourself inexplicably

loving me 

maybe that's a lot,

and not what you expect

if you stumbled into love unprepared

for all the ways I'm me; maybe

the blame's not mine; maybe

it's just a situation, 

something that happens all the time, 

mis-matched needs and expectations

despite affection, spiting love

bad transmission, a frequency above

or below your song, maybe what's wrong

is your love itself, that you love me, anyway

even though, in spite

and that's a position rife with disappointment

not every love feels loving.

I suspect my thought experiment encodes delusion

I hope so; anyway, I build illusions every night

to carry me through the days.

Like it matters

All my selfies look tentative

I think I'm fine but the fine lines of not daring to hope poke through

wobbly smile, cautious eyes, shrinking chin

a face within a face, a shroud

not me, surely not the god that I am

staring back from this weak place of shame

not proud, not strong, not well, after all, not okay

on the edge, teeter totter

day after day treading water wasting space

trying to live

like I matter at all.

Not all men are the problem but...

 

Not all men. But...men.

Okay, hear me out though.

The problem isn't men exactly, it's that there are too many men. 50.2% of the human population is male (except where sex-selection abortion is used to skew - for example, India is at 51.6% male). We don't need so many. 30% would probably do, but we would miss them. Still.

99% of rapes are perpetrated by men (91% of victims are female). 89,000 women were killed by intimate partners in 2022, the same year that 88% of all murders in the U.S. were committed by men. This is true across crime types - men commit more crimes in every country, across all kinds of crime. Male humans are largely involved in, and pushing for, war, and the making of war machines. Males on the whole enjoy and tolerate a lot more violence than females.

Males of the human species are more prone to violence due to their hormonal makeup and the larger size of their bodies, making them threatening to smaller people and creatures, to the point where many would prefer to meet a wild bear than a random man alone in the woods. Within our cultures, men are also likely to support oppressive structures that favor them, and ignore social factors while favoring economic factors in voting. Male humans make poorer communicators than female as leaders in both corporations and non-profits, as well as government. They have a harder time controlling their emotions of anger and shame, and accessing their empathy and gentleness. Given all of this, it's hard to understand why anyone thinks they should be in charge of everything.

Males are generally less involved in child care or community building, less likely to volunteer, and even other men don't trust the self control of the average man enough to want their daughters or sisters wearing low-cut tops to a sports bar and leaving alone in the dark.

Everything I've said is founded in data that you can find easily by doing a search. These are generalizations but they are also true, based on reputably-researched facts, and few people would dispute the ideas based on their own experience of the wide world of men.

But NOT ALL MEN, for sure, even NOT MOST MEN, we know that. I love my men!

Really, it's the QUANTITY that is leading to problems. If 80% of men are not a danger and believe truly in equality and strive to live as Good Men, and men are 50.2% of the population, then about 10% of the population are a problem to peaceful society. But if men were only, say, 42% of the population, there would be numerically fewer assholes (8.4% of the population) AND the balance of power would be naturally shifted to reduce patriarchal power. Men are bigger, stronger, and the power structures of society still favour them, despite the meagre attempts to balance (labelled reverse discrimination). Reducing the male population percentage over, say, a generation or two, would naturally lead to a subtle shift in the way masculine and feminine values play out in society.

Gene-tinkering seems like the future anyway, right? Might as well think about it. Society would probably function just fine with a smaller percentage of males, and maybe we'd have a better chance, as a species, to teach them more self control when young, to overcome their hormonal over-stimulation and proneness to violence, if they weren't the default "majority" of every situation.

We know we don't need 1:1 for the species to continue. One man can father kids from multiple women at once if everyone wants (and sometimes when they don't), and they do that, regardless. Not all women need a partner - even if they did, it's not a 1:1 relationship in the population in that sense anyway.

Men are important in society, but they have their challenges physically and socially that would make having fewer of them seem beneficial to the overall peace of life. It's surprising we haven't evolved in that direction, but since we have the technology now, it wouldn't take everyone to make it happen. Just a percentage of new parents skewing female in the embryo selection every year could do it. Just look what India did by favouring boys with just the technology of ultrasound!

A female-skewed population might just achieve world peace in time for my grandkids to fry from global warming. Maybe we could even solve some of the issues and put that future off indefinitely, instead of diverting all our world's resources to war machines and the hoarding of a few sociopathic billionaires. Mostly men.

Just a thought.

A passing thought. Don't crucify me. Wait, that was men, too.

Lonely Artist Whine

Bird on a Wire (in the dark)
CAI 2024

Sometimes I panic with loneliness. 

I know, I'm surrounded with people. I run a cannabis store, so I see people all the time. I have a partner. I have two teenagers. They are my favourite people and if not for them, I might not see the point at all in anything. So who am I to be lonely?

But I am. I am a creative presence on Earth. I am full and brimming over with the need to create, with ideas and even some skill. I am fully primed but all alone. No one gets my work. No one cares about my work. No one encourages, supports, or collaborates. No one engages or gives ideas or helps or even takes the time to really look or read or notice. It's like an embarrassing mole everyone ignores, or a cute strangeness they pat me on the head for. But my work is deep and strong and important and undone. Over and over I try to shift this and over and over I find myself right back where I was. Alone. Panicking with the overwhelming aloneness. I long for creative partners, for someone, anyone, to stay with me awhile, work with me awhile, help me get better, help my work become fuller and produced and available, let me help them. Invest together. Take time and work together. Not just a moment, not just a quick feedback, not just an acknowledgement, though those things would also be better than nothing. But really actually work together on something we both care to see happen. 

Stay with me awhile. 

But no one stays. No one participates. No one actually cares.

So why do I? I don't know, but I do know it breaks my heart every day. 

The time is now

Mother Eunomia

Billionaires,

Your legacy can't be this. To die the most hated, as the world falls to pieces, in the name of your game of profit. The meanest, the worst, the most vile. Do you think the problems are not solvable? Is that why you continue to enact your cynical amassing and hoarding? But please, take heart, because it is all solvable. With the right foundations and emergent models, with the information we already have about how people behave and how systems work. Three generations, a hundred years. Or seven generations if you prefer the conservative estimate. But your legacy is to begin it, right. To put in place the foundations and the vision and the safeguards for ethical implementation. To use your funds instead of bombs and bullets, bombs of funds, bullets of funds, to eradicate the enemies: poverty, oppression, destruction, and exploitation, as you root out any enemy. Create an industry of peace. If you don't know how, ask me. You took all the resources of the world under your wing, so you have chosen the responsibility to use those resources to save the world you've destroyed to amass them. You need to shift your game, now. NOW.

All that is left when any of us die is dust dissipated into this planet of life, as long as it lives. Please let it live. 

Tangled

Tangled (CAI 2019)

There is not a direction my mind turns that isn't laced with worry. I think every person I care about has reasons I worry for them, from close to distant, to the world as a whole. I reach around in my mind and I can't settle on anyone who is just doing well. There is no safe haven for my thoughts, no space in which I feel secure in good feelings, not even sleep anymore. My painting is filled with angst, my writing is stalled by inadequacy, most of my days are filled with repetitive maintenance trying to stave off erosion, and I'm tired and in pain most of the time. Too many of the people in the world seem to be in a self-destructive thrall that is more and more threatening to just general peaceful coexistence. I feel like my voice is unhearable, I am invisible, and only platitudes ever even try to assail that sense.

Contextualizing a lifetime

 

The closer you look the less coherence you find (CAI 2022-24)

This is the download today, rough-hewn and unedited as I have NO TIME FOR THIS:

The Body and Spirit require several layers of translation as their comprehension of reality is very different. Body has Mind and Spirit has Wisdom. Generally speaking, Spirit only decides about important things, consulting Wisdom, which is bringing the knowledge of mind, body, and experience to a place Spirit can begin to understand and act upon. For most of our lives, Mind and Body make most decisions, overseen and nudged by Wisdom. 

Mind and Wisdom can speak directly about some things. Body and Spirit can speak directly about some things, and decide without Wisdom or Mind at all. Spirit can listen to Mind without the input of Wisdom, especially if Body is in favor, and act rashly or decisively (judged by our relation to the outcome). But generally, Spirit decides based on Wisdom, Body decides based on Mind, and their own whims of being. 

In each decade, the Spirit is at a stage or cycle of the lifetime, which then translates itself into the being to inform and guide choices and decisions that come most often during those periods. Body similarly informs Spirit, translating through Mind to Wisdom, which can affect how Spirit responds. 

If we are lucky we get 8 or maybe 9 periods of our lives, often measured by decades.

Pre-birth

Body - gestating (evacuating)

Mind - developing (stunting)

Wisdom - building (distorting)

Spirit - noticing (tuning out)

1st 10 years

Body - developing  (stunting)  

Mind - building (distorting)

Wisdom - noticing (tuning out)

Spirit - open (protective)

Pre-Teen

Body - building  (distorting)

Mind - noticing (tuning out)  

Wisdom - open (protective)

Spirit - asserting (insisting)

Teen   

Body - noticing  (tuning out)

Mind - open (protective)

Wisdom - asserting (insisting)

Spirit - expressing (doing)

20’s 

Body - open  (protective)

Mind - asserting (insisting) 

Wisdom - expressing (doing)

Spirit - evaluating (coasting)

30’s

Body - asserting (insisting)

Mind - expressing (doing)

Wisdom - evaluating (coasting)

Spirit - integrating (ignoring)

40’s

Body - expressing (doing) 

Mind - evaluating (coasting)

Wisdom - integrating (ignoring)

Spirit - attending (suppressing)  

50’s

Body - evaluating (coasting)   

Mind -integrating (ignoring)

Wisdom - attending (suppressing)  

Spirit - honouring (dismissing)

60’s

Body - integrating (ignoring)

Mind - attending (suppressing)

Wisdom - honouring (dismissing)

Spirit - deepening (disengaging)

70’s 

Body - attending (suppressing)  

Mind - honouring (dismissing)

Wisdom - deepening (disengaging)

Spirit - focusing (limiting)

80’s 

Body - honouring (dismissing)

Mind - deepening (disengaging)

Wisdom- focusing (limiting)

Spirit - preparing (avoiding)

90’s  

Body - deepening (disengaging)

Mind - focusing (limiting)

Wisdom - preparing (avoiding)

Spirit - ready (afraid)

I am not for you

Over Shadow

I am not for you.

My talents are not for entertaining you.

My works are not for you to consume.

My love is not yours to have,

My time is not yours to use.

But, I may give those to you anyway, for love, for fame, for fun

as a good host will offer her best pastries to the guest.

I am for Earth. I am for Peace. I am for Myself and my Family 4 and Our 

Good Life. 

We may intersect, support, help, enjoy

that's my joy

We may decide to hold cause in common

that's my passion

We may choose to share intimate understanding

that is my life's breath

and

I am not here for you.

We may choose to stay out of each other's repellent field

or disinterested way

and that is my loss, to not be for you, as I am, as you need.

But I am here, dealing too late with the weight of denials

hoping to shed some pounds and maybe lighten the uphill load for my last days of chances

to be here for a reason, after all.

Hope's like that

(CAI 2023)

Sometimes a wave of hopeful certainty washes over me 

like a sun-warm current brushing by in the lake, like 

 a warm breeze catching my cheek 

 on a cool day; like a loving ghost 

and I realize that this feeling is the closest I have come to peace 

so I savour it and I ask my spirit and body  to memorize it 

how it tastes and smells and tingles through 

how it swells and lightens too 

a glimpse to recall later when I need it most.

Coping. Hoping.

Hope to Cope (CAI 2023)

 I think we often lose sight of the point of this game. 

Peace. Peace on Earth. A happiness resort. An enjoyment park. Earth, the life-giving planet, a place to experience Heaven on Earth.

So why are we building Hell?

It's a choice. The 8 people in charge of the world could, together, use their billions, their power, their so-called genius, to force the world into a Heavenly state. Or a place where life matters, at least. Where we care about each life as the precious, one-time experience that it is. 

I cope. I cope by regular reset. I just got here. Just now. Everything I know, remember, feel, is Back Story to this avatar I inhabit. It feels so real. But it's only immediate, it only exists in my programming, in my character. And these people around me, most of them are NPC's - non-player characters. They are not even aware that they are in the game. But some of them, everywhere, there are people who are also me, also the same player I am, but playing thousands, millions of us, at once. So some of us are me. And some of us are the Other Players. Figuring out who is who would be a lot of work, so I just play. I look for a reason to love you. I look for a reason to show you me, to work our purposes together into something helpful to Peace. The goal. The only point. Peace on Earth. A beautiful celebration of life, every life. Not in the lifetime of this character, for sure, but since that's the focus of my play, what can this character do, from here? Maybe 20-30 years left, in a body going downhill. What will I do with this play? How many Karma Points will I earn for my Entity, my Team? How much experience will I add to the pool of Being that Being is Doing by Doing this form of Being?

I cope. I hope. 

Daily cry

Grief's Tender Hold (CAI 2023)

Every day I cry.

For a short time, in a controlled way, in a private space 

I let myself feel 

all the things about all the things

I lower the shields, allow

confusion, anguish, frustration, futility

grief

the straightjacket free-fall of life on earth

lava-burning tributaries searing through me

roiling and boiling over into moans and groans and whimpers and growls

and tears

facing the state of hate and fear of the world

seeing a future of pain unfurl, knowing

inside me is just too small to contain it all

without killing me.

I make time and space to move it through, expel what I can

because you know what they say:

better out than in

The taste of medicine

Not a promise (CAI 2023)

I never promised I'd be sweet.

Maybe I am the taste of your own medicine
dosed by the universe today 
through the play on words that is our exchange
maybe
your experience of me
is what you asked for, what you need
and I am just a tool of your subconscious evocation
the me you see not real at all
not even me, you see, not at all
just what you called, what you need someone to be

right now

If I've allowed a confrontation

what a gift! what a cost to me. 

You're welcome. 

Working through something

Early Days (CAI 2023)

When words are as exhausted as I am

When even paintings seem too verbose

When the people with the most understanding misunderstand substantially 

and like their version better

Does it even make sense to express? 

So it must be for me, I guess

I must want to for me or I wouldn't be here, typing

I wouldn't be here, trying 

when trying hasn't gotten me as far as one might expect. 

I'm working through something, that has nothing to do with anything

but my own experience, my own gut, my own integrity 

in a body of limited lifespan on a planet at a moment of history 

in a place I've chosen

cloaked and hidden in my warren

expressing through the illusion 

my own little versions of truth

Not for you, but maybe for you

if you're here, if the universe sent you.

Out loud is the price of my privilege to speak. 

Disappearing

Presence (CAI)

Disappearing seems to require

some kind of announcement 

because it's not about disappearing

it's about our absence

being

noticed

Breadcrumbs

The Tunnel (CAI 2024)

I never re-read what I write. You know my aversion to backwards. 

But I imagine if you happen here unexpectedly

for no reason I can think of but Chance 

you might wonder at my wallowing

which makes sense, after all

this is where I wallow 

Wallow and push. Wallow and push. 

Like Labour, which taught me more than just how much pain I can take, like

anything is possible 

achievement comes at cost

with grief and loss and gain

everything ends 

but it's just a change of the same

pain comes in waves

relief demands sacrifice but commits to no promises 

just dangled potential that glimmers in and out of focus.

dignity is impossible.

having literally no choice is the best driver when 

what I am doesn't cut it and

who I expected is still a stone's throw away

but now is happening today and everything is nothing

like I thought and I couldn't have guessed what I would do

until it's done. And that's what I did. 

Here is where I bite and tear and chew and swallow and expel

leaving behind

the breadcrumbs and excrement of my cored self

in case they are ever helpful for you. 

Listen to Happy Rhodes. Here's a familiar song to get you started: https://youtu.be/WoNGpa9tJkg?si=azfqeWSjVT4nhV1n

Advice to the young and to myself

Ya Comin'?

What I try to tell my kids

what I wish I could tell myself, is this:

pay attention to the glimmers where you feel most free to be

where you draw yourself in, what you're doing when

you forget the day the week the planet and just do it

the thing you're doing - that's it, that's something

you can learn to see

like a formula or constellation

build your life around them 

center them and focus from that hub

learn the landscape of others on your hunt

don't be deterred because you can't see what job will own you

don't be deterred when doubted by your friends

don't be deterred by skipping common milestones 

don't be deterred because you can't see around the bend

just centre what calls you, what you melt into, what feels like purpose

get curious, play, learn the soft edges and sharp curves 

imbibe what it takes to embolden your nerve

find and learn the tools that let you shape and express back

into the world. 

and if you can avoid the longing for things you might never have wanted if you knew what it cost to get them

and focus on staying with what matters to your heart

a living will follow the art you inevitably build through 

focus and 

practice and 

pure curious intent

a living as secure as, and maybe more secure than, an eroding traditional path

and a life, oh, a life that's full of what you love most, most of the time;

if you must strive, strive for sublime.

Just be logical

The Inbetween (CAI)

If you just look at it logically, leaving feelings aside - 

leaving feelings aside? 

just look at the ground, ignore the sky?

Feelings are a huge part of who we are. Separating from our instincts, looking only at logic and not valuing the information of feeling, is what prevented us from making decisions that would benefit all life on the planet at every step through every generation that tried it, to the tip of destruction, yet we still worship at the alter of logic, or instead, ignore logic to worship at the alter of feelings; either way we fail fail fail fail to see the ground and the sky and EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN WHICH IS WHERE WE LIVE. 

But then, I see it, so you see it, so everyone sees it and still here in the inbetween we are told look up or look down but don't see what's in front of our eyes. 

It's time to take the gun out of life - Badly Drawn Boy https://youtu.be/qYdLoCt3tRs

Helping Hands

Blurred Intentions (CAI 2023)

When a person offers help it's natural they

imagine they know what will help;

imagine what the person receiving help  will feel when they are properly

grateful 

and from that deceiving entitlement

to a nebulous outcome they may feel

terribly affronted

by any deviant end to their well-intentioned, oh-so-generous

help.

You have so much potential!

Raw Potential (CAI 2023)

Why not tap into your greatness?

What do you fear?

That's clear. I am afraid

that opening myself to what's in me

will break my heart with impossibility

rendering life an intolerable 

mundanity 

the resulting explosion maiming all those around me

leaving them broken; leaving me 

with nothing at all.

It's not small, this fear

It's not nothing and it doesn't lie

I know all too well how truly committing to I

explodes the world. 

Wretches Gone Awry (CAI 2021)

(ps. potential has a shelf life - CAI)

An Open Letter to Martha Wainwright

Martha Wainwright, 2023 Northern Lights Festival

Dear Martha,

I keep thinking about how I let myself not meet you, and now we never met. 

How I didn't consider that meeting me wasn't just for me, it was for you, too. That if I had nothing else to give I could have given you my stone

that my heart-sister brought from Vancouver Island when she improbably came to renew me, the stone

that I carried when I travelled alone for the first time since
my body failed me, no cane, triumphant to the heart of America where I swore I wouldn't go

to attend a show that I thought would never happen, the stone

that I gripped when the airplane stifled, the stone

that I held warming in my hand through Happy's every song, gift after gift, my tears streaming I never thought I would see her live her music changed me and still unlocks my soul, holding the stone

that I thought I had lost at the airport

but found again at the bottom of the bag that holds my horizon and grounds me home;

and you probably wouldn't have thought I was some deranged stranger handing you a rock from the ground and wanting it to be special

you probably would have understood that I was giving you a thousand songs

and the heart of my musical heart

you probably would have been very glad to meet me, after all. 

But I held that back from you. I played small. 

Twenty feet away and I let myself  be washed out with the crowd into the mundane nextness of the day after you sang your soul away to a mediocre crowd with your family and your wholeness and even still I didn't make myself known, I didn't offer you my service or my smile

I thought I was shy but I was nervous and playing myself like a quiet instrument that doesn't deserve to be heard 

by someone who has made themselves you. You. As if Me is no one at all. 

It's my habit, to seem small, nothing special, pre-empt the presumption I'm not worth the time I'm taking. 

Still, and all

I want a second chance to let you know me, take what is here in me that's for you, to agree that I can be of value too, to you, as you have been to me. Your music and movement set something free. Maybe something in me could have done that for you, if I'd stepped up, come through, if I'd passed the test, been there for you

who knows but even so, I want to give you my stone 

that stone, and my promise that you are not alone

while I'm here. 

Prepared

The Watchers (CAI, year after year)

To say I walked into the world unprepared

would assume there was a way to prepare me

to prevent me from mistaking me

for human

from expecting me to be like them, and 

- the true blind side -

expecting them to be like me;

that there might have been a way for me 

to hide; 

to spare me 

from reducing me to please;

from pulling my skin to pieces trying to make it fit better

for the ease and comfort of literally

anyone else but me;

that I could have been more ready to face them

to face me, even thrive if I'd gone in expecting

knowing and prepared, to be

an alien in human skin

playing to stay alive,

trying to have some fun

a million to one.

(Listen to Happy Rhodes: One Alien )

Stepping carefully

 

Watch where you step!

In the field my giant feet wreak havoc

each step trampling more unseen life than I can count

be accountable to

accountable for

more than I could ever pay

back.

So I give more care in how I go

place heel to toe, nice and slow

apologizing as I go

giving everyone plenty of time

to get out of my way.

And, hey, isn’t that just how I live?

I’d sure love to play 

in your meadows

running roughshod with the glee of being me

with you

but I’d trample your tender wings before you even had a chance to fly

so I try to be careful

I try.

In case you wondered what the hell they're thinking

People are animals with a temperament to match so we shouldn't be surprised that they behave in ways we don't like. However, there is the expectation of those engaged in the "civil societies" of humanity that we learn, develop, grow, strengthen, and exercise a certain level of self-control, of restraint, to maintain peaceful co-existence. Some people really resent that expectation. They see any request about learning or strengthening or growing their self-discipline as a direct attack on their humanity and their preference that they be allowed to react and behave just as they feel, authentically, in line with their temperaments. It feels like an attack on self to be asked to hold oneself in check. They already resent that they are expected to be polite to the bumbling cashier, not shout at the annoying children, choose more careful words when addressing some people, put aside their distaste for others and act like everyone is equal. When they do begrudgingly try to conform to the constrictions of "civil society" they are told it's not enough, more is required, ongoing learning and developing and growth and exercise, more restraint across more categories. They feel overwhelmed, attacked, unvalued, and afraid, because if they can't live up to the required level of "civility" that keeps shifting and moving further from comfort, they may face social consequences, and we are trapped in the social systems in which we live without alternative, with those systems increasingly controlling and starving us. So they go on the attack. They demand their right to be just as they are, human in temperament, and act just how they feel, and be accepted without any work or modification on their part to accommodate people whom, when they are truly honest about it, they don't really care about and in fact, disdain for needing "special treatment" and resent for highlighting yet another way that civil society can demand a constriction and a growth. So they forget, in all that, who they really are, what love looks and feel like in their hearts, and empathy is banished unless it applies to them and their own. And from that context they believe and act in the only ways that make sense in that context, and cling to that context because it encompasses their identity, now, and is required to allow them to feel okay. 

But people do better when they are not in scarcity and fear. That is what needs to be tackled first. 

Right Here

All Lines to Light (CAI 2023)

So much of love is proximity

would you love me

if I were closer
if I were right there
would you care to know
me deeply truly madly as I am?
Would you see what no one sees and
BAM!
be mine?
Or pass me by as too familiar
not quite special
close to home?

Is it me or opportunity that keeps us so unknown when we both contain the multitudes of being in our bones and it's calling calling calling us to join hands and walk home

together?
What if I were right there?
Would you love me then?
Here I am. 

Too much

Universal (CAI 2024)

Filled past full, overflowing

never knowing, a dance between nothing and over the top, 

a constant ensmalling, perpetual dousing, ongoing constricting,

just stop trying so hard to be enough but 

not ever 

please never 

too much

 

Pretty enough

The body I got is a middling model, nothing special. Normal. Pretty enough to stand out in a room with only a few pretty girls, but overlookable if there's a beauty or two around. Prettier than plain. So I spent the first half of my life feeling average, not unattractive but nothing special, imperfect in unattractive ways, while at the same time, finding out I was still pretty enough to attract the unexpected and unwanted attention of Men. Not the prettiest girl in the room, but maybe the prettiest one he thinks he can get somewhere with. Or, a colleague who suddenly notices I'm prettier than he thought, and changes how he sees me to sexualize me. I felt like hiding whatever beauty I did have, so it wouldn't be dangerous, while simultaneously wishing to feel desirable, beautiful, attracted to. Being young really sucked my life force in so many ways in a woman's body.

Now I am not young, not pretty. I'm beautiful in a way that shocks me in the mirror. Not because I am more beautiful now than I was, when I was young and pretty enough, but because I am better at seeing beauty, my beauty. Better than most people. I can see it, now. I'm startling to myself. I see myself like I see a photograph - the humanity, the unique structure, the expression. My eyes meet my eyes. 

Maybe I feel the safety of the cloak of age and imperfection - for most men, I have strayed beyond comparisons of female beauty or sexualization into a neutered territory of aunt, teacher, "older lady." Maybe I am not as afraid to be "maturely beautiful" as I was to be pretty, because I know most people won't even see me at all. 

Maybe I just stopped feeling like other people's opinions had any relevance at some point. Maybe I shifted my standards, shifted my view from my deviations from the beauty standard to just seeing what's there. And what's there is more than enough. 

Pretty enough for me. 

The Universal desperately wants to know itself through life. That's the purpose of life. As me, as you, as them, as grass, as molecules, as bacteria, as dogs. Desperate isn't the right word - passionately? encompassingly? yearningly? The Universal is being itself. We are cells in that body. 

The Universal takes joy in knowing itself by being. 

The Universal takes joy in knowing itself by being
from Midjourney

Earth is a tender morsel, a tiny delight that fills the mouth.

god knows

(Inside - from Midjourney AI)

You are meat and bone and sinew, tenuous

tenacious glued parts and pieces

receiving direction

from god knows where

Spending time

 

Time contains a life (CAI with Midjourney AI)

Time is the only currency of our lives

one of the only things we spend 

without knowing how much we have. 

Ordinary Magic (A Maverick Missive)

Lacey Decorations (CAI)

 He asks me, 

is this world's ordinary not extraordinary enough

for you?

how would one miracle more be a cure for your incessant longing?

it's true,

but in that sneery way he has of always being right

so right away I turn away

unwilling to quite accept his flayed refrain

its insult contained in the idea that I could 

- like taking some kind of potion -

that I should

twist my heart and mind and notions

refine myself until I feel

- actually feel - 

complete and joyously ecstatic, 

bearing witness

to only ordinary magic. 

Life's funny that way

All is light (CAI 2019)

 We live in a system that has co-opted all of the world's resources into the game of capitalism, to the harm of the planet and the unwellness of the majority of the world's living, conscious creatures. Shifting that system towards wellness requires significant re-thinking of the relationships among governments, service organizations, for-profit organizations, citizens, and resources. The people in charge have no incentive to rethink those relationships, except one: self-interest. And so they do think constantly about reshaping those relationships, to the further detriment of Earth and all life here, while we just live our lives, not wanting to think about all those hard things, while they dismantle the bits of progress that have been made and put a stop to any movement in the right directions, while actively changing our systems to suit the top 1% regardless of the harm to anyone else. The majority of people being harmed would fight tooth and nail to keep it this way. That is the nature of the planet on which I stand. That is the nature of the creatures I live among. It's baffling, and it's terrifying. Everything is made of energy. None of this exists. 

The taste of love

We serve our love with the flavour of our maturity. 

Some of us taste like blue cheese 

Maturity (CAI)

Futile flailing

As above so below (CAI a long time ago)

When I read The Time Traveller's Wife (which I hated, btw), the thing that struck me about all those miscarriages is that she kept trying. I had one miscarriage and it devastated me in a visceral way. It kept me from letitng myself feel ready to love another pregnancy until it was at a point where it might live on its own. I was lucky, my next two pregnancies produced two amazing humans that I am honoured to be raising. But if I'd had another one, I think there's no way I'd keep trying. I would reconcile myself to a childless life before going through that again. 

But I may be wrong, based on how I live my life. Because when it comes to my creative birth, all I have are a series of miscarriages - projects began with love, holding such promise and my heart, but unable to make it past the first trimester because of money (mostly), time (also mostly) and energy (see time and money). I had a stillbirth project, nurtured and loved over a dozen years, taken to the brink of birth, only to die off due to lack of oxygen. Or, money, time, and energy. Or, Covid. I grieve.

Now I have a new project struggling in the first trimester, and I can't help but notice, I'm exactly where I've been for 15 years. I changed every single thing about my life, but somehow all the fundamentals are exactly the same, and I am in precisely the same place even though it looks completely different. No closer. Further off, because I don't have the joy or hope of a new project, just the drudge-dread feeling that I've been here too many times and I know how this story peters off and lets me down. My hope starts sounding hollow to myself. I can't even bring myself to talk with people about my project with excitement; in fact, I sound a little dejected, as though I'm embarrassed to be seen with it, as though it's already failed. Like what I'm trying to do is too big and also, no one will even get it, and anyway, I will probably never finish it or even get it past prototype. So. 

And the weird thing is, I am still fucking writing it. 

Silent Agreement

Community (CAI 2021)

In relationship, chosen or imposed, we encounter difficulties and irritation with other people. Some personalities simply don't work well together, and for the most part, we choose to build relationships with people where that isn't the case. But we all have plenty of relationships, between work, neighbourhoods, and family, where our lives are entwined with people who have personalities that we find difficult, or who don't like us. 

When difficulties and irritation arise, there are two groups of responses - to address, or to ignore. 

If we choose to address, we risk conflict, so we often choose to ignore. 

If we ignore, we are responsible to LET IT GO. If we ignore and do not let it go, but instead add it to the Pile of Resentments, the pile will grow until it is too big to ignore. It is an important step of maturity to learn to Let It Go. For real. Truly. Not pretending to, not being the bigger person but secretly holding the resentment, not telling yourself you've let it go when really, you're still holding on. It involves self reflection. It involves employing empathy and compassion. It involves curiosity about the other person and caring about them. It's work. Work we do when we are in relationship with someone.

When we are stuck entwined with people we aren't well matched to, where it's hard to get along, we can assume a silent agreement between us, to use the years we will be entwined to better know each other so we can find more parts to respect and like; to use a thought-filter that gives the person affection and compassion; to actively look to build empathy for that person's experience; to give that person space to be themselves even when it's uncomfortable; to recognize where we're imposing expectations on that person and creating our own disappointment; and on, and on. Relationship happens over a long period of time. We will have many opportunities to practice these things, stumbling together with the trust that we are building relationship. Many chances of difficulty or irritation are bound to arise. We are bound to each other, so we must face them together. 

If our silent agreement is in place, the decision to address or ignore is made in that context. I may ignore a lot of things, and let them go as best I can, over time, and try to keep my resentment pile from growing. I may address important things, so that we can talk about what I'm feeling and what might help, risking offense, risking conflict, because the relationship is important enough to be worth working through conflict, with the silently agreed-to goal of mutual understanding and the silently-agreed rules.  I can actively try not to blame them, to look more fairly at my own part, be willing to deal with that. 

But what I can't do, what a relationship can't withstand, is Ignoring AND Holding On. Because that is a breach of the silent agreement. That is a failure to apply the rules of mutual understanding to the situation. It's a failure to keep the resentment pile from growing, and it will lead to Big C Conflict instead of the small conflict that could have prevented it, because the Conflict will contain all our resentment, everything we failed to Let Go because we failed to do our own work in the relationship by working on our own thinking. 

I think the silence of the agreement is the first part of the issue.