whyeverythingmatters

strength

2011-11-09T23:11:00.000-08:00

daylight again

2011-08-07T03:03:00.000-07:00

following me to bed (CSN)

Sublime Perception || itWorks.how(theMagic)

Once upon a time I watched it stop.
Days once limited in beginning and end opened their eyes like something being born.
Hours that used to slip away let go of each others hands to scatter like water in warm summer wind.
Minutes sat down and crossed their legs, spectators awaiting a grand performance.

Order and structure broke all their bones in one gigantic, relieved, breathtaking gasp.
So that connections between details could turn into a thousand shards of spinning light.

That Forever Moment became strong enough to let death waltz in for an illuminating spin. Nothing could alter such eternal, untouchable shine.

If you could see it, even for a single blink.
If I could explain it in some way that would show you this speechless mesmerizing dizzying place.
If I could share it and you could have it, I might surrender my final breath.

EverythingElse would disappear.
And then we both might know that beautiful fleeting flutter where the real power of living lasts.

Have to admit, ESRI rocks

2011-07-20T12:38:00.001-07:00

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peace and joy

2010-12-24T09:17:00.000-08:00

-autobiographical-

approach to a challenge:

if (!beingawuss) {

!this is too hard
!this is too scary
!this will hurt

this is exciting!
this is awesome!
this is why we are here!
}

else {

go home || die
}

-and if lucky, consult with PF

Bell Jar in a Van Gogh Summer

2010-08-10T14:45:00.000-07:00

notes to Sylvia-

you are loved, you know.

you are.

surprised?

but many feel the same silent love for such an unlikely heroine.

the same sense of gratitude.

not for what you did - never for what you did.

for what you shared.

for what you explained.

for what you illuminated - that resounding darkness settling in your mind just like the murky webs of spider-spun moth wings you wrote into pages of cathartic prose.

the trap you could not escape, or defeat, you instead exposed.

you called it out and laid it in plain open sight for anyone paying attention to see.

so that stepping around it could appear like a much better way.

todaytheworldisbrighterthanithaseverbeen

finally

2010-07-31T13:17:00.001-07:00

try {
artist.talent(State Illuminated);
artist.blood(State Burning);
artist.moment(State FullyRealized);
}

catch (ThresholdExplosionException exception) {
if (!toolate){
exception.salvation();
}
else {
exception.honor();
}
}

finally {
audience.understand(State Empathy);
}

27

2010-07-16T12:12:00.000-07:00

I once met the most magical, miraculous, marauding man.

a man of subtle poise, electric grace, rife with potential in endless tomorrows.

who dazzled with quiet explosions,
and collected astonishment in blinks of his winking eyes.

a man who carried the meaning that makes me shake in the creases over his brow like so many feathers resting in a pillow.

a man who knew things beyond what I know,
and told me about them in short flashes of shocking nonchalance.

for one fierce moment I became brave enough to ask-

what is there, over the edge, after you fall off? down in the deep space that you can't see from a safe distance - once you summon your courage and go. what is there to be claimed?

the man smiled. his eyes glimmered. it made the creases sharpen above his brow-

more edges for falling off.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

thislifethislifethislife – existing is an epic event with too much magnitude.

Three profundities of Tor:

2010-06-30T17:04:00.000-07:00

1) Who are you to sit in judgment upon yourself?

2) Choice can only take you so far.

3) Believe your own message.

μεγαλοπρεπής

2010-06-14T00:06:00.001-07:00

lessons from the kingly road:

aspiring to something greater than what you can do
will sometimes be the only choice left.

when you have to carry more than you can hold,
something will fall.

your heart can break many times more than once.

the only protection from the debris that hurtles through a tornadic cloud
is love.

keeping faith
through the dark
means that if the storm ends,
your faith made it through because of you.

lightning strikes maybe once, maybe twice
oh and it lights up the night-
gypsy – Stevie Nicks

a glimpse

2010-05-11T09:32:00.000-07:00

Wan sun masked enormous stars my mind knew were there.
Flat ground appearing still moved beneath my feet in unending spin.
Sensation sprung from the waiting sublime spread the gap, letting what lay beyond come forth in its infinite rush.
There it was - just like she always said.

I stood fixed in the bliss of its stare. What wouldn't be described in explaining terms showed my consummate love for getting closer. Its surge enveloped my head, crowding out the noise, the pointless detail. The definition cutting up what made more exalted sense whole. Spreading sped my heart until every vein rejoiced, carrying the light that made the living moment coalesce.
Then the thought that counted was able to present itself.
Is it possible, when consumed in the terror of what overwhelms, to see that it can be temporary? To see that obliteration can pass like a harsh season, leaving what lasts fresher roots to descend in deeper earth?
Of course.

2010-05-07T21:13:00.000-07:00

glorious lament

2010-04-25T12:58:00.000-07:00

oh you magic marvelous people who shine,
you glimmers of wonder,
harbors of heat and spark-
you plummeting, spinning vessels dropped from somewhere beyond the space in which you fall,
what treasure is fashioned in the fragile fathoms where you understand?

you sweet sad knowers of heartbreak,
of tragedy melting the moments that burn,
you martyrs in the mountains of your own magnificence,
it's those moments passing in your eyes that make sense of this unyielding world.

captivated mistresses to the same lover,
spellbound slaves in the kingdom where you serve,
mighty sojourners in this relentlessly evolving life that grinds anything standing in its way to dust -

I stand applauding your descent with dizzy ardent awe.

crooked house

2010-03-17T19:29:00.001-07:00

PlatinumHighlights#36

2010-02-28T15:08:00.000-08:00

art homework-

weird concept.
how can art ever be homework? or homework be art?

anyway, it seemed to work. I hated this the first 10 hours I worked on it and then something changed.

PlatinumHighlights#36 is supposed to sound like a hair dye - like something Marylin Monroe would have used.

winter desert

2010-02-28T01:31:00.000-08:00

does a sudden soft snow
on icing riverbeds
crossed by a frozen bridge
of sliding trailer-trucks

release a sigh in your mind like the ending of time?
does life roll through your gut?

can a rust colored road
carve a crystalline night
into stretches so wide

sensation slides through your spine like blood on the vine?
does life roll through your gut?

will the silhouetted stalk
of a sleeping black tree
showered in the tail of speeding space-rock

make you tilt your eyes high
see that light streaking the sky
know one day your soul will watch itself die?

does life roll through your gut?

I was looking for you..

2010-02-21T10:40:00.001-08:00

it was snowy here on Earth last night.

and dark. black and clear and fresh as a first breath taken, full of frosted shards of sweet stabbing sight.

beauty that cuts so sure and sharp should be forbidden, don't you think?

maybe you agree. maybe that's why you left.

I still seek your spirit. it still remains, strong enough to materialize like a jumping, spinning lure.

I've tasted the sadness enough to know it's a shame. the greatness only you can explain.

tell me, please? the shine is a light I cannot resist.

2010-02-17T19:06:00.000-08:00

candy for miss Dani – surfing snowboarder extraordinaire

average melancholy

2010-02-16T07:21:00.000-08:00

Mighty Presence

2009-11-09T20:11:00.000-08:00

When I first caught sight of you, hovering there, behind the canopy, my mind tore into itself trying to escape its fear.
You, who knows the strength of certainty, the dignity in resolve.
Who manifests the might of what I dare not seek.
You stood quiet and waited for my childish protests to dissipate.
Fierce face in the forest, constant companion waiting to be embraced.
On the edge of being we meet.
A touch like ancient wind in a temple, like satiny petals from next year's spring.
A touch that comes from another place, bringing intoxication to the rest of my days.

you say you want...

2009-11-09T19:42:00.000-08:00

you say - it is.
I say - it must be.
you say - we are.
I say - we have to be.
you say - all is Right just here, and now.
I say – all is just Right Here and Now.
you say – why such friction?
I say – to make the spark.
you say – can't there ever be peace?
I say – in the center of the flame.
you say – this is being happy?
I say – if I stay awake.
you say – but at what cost?
I say - maybe more than I can pay.
you say - then where will it lead?
I say – I'm dying to find out.
you say – this is too much.
I say – yes.
I say - yesyesyesyesyes.

Why Everything Matters

2009-10-30T12:14:00.000-07:00

The decisive arena -
can you believe it?
Can it actually be true?
Here you stand.
Here it lies, in front of you.
Right where you look this very second.
Staggering stunned amazement storming every vestibule of your soul.
Determined to gain admittance.
Resolute on stirring what will bring you to your knees.
What can drive you to the ends of yourself so that you have to take that terrifying step towards something else.
Something more.
Welcome to this unbelievable adventure, this nightmarish dream.
This impossible magnificent miracle of your own existing.
Sshh- not too loudly now. Dangerous to draw the attention of too many Gods.
...everything matters.

2009-10-12T20:18:00.000-07:00

I am Mad.
I am so unbelievably Mad.
Dizzy, deliriously Mad.
Dangerously, deliciously Mad.
Crazy-confused-contrary Mad.
Thrashing-smashing-hammer-head-shark-biting Mad.
MadMadMad that lasts-as-long-as-the-sigh-coming-while-watching-something-die Mad.
Anger has nothing to do with it.
Desperation has everything to do with it.
Mad love for the GreatGrandGorgeousness chases my feet down a night alley paved in echoing brimstone where a wall stretching beyond the sky waits to knock me down.
So there will be no choice.
So there will be only the chance to turn.
Only the chance to stand.

revelations

2009-07-07T16:32:00.000-07:00

the place of too much insistence asks
what is the reason for such longing?
the place of knowing replies
to understand that you are here.
the place of too much knowing asks
what is the need for unbearable existence?
the place of wisdom replies
to discover what really is.
the place of too much wisdom asks
what is the purpose in this obliterating pain?
the place of compassion replies
always there is purpose in love.
the place of too much compassion asks
what is the terrifying promise held by death?
the place without a name replies
what would you give for the secret pleasure of being born?

never what you expect how you expect it or where you expect it to be
yet-
still it is there

windows

2009-05-22T21:19:00.000-07:00

Hole, holly, whole-est.

A hole is the space left by something gone missing.
What's missed shapes a window to the holier place.
Through its widening frame comes the breath of being complete.
Life transformed from what it was before,
wholly different, wholly new, wholly replete.

2009-04-19T11:33:00.000-07:00

Darkness watches the world.

with unmoving eyes-
a still heart,
and vigilance that doesn't tire.

with a knowing stare
resigned to what will sometimes
have to be.

not vicious,
or cruel
(it takes a stronger sense of desire to shape these daggers)
a guardian on duty for nobler cause than the cold shade it reflects.

a keeper of the reflection,
second half of the equation,
chill air that begs for a flame of heat,

darkness watches remembering light,
sparking its life into being.

about a girl

2009-03-18T18:27:00.000-07:00

There once existed a person who didn’t know how to fit. Not in the daily world, where so many seemed so much better at facing each morning without turmoil. Not in the bigger world where the right kinds of answers earned their speakers treasures of merit and means (even if they weren’t true). Not in the best world where extraordinary people worthy of deep respect worked hard to achieve great ends.

This existing person walked around not fitting, seized by worry over what to do in such a predicament. Sometimes sleeping in cars, searching for ghosts in $20 motels, rambling nonsense that dripped with sublimating sight. Sometimes riddled with chagrin for coming up so short. Often overcome with gratitude for the vast, fascinating emotions of the plight.

Until a day came when the non-fitting person stopped trying to exist. When the non-fitting person slipped through the door designed for just such a shape, and an entirely-other realm of being began. A realm where mere existence couldn’t possibly seem as important again.

When something doesn’t fit there’s an easy, obvious reason. An odd shape is odd because of its shape. Because it came that way. Because it is that way.
Because The Door is meant to be traversed.
Only a statement that sounds this simple could hide such deliverance.

2009-03-11T16:51:00.000-07:00

hhhhmmmmmmmnn.....

fire

2009-02-22T15:21:00.000-08:00

Need to be wild.
Need it.

Like pouring Coltrane,
harsh winter rain,
sweet splitting pain,
need it.

Like an Ivan-ic Dane,
no knowledge of blame,
partly insane,
need it.

Upended shock in the late-night middle-of-the-lane-
dazzling encounters with God and shame,
need it.

needitneeditneedit until my soul can't believe it -

Flashes of brilliance, resplendent resilience, life-as-it-has-to-be diligence,
need it.

To follow a call that speaks with enough beauty to subdue me,
need it.

Need it.

loop

2009-02-06T21:04:00.000-08:00

for (life=begin; life < completeunderstoodcelebrated; life++)
{
love(life);
learn(life);
bleed(life);
}
return beauty;

The Face of Truth

2008-12-24T14:45:00.000-08:00

When the barrier comes down, when totality emerges as gently as it can (with the strength of ten thousand hurricanes) - a face is revealed. A face of immeasurable depth, without shape, and carrying the expression of a million souls.

A void with the ability to blur every extraneous noise into a wall of silence so serene, so calm, that Peace walks past and reaches out a hand to brush against such smooth, beautiful stone.

devotion

2008-12-04T19:49:00.001-08:00

"No" she breathed over her shoulder. Her breath sighed with gratitude. "Never will anything mean more." Her sigh dissipated in golden air, "never will I turn away from a light that brings this sort of love."

It's the power of what reaches beyond the coming and going everyday.

Outside of social structure and even biological structure of days and weeks, of stages of life. Existing eternal, and absolute, with less concern for all this temporary stuff that we hold onto like it won’t end.

As though every impermanence of each individual life passed on earth can be punctured and the infinite can be let through.

Regan's Room

2008-10-13T09:50:00.000-07:00

How to put truth in a piece of work. How to manifest the great reason for working, the chance to feel union and sameness with the diviner underlying nature so worth loving to emulate. And why the need can - in one instant - become more important than any other idea even on its way to forming.

Desperation can be exhausting. It can be devastating. It can be immediate and inciting and full of the most raving annihilation one could ever seek. And in its gorgeous beating wake the encounter with clarity can be so miraculous that semantics between desperate and alive become impossible to separate.

2008-10-10T21:39:00.000-07:00

The real journey is inside. When you know this, you know.

a world away

2008-08-21T23:48:00.000-07:00

What to do when you are in love with what you can't have? How to accept a life outside the brighter shine that can come any day the sun summons us to live?

Strange, the difference between a day with love and a day without it. Not love for another person, or a moment of excitement, a breathe of achievement. Just love. The difference is like being two people. Like being asleep and being awake.

You can be in love with love and you can't have it. You can know the way of life that is meant for you and not be able to live it. It's only when the loop falls back on itself that the wisdom in this paradox can be glimpsed.

Approximation of Truth

2008-07-25T09:50:00.000-07:00

Why does it all have to be so tragic.

It's so often not what it seems

2008-07-04T12:05:00.000-07:00

And what it is defies description.

Fun to try though. Fun to allow that other flavor of existing the chance to run its countless centipede legs through your head.

All these mythologies and descriptions of the way to enlightenment are only a reaching towards the jump. They appear so intriguing, so compelling when the shift is still to be made because these precursors are exactly the right triggers. They help draw you toward where you need to go.

Once the sense becomes acclimated beyond first steps, the incompleteness of this shell can be seen. But by then, looking back holds no mystery.

On the Road

2008-06-11T16:50:00.000-07:00

A view from the road can catch you by such incredible surprise. Special sort of color in the light, strange pungent smell on the air, and suddenly you're overcome in astonishment realizing you're actually standing there.

Lift your hands, turn them, put them in the path of the sun to see its rays reveal a pink-red shade. The secret of blood swishing through your animated flesh. Reminding that you only see what you do while the red runs in your veins.

Why does a certain sort of understanding lead to life beyond what the unopened eye knows exists?

To make us realize that more realms wait once we learn how to look.

Mad Genius

2008-05-22T18:37:00.000-07:00

Antipodal headspace: the layer of consciousness that occurs when the conventional pattern of thinking is disrupted. It's like undergoing a magnetic shift between poles in the way you experience being aware. The shape, the dimension that life takes on there gives rise to sensations that are too delicious to explain. But it is a real place, and if you've been there you know where the compulsion to express it comes from.

A light behind the door

2008-05-13T09:33:00.000-07:00

Some cannot resit the sort of exploration that yields both danger and the ripest fruit. Nietzsche said stare not into the abyss lest the abyss stare back into thee. Yet he did stare, and even his warning holds something enticing. What could he mean, in this allusion to power and enormity? A huge expanse, uncovered ground? Something that lies in waiting.

These are the deeper dimensions of the mind. Our unique and defining characteristic, the ability to perceive our own being. A Pandora's Box that opens with the most sparkling shine. The beginning is a show of amazement and delight. Then it pulls you into channels you had no ability to fathom from the surface. Channels that run through places you couldn't have guessed. Of course you wanted the chance to try, but when you're in the really deep, you realize it will take everything you have to navigate a course.

Perhaps it is foolish to challenge something so much more than yourself. Perhaps it is safer leaving the box undisturbed. But the chance to open that lid is the innate gift of begin alive.

Joy

2008-05-07T14:45:00.000-07:00

The most simple, essential beauty. You don't understand what this experience means until it slips from your life.

In its absence, the voice of worry and fear bite with bigger teeth, ripping more blood in their thieved pieces of flesh. In its absence, the darker side of being feels like it will win. Blackness becomes incomprehensible and insurmountable. Terrifying.

The loss of Joy reminds you of its light. Of the dancing white-bright shade that can lift you to places of sublime alrightness. Of the way life can feel in its tickling embrace.

Joy is the beauty you take for granted until it is gone. But maybe a more complete understanding of its gifts is worth a temporary exile.

The way to greatness

2008-04-24T08:40:00.000-07:00

If we could find it, would everything be right?

That feels like the implication. What is the inner stirring that demands such effort? Why so much drive to become something more?

Evolution spurs life on in a constant energy of betterment because there is something better to become.

Underlying pattern in this equation implies the possibility. That possibility starts to loom like a glimpsed spirit in a sleepless night. It lures you on to another, more delirious place. A place that holds more strangeness, that has too much meaning to be missed.

Alright death, alluring gate-keeper, ender of my seemingly endless living, what is it you have to reveal? So inexorably linked with the mystery of waking up everyday, how can you possibly be ignored?

The passion I stare at you with- I am not morbid, I do not have a death wish. I am just so blisteringly aware of being alive that your presence ignites my senses, fanning the heat in each moment’s touch until I can hardly stand the unbearable bliss of perceiving it.

NO ETERNAL REWARD WILL FORGIVE US NOW FOR WASTING THE DAWN

Mr. Mo Jo Risin’

Artists are doomed

2008-03-27T18:40:00.000-07:00

The master said it best.

Yes, the term "master" makes most minds latch magnetically onto the obvious: Michelangelo, Raphael, Rembrandt. But there is no better master than the one who interpretted art in the only way he could to give his own unique voice life. The voice with so much to say that a whole new horizon of expression had to be invented - which is, of course, the best purpose in art. Reaching as far as possible into the beyond.

But Vincent van Gogh talked to his brother Theo in letters about the trouble he knew future artists would face. The same trouble he faced, and hoped to imagine away through the fantasy of a community starting with him and Paul Gauguin.

Maybe, just maybe, buffeted from the Mistral in a little yellow house planted like a strong stark stalk in the south of France, they could be free day by day to put in the heavy hours needed to create their work. Without having to compromise the effort to pursue a material existence, all living endeavor could go where it had to. This, perhaps, could solve the acute problem of having to focus all one's energy into work that would buy no bread. Indeed, Theo would later comment - as Vincent deteriorated into a more and more strained mental state - the neglection of his material existence was to blame for so much of his woe. And Vincent would say in return, but this is where the work is born.

Van Gogh said the need to support oneself pitted against the need to put all good attempt into art would be at the crux of most strife many of his peers would face. So to the artists who I know struggle so well, the feeling coming to mind is love. And like all who cannot give it up, you are still doomed.

Syd

2008-03-27T16:59:00.000-07:00

What could be more vivid artistically than attempting to represent one of your most admired sources of inspiration on the day his soul departs this world?

Channeling the spirit of Mr. Barrett brought exhilaration equaled only by devastation in learning he passed the day I painted him. I might have tried to refine this except the thought of doing anything to it after hearing the news burned like sacrilege.

In signature melodramatic form, I wrote my message to him on the back of the work undertaken with deepest homage:

"This is almost finished but never will be because Syd Barrett died the last day I touched it and now I will not touch it again. Goodbye Syd. I know what you were."

Dark Flower

2008-03-15T14:52:00.000-07:00

The experience of transcendence, inspiration, whatever you want to call the visionary place that lives with such overpowering force, cannot stay dependent on destruction. It's not hard to see why it starts out destructive. The natural inclination the soul carries for something more is the very tool that encourages the cutting of the blocking, limiting self. Clearing out this entangling mess is what allows the experience to really open up. But art - no matter what level of truth or beauty it might attain - should not have to bear the price of life. Until this particular problem is solved there are still essential lessons to learn.