These days

So going a little looney these days.  I have not been smoking and have had to deal with a bit of stress over the past few months; so it has been a struggle. 

I saved my dog.

I am losing myself.  Whoever, that is.

Been studying Zen

Trying,

And failing.

Pissing off people at work,

And at home...always at home.

My kids save my existence everyday.

I would just be a puff of smoke on the wind

If they didn't remind me everyday

Saying, "Daddy, you're the best."

I’ve changed my ways a little; I cannot now
Run with you in the evenings along the shore,
Except in a kind of dream; and you, if you dream a moment,
You see me there.

So leave awhile the paw-marks on the front door
Where I used to scratch to go out or in,
And you’d soon open; leave on the kitchen floor
The marks of my drinking-pan.

I cannot lie by your fire as I used to do
On the warm stone,
Nor at the foot of your bed; no, all the night through
I lie alone.

But your kind thought has laid me less than six feet
Outside your window where firelight so often plays,
And where you sit to read—and I fear often grieving for me—
Every night your lamplight lies on my place.

You, man and woman, live so long, it is hard
To think of you ever dying
A little dog would get tired, living so long.
I hope than when you are lying

Under the ground like me your lives will appear
As good and joyful as mine.
No, dear, that’s too much hope: you are not so well cared for
As I have been.

And never have known the passionate undivided
Fidelities that I knew.
Your minds are perhaps too active, too many-sided… .
But to me you were true.

You were never masters, but friends. I was your friend.
I loved you well, and was loved. Deep love endures
To the end and far past the end. If this is my end,
I am not lonely. I am not afraid. I am still yours.


Robinson Jeffers, 1941

From Childhood's Hour

“From childhood’s hour I have not been
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I loved, I loved alone.”

—	Edgar Allan Poe

Friends

I need friends. I have friends; but i need friends that actually want to hang out with me. I need some people in my life that really don’t give a damn about my situation. I am going to start doing things that I want to do and if the people in my life want to participate then you are welcome to. Otherwise I will meet new friends. Am I wrong?

Me.

I love books. 
I love to talk about books.
I think a little too deeply for my own good sometimes.
My brain goes so fast and so far beyond what I am able to control sometimes.
I like old logs, stumps,  rotten old abandoned houses, old concrete walls covered in moss and lichen.
I love cats....and dogs but I am more of a cat kind of person.  I am good with other peoples dogs.
I think about old bones, half exposed in the brush somewhere.  It doesn't matter whether it is human or animal.  I like finding these and trying to tell their story.
I like classical music.
I like alternative and heavy metal music.
Beethoven is my favorite.
I like electronic, ambient, and dub step, too.
I like old woodpiles, and being alone somewhere far away at dusk.
I am meloncholy; sometimes to the extreme.
I love movies and love to talk about a really good one that makes me think.
I love the smell of fresh turned dirt in the spring, the sound of frogs, and the smell and sounds of a good swamp.
And oh do I love insects, bugs, and yeah even spiders.
I grew up with fish and water everywhere so it is in my blood and I love it.
I like to sit somewhere and see what happens; anywhere. 
I think my favorite places to sit are in a natural setting.  I like to just be quiet and see what lives there.
Although, I also like to find little ecosystems in the middle of cities and see what lives there.
I love the little things that make up our world.
The ocean is my place to re-set to zero.  I want to live there.  Not some sunny beach but the Pacific Northwest Coast.
I love the night sky but loathe it too.  It hurts my brain trying to figure out what is out there.  I want to know.
I practice Zen Buddhism and fail everyday.
I know that if I did not have my children I would end it all.  I love them more than anything that exists.
I am lonely but not very social and am awkward.  I try to be a nice guy.  I treat people the way I want to be treated but I don't always want to. 
Sometimes I don't want to talk and there is no reason
I love motorcyles...everything about them.  Tattoos as well.
I just put flowers on my parents grave and cried for an hour.  I haven't done that in a long time.
People like me for some reason that I don't understand.  I don't get it.
I know all these things but do not know myself.  Go figure.

The Return: Forever out there.

Out where I grew up it is very dark at night. Sometimes if you are lucky the moon shines through the tree branches enough to light the way. It is a strange place at times; it has its own life and energy. I have never understood it, not even today. This place has a secret. A secret not meant to be discovered, or at least not by me. I walk the forest trails and see things move out of the way, but I can never see them directly. These things slither, crawl, and jump through the brush.

When I do happen to see these creatures, they look at me with more knowledge in their eyes than I would expect. It is startling, not only because a doe may have just jumped out of nowhere in front of me, but that she has a vigilant look in her eyes. It is an earthy look, full of grit and survival. The desperation of knowing that a year from now her life will be different, or over.

Everything here moves with purpose; no energy is wasted. I can get caught up in it. If I let go and listen to the night, and if I let those primal urges of want and desire flow into me, my eyes grow large with fear and flight. My heart pounds as I place myself in the wildness that surrounds me. I can feel the desperate pull to be savage, ruthless, cunning, and unclean. I long for scratches and torn skin, to feel blood flow. I want to show this place that I can take it. I want to scratch bark and piss on the borders of my claimed land and fight all that dare cross it. I want to show that I will be fat by winter and will emerge alive and victorious in the spring…

I pull into the start of the driveway where I used to wait for the bus year-round. The bus would pull up, the doors would fly open and there would sit old Eldon Baker. I don’t think I have ever seen anyone look so old for so long. He never seemed to age but just looked old all the time. He is gone now; dead like so many people that I have known.

I continue on over the double cattle guards; they were supposed to keep the reservation cows off the property, but the cows always found another way in. I am the only one that has business out here now. I am here to tend to my bees. They used to be mine and Dad’s bees, but he is gone too. Mom comes out with me now and then but always wants to be dropped off at the Indian Casino a mile farther down the road.

There have been some changes since the last time I was here. I look and find the old landmarks of childhood here and there; trees and fence posts that have some significance to me. Clumps of weeds that have lived in colonies for decades, ever renewing themselves and spreading their likeness for miles around. I pass by a small clearing to my left where I found transplanted marijuana plants hidden in the very high forests of sweet clover that grew there every summer.

Farther down from the clearing I turn onto the rabbit-barn road, a place of pure terror when I was a kid. The Johns family next door kept rabbits inside the little red barn and also in cages outside. At night, the rabbits in the outside cages fell victim to all kinds of night horrors. Many times I would be the first to find the shredded remains of a rabbit that had been pulled through a crack in the cage by some heavily-toothed beast, perhaps coyotes or stray dogs. But the combination of seeing that and the dark woods around the barn area created an aura of evil that my little mind could not comprehend. I had nightmares and avoided that place at almost all cost. Bob Johns used to sit up there in the dark with a 12-guage, waiting to see what would come to get his rabbits. Safe in my bed I would wait for the shot in the night, wondering what beast Bob would encounter; would they find him torn to shreds in the wet morning grass?

The little red barn is now a wretched structure. The red paint is peeling in long strands that, from a distance, look like rivulets of blood running down its sides. After years of failed attempts at rabbit farming the Johns quit; they butchered the remaining rabbits but left everything else. Cages were left with the doors hanging open and the rabbit droppings and bedding was left to rot with the structure. I still didn’t play there because even though the rabbits were gone, I knew their scent was not. It was easy to envision being caught by a feral predator, and not finding a rabbit, would satisfy itself with me.

Now as I drive out here I am with different people. My Mom is dead now. I miss her. Everyone that was a part of this place and knew it's beauty is gone now; now I bring my kids out here and they love it; which it makes me smile.

I have been to many places. I have visited Germany, lived in Texas, Georgia, and walked the swamps of Louisiana and Mississippi, but I have never found a place to match my old home. It is so familiar it hurts my heart. The same smells, most of the same sights and sounds but the important people are gone; the people that understood. The people that live there now have changed things. Their houses look like shit; yards and all. They have no respect for it here. The wonder that lives around them; they have no eyes for it. They do not know how to get deep down into the ground; the soiled, primal heart of it.

I have never left here. Somewhere in the middle of it all my heart remains trapped in the mud, brush and trees. My soul swims the creeks, and ponds. I often dream of this place. In the dreams I see my Mom and Dad, the colors are vivid and sharp, beautiful. In the dream everything looks different but I always know it is out where I grew up.

Forgive the grammar.....and the punctuation.

What do you know? What can you do? The only thing I have ever been able to do without extended knowledge is operate machinery. I can sit in any machine you put me in and within a few hours work it like a pro; in some cases better than those that have done it for years. I can sit in a 58 ton machine and feel it like it is a part of my body. I can feel the slightest vibration even though the entire machine is vibrating all over. I can feel it. I have tried to explain this to people I have trained but they don't get it. I got a job once by telling the interviewer that I don't know how to operate but I know how to feel the machine. I replaced their operator permanently in 6 days; he had been operating this particular machine for 5 years. He was mad. I understand but he couldn't feel the machine. So how does this pertain to a literacy journey? I don't know other than I want more knowledge of the things that interest me. I love some many subjects, and explore so many things in this world and I want to know more. I want to know why mound ants, mound. I want to know why moss grows where it grows. I want to know why we dream; and why we fail. I want to know why a porn star is a porn star. I want to know why everyone thinks I am weird. I want to know why I need to have a job and why we need money.

I think most of all I want to express myself better. I have all these things, ideas, swimming around in my head. I want to know how to calm my brain that is going a thousand miles per hour all the time. There is not enough time for all these things in one day, or a year, or a lifetime.

Maybe, through my college experience, I will find a way. I will find a focus. Perhaps I will meet the right instructor to help me in this journey. I am hoping I can get up the guts to be more sociable with my fellow students; and learn from them. I am hoping for long lasting friendships with like minded people; and even those that are not so like minded. I honestly like to know both sides of any issue or idea.

Photos: "Zombie" Ants Found With New Mind-Control Fungi

Photos: "Zombie" Ants Found With New Mind-Control Fungi

Allegory of the Cave by Plato

This to me is a true story of enlightenment. Perhaps, as my German wife pointed out, that Kant's vision of enlightenment was lost to me in translation. Which makes me visualize another entry for my blog.

The Allegory of the Cave. It is making me think too much at the moment. I always think too much anyway.

So right now we are all stuck in our cave of understanding and slaves to our ideas and desires. We see the shadows on the wall that we associate with our reality. The fire is our false light of understanding. We are prisoners to ourselves. We want what is in this cave because we have been told since birth that this is what life is about and what you should do with your life. However, at some point, probably when you have become older and less satisfied with what life has had to offer, your mind opens to the possibility of not needing what is in this cave.

A house is just a house. We have been made to associate owning a house with a successful life. What car you drive makes no difference. The car is just a tool to get you to where you need to be. The“best” of anything is only in how you perceive your current situation. Do the things you own make you who you are? Does your job? Your spot in society? No. Only how you perceive how you are makes you what you are.

So you are stuck in your cave, or in what you know. You have become satisfied by this, until that one day when some “idea” or even a dissatisfaction of some area of your life creeps in. It is a nagging feeling. It persists. You try to shake it off but it won't go away. It is then that you may turn toward the blinding light that exists outside your cave. It is a painful transition. It is painful to you, and to those around you. You are shaking off what has been your definition. You struggle. You want to turn back sometimes and wallow in the misery of where you were before, and you do go back. However, the need for freedom from your ignorance is too strong. You take small steps in the beginning; going farther and farther outside your cave. Slowly you get used to the blinding light of reality. And yes, you are blinded. There is no turning back into the darkness of your cave once you are enlightened. You cannot see in the light, or in the darkness. You, once blind, can only live in what you can touch before you.

My response to Kants, "What is Enlightenment?"

This is not an essay on enlightenment but on freedom. Enlightenment differs from freedom in that enlightenment means to let go of our daily issues concerning ourselves and what we want and think we need. Kant may be a well known individual however after a fairly short time I could not help but feel beaten over the head with his ideas on enlightenment. I think he himself is stifling enlightenment by putting more thoughts than are needed into heads already confused by what social freedom is. In many ways I don't think he is enlightened himself by his attitude toward the institutions he is describing.

I believe we as a society expect, as other past and present civilisations have, that our government and ruling parties know best how to attain and keep our freedoms and ways of life. That is where we go wrong.

First gain enlightenment, and with that will come freedom. When as an individual you let go of your expectations, you will let go of your need of governments and religious orders that claim to enrich your way of life.

In his book "Zen Mind, Beginners Mind" Shunryu Suzuki says, "If you seek for freedom you cannot find it."

By saying man is ignorant of his freedoms, or his enlightenment, Kant is himself stifling freedom by suggesting that men/women must attain something more than themselves to be free. Freedom first must come from within. How would you know what you wanted from your governmet, or religious order without knowing yourself first?

Thoughtlessness....probably not a word.

Yeah, I know.  That word in the title probably isn't a word.  Call me Jesse Jackson then.

I have written quite a bit since my last post.  I haven't felt that any of it has been worth putting up here though.  I am about to go lay down for a nap before work.  I am not liking that.  I feel stuck in drudgery.  I am trying to work through it mentally, and you know I am also using Zen, but I keep hitting a wall.  I am a worker bee.  A slave to a system that I do not care for.  No one listens to anything worth listening to.  Everyone is afraid of what might happen if they speak up. Those that should be spoken to are unaware and if they are aware do not care.  Paulo Freire, says:

"Indeed, the interests of the oppressors lie in "changing the consciousness
of the oppressed, not the situation which oppresses them"for the more the
oppressed can be led to adapt to that situation, the more easily they can be
dominated. "

Exactly.  Any thoughts or ideas presented those that are "in charge" are met with excuses, or in a couple cases, not even a response.  This particular individual just walked away with a blank look.  Also from the Paulo Freire article:

"When their efforts to act responsibly are frustrated, when they find themselves
unable to use their faculties, men suffer. "The suffering due to impotence
is rooted in the very fact that the human equilibrium has been disturbed."But the inability to act which causes men's anguish also causes them
to reject their impotence, by attempting
...
to
restore [their] capacity to act. But can [they], and how? One way is
to
submit to and identify with a person or group having power. By this
symbolic participation in another person's life, [men have] the illusion of
acting, when in reality [they] only submit to and become part of those
who act."
Sounds like politics too.

So at some point when a service worker of some kind doesn't seem that excited about being of service perhaps one should think of why.  We as a society usually dump on people in such professions but our society would not function without them.  Fuck it...that is all I can think of.  Or perhaps I have gone back into thoughtlessness!

Things on my mind that I cannot put words to:
Old rotten logs
Old fence lines
Dogs
Privacy
A forest somewhere
James Tate poetry

Exerpts are from Paulo Freier "The "Banking" Concept of Education.  Read it.  It will make you think.