Fall

i walk
to learn time.

put in place

She broke my words
with her back;
they were snatched
from my throat
as her lines
force courage
and her eyes
leak age.

She broke my words
with her back
and i could carry
no light but
crouch in the shadows
all intentions swallowed
behind sealed
lips and bated
breath.

My lies shattered on
the ground
but she bent her
back to calmly
pick up the
shinier pieces
and hand them back
to my bent
shame.

We broke our backs
out in the sun
she beneath the
burden of reality
and me….
my frail back
cracked under the
weight of
truth.

Idealist thoughts from a cynical kid

It's late and lately there has been no way for me to process the last few months. There's no time to write about life and when there is..my life seems unimportant compared with everything else going on in the world, so I ignore this blog. But for a moment I'm going to make an attempt to share a little bit of what's been on my mind and it starts with the Beatles.

So in all reality it didn't start with the Beatles. But today I was listening to the radio and a lovely station was playing only Beatles in music in honor of John Lennon's 70th birthday. (Happy B-day John) I was thoroughly enjoying myself as I navigated nasty wet roads in my car when I caught line from Strawberry Fields that I had never really noticed or understood before and this is how it goes:

Living is easy with eyes closed
Misunderstanding all that you see
It's getting hard to be someone
But it all works out
It doesn't matter much to me

Yeah, I know you all know the song. And I apologize for taking it out of context, but it summed up a lot for me.

But before I go into that...let's rewind a bit further.


I'm going to school for Social Work/English/Sociology...yeah that's a lot of slashes. But the point is it's all come down to a few ideas this last semester. One of them being the idea of being a citizen. In American society (Western society, Portland/Seattle/City Society/ middle class society... call it what you will) there's always been this idea of the "American Dream." We laugh about it, we think about it as this outdated, prehistoric concept that people used to strive for. But the reality is ...we are all still working for it, it just looks different. So whether your dream is a family, a dog, a suburu and a nice neighborhood, or maybe the perfect art loft and wine to swirl while talking art history, or maybe it's music, or maybe whatever. We all have some picture no matter how nice or grungy it might be. The thing is as much as we want to help and be involved in the world, we are all working to create OUR own dream. This inevitably influences the way we act, spend our money, spend our time, the way we vote.

This idea of citizenship is that, no matter how self-made we think we might be, the reality is we are standing on the hard working backs of the generations before us..or maybe even further back. Life is only as it is because other generations cared not just about their dreams but improving their societies. So as crappy as we might think things are now, it would be a lot worse if people before us hadn't strived for their people. My point: being a citizen is more than just living in a society or community it's actually contributing to that community.

Here's the problem. Little secret you all know.

Being involved in the community takes a lot of work! (I'm not referring to your house or best friends..I mean your actual neighborhood..your city)

It takes a hell of a lot of effort to get up every day and instead of solely focusing on your own agenda, consider what is going in the world. Reading the paper, staying updated on current issues and not just from the standpoint of the media, but actually finding out. Over and over I have been amazed at what has happened in my own city that I had no clue about.

This isn't the first time I've thought about this and I'm sure it won't be the last. See the problem is life seems to get in the way and I get lazy. There isn't time to read the paper, to go to community forums, to volunteer, to know my own neighbor. The reality is no matter how much my schedule frees up..there will never be "time" until I recenter my life. If I could recast my "American Dream" of a living in artsy neighborhood, having a creative loft and working the perfect job. If that could be content to live in a regular neighborhood and actually know the people there, people who are different than me and learn new ways of life and new ways of thinking. If my new "American Dream" would center around improving the life of others and not just my own, how different things would be. I mean really, imagine if that is how everyone operated. (Yeah go ahead, slap the Idealist stamp on my forehead..one can't help but dream)


Back to the Beatles:

When you live with your eyes closed, the few glimpses you get of the outside world..let me tell you...you're likely to misunderstand it...Go ahead, close your eyes and maybe YOUR life will work out.

I know keep saying "You" but I really mean "me" and hopefully someday "we."




So really stop reading this blog (all 4 of you :) and try reading something that will tell you what's happening in real time.


Some suggestions:


A little history: A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America by Ronald Takaki

Buried My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown

A little "chicken soup" for a citizen's soul: Soul of a Citizen by Paul Rogat Loeb

Then maybe check out the news: there's a lot going on around us.

I wish I could find the links to some videos I saw at a conference on Immigration last weekend, but they don't seem to exist, so maybe later. That in itself is its own story/blog.



And while I'm sounding like a bright-eyed, fresh-faced idealist let me add the cherry on top:


As a Christian, this is what drives me:


"Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
To loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?
Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the wanderer with shelter-
When you see the naked, to clothe him and not turn away from your own flesh and blood?
Then your light will break forth like the dawn and your healing will quickly appear-"

~Isaiah 58


Another thing I'm learning...I don't want to be a charitable person. That seems to point to a bending down from a higher position to help. Nobody wants that. Rather I want to join with people around me.

INFORMATION OVERLOAD

This blogger will return to the blog-o-sphere soon. Currently she is experiencing an information overload and has crashed. Will return after reboot is complete.


Be back soon. For further internet mind consumption, maybe check out the newspaper online, or CNN.com...check out what's going on in realtime.

when i sleep

When I sleep I dream of the place I was born and of the darkness that I was born out of. For me, sleep is letting go of tightly wrapped fists, the slow release and relaxation of muscles but not the release of the tension they bear. Then it is the falling, like Alice down the rabbit hole, with closed eyes, I feel myself dropping out of myself, below my bed, through the floor and downward constantly downward into the dark nothingess. I try to peer through the darkness to find the body I’ve left behind, but I no longer know which way is up. Then through the darkness, comes the piercing light and I am reborn.

Poetry

If I break my
Thought into tinted
Drops of lines
And speak of leaves
Brittle and aged
That long ago fell
From the mouth of
A thoughtless soul
Reprieving it of life
With one last breath;

If that breath were
Captured or
Encapsulated in silence,


Separated,

By monotone colors,
By forms and shapes,
By empty structures,
By pride and vanity;


If that breath
Was made to breathe again,
Given form,
Given breadth,
Would it be art?

Or merely an attempt to
Label meaningless fragmentation
As knowledgeable beauty

Shadow dancer
Catch me up with you
Leaping through the Air
Carry me with you
Arms stretched to the sky
I can let go
Face upturned to the sky
I can see the sun
Lithe form graceful and complete
I can evolve
Moving across form and time
I can transcend
To cast your shadow
To become whole
Across everything in your path
Don’t leave me behind
You touch everything
I touch nothing
Become everything
I am nothing
Ever fluid
Trembling hands
Ever sure
Stumbling feet
Unafraid of stranger ground
I’ll stay on the line
Unafraid of rolling waters
I’ll walk beside the shore
You jump
I stand
You swim
I watch
You fly
I weep

fragile bones

sturdy ivory bones
the frame that I am wrapped around
but this skin is heavy
and my soul a deadweight
pulling and pushing these bones around

Shoving a path before these bones
Allowing a place for these bones to dwell
Only to blister and break
These fragile bones

Every shock, every tremor
Reverberates in these bones
These fragile bones
How they ache with time
How they die with time

The eyes fall shut
The brain spills forth from its home
And hands form fists that struggle against
These bones
But these bones
These fragile bones
Hold it all together

Slowly relaxing heavy eyelids
Carefully scooping up fallen brain
Unclenching fists
And setting feet back
Into trembling motion

But these bones
These fragile bones
Are ready for rest
And this soul is heavy
Ready to pin them down

Hungry

"when my soul starts growing, it's gets so hungry, I wish it never would stop growing"

I've had that song running through my head all week as I wrap up my year of school. When my soul starts growing. I like that idea. I like to picture a growing soul. We refer to people as having an "old soul," but I hope I am never an old soul. I hope I'm always hungry.

I want to be an alchemist. I want to be a person who takes the ordinary things in life and transforms them into something meaningful. Is that not what life is about? About taking the ordinary and making it valuable and in that process or participation becoming transformed oneself. Participation in life mixed with the ideals of working for something more. Knowledge and action.
My soul has been hungry. I can feel it. And it feels so good to be growing again.

Check out the song: Ponytail by Panda Bear

hope deferred

time is a funny thing. not all time...because i'm not sure i believe in time. But the time that binds us as humans, the time that binds what we know of our lives. All we can know of ourselves is from our birth to our death. No one remembers themselves pre-birth and no one has returned to explain post-death. So the time that we can perceive of our lives is a funny thing. In a sense we aren't bound by time but by knowledge.

Hm.. that's not what I wanted to talk about though. I guess I've been thinking about the tension of past and future. Is it that tension that results in the present? Or is the present just present. I prefer to think so. Even a person without a past lives in the present. It's always interesting to think about the future. In five years what will I be doing? Will I be alive? If I am will I be doing anything I ever planned, or will I be in a completely different sphere of life? Or, will I be sitting like I am now, contemplating the future? I hope not. It's good to be vision orientated, but only as long as it drives the present. I've always been time-sensitive. (not that i'm ever on time anywhere), but I guess I'm very aware of the unpredictability of our lives. I want to hope that my life will be worth something 5 years from now. I want to hope I will have done things to help others and change things for the better. Hope can be a driving vision. But, it can also be a depressor. "Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life." Interesting. I always expect hope to be an encouragement, but hope unattained "makes the heart sick." I get that. I know what it's like to hope and wait and feel deprived when I don't see that hope realized. It's only hope fulfilled that is really hopeful. So how does that fit? Hm. Hope is a "ground for believing good will happen." So maybe even as I hope for greater things in the future, I need to find the hope fulfilled in everyday. I need to find the small pieces of good that reside in my daily life. I think without a daily realized hope, I would have a hard time living. People need joy. People need pieces of light in the midst of a long waiting. I think those pieces can be a memory, a smile, a blue sky, a good song, anything when looked on with the right eyes.

Yet, on a deeper level, maybe that is what God is for us. Maybe he desired to be the hope fulfilled every day. Maybe if I could find God as my hope fulfilled daily, I would walk in a way that is patient and trusting for those other hopes. I think I know that. I think I know that a life that discovers God daily, is one fulfilled. But I've forgotten how to discover Him as hope.

I've forgotten how to recognize him as hope.

Here's to searching with new eyes.

Strange Embrace

tired eyes that see through mine
and follow the paths of my estranged lines
the hands that break from the arms
the legs that walk from the spine
stranger we have come so far
to know so little

tired eyes
that have traveled far
and stepped
inward to find
a stranger inside
and a stranger out
an awkward embrace of anonymity

tired eyes
please be kind
don’t bite into
this brittle core

A Prayer

O frailty of my hardened heart
Oh love that softens and dispels
The pride and pain from poisoned dark
And stills my soul that yet rebels

Oh God of hope my heart compels
To find my solace, rest in you
My fears and doubt your love dispels
Replaced with trust and hope anew

My King please quench this thirst in me
Embrace the pain my soul can’t take
Remove the scales and set me free
That I might live for your name’s sake

Help me to stand before I break
Give me a vision, hope imbued
Rise up this child, my heart awake
With sight restored and soul renewed.



Dedicated to Kael for her listening keyboard

Logos

Here's what I've got

words.

Language, words are not real. They are shells they are vessels into which we pour our experiences and meaning. Some words have shared meaning. Some are created to convey a personal meaning. Words are merely symbols creative by the collective.

if words in their barest form are meaningless why do we write, why do people journal?

People's minds are not full of words. They are full of emotions, the mystical and intangible. Words and language are the only concrete way to transpose that which has meaning and importance but no form. That which is intangible struggles to pour itself into the skeletal frame of language. In doing so, we can't transmit all of our meaning. But we try anyway. That way the next person who reads our words, might gain a fraction of our meaning and in turn pour their own experiences and meaning into the text...into the words.

Moving forward

The gospels: in the beginning was the word and the word was God and the word was with God.

Jesus is the word or logos. What does this mean? God in his deity is so far beyond human understanding and meaning. He is intangible. In order for us to ever understand this intangible Being, God poured himself into Jesus. Jesus, the word, is the concrete, tangible form of God. Jesus is God is the Word. Why do we all seem to define and identify Jesus (faith) in different ways? Because as we receive the Word, we each pour into it our own understanding and experiences. None of us truly know the entirety of the Word (Jesus), because we bring ourselves into our understanding.

Perhaps as a community of believers we can better understand God by bringing together our understandings of the Word (Jesus). Together all of our understanding will still not equal the entirety of God, but will give us a better glimpse of the tangible Word.

a continued fragment

That day, the little girl continued her journey. She walked and she walked. One step in front of the other, not caring where it took her as long as she was going somewhere. One step and than the next. Soon the little girl could not even tell if she was moving for she wandered into a place where the sun consumed the earth. All around her was blinding white light. She could not see before her or behind her and her eyes began to burn from the sun.

“Hello!” She called out into the light.

“Hello!” It called back to her.

“I can't see!” She cried again.

“Close your eyes!” It cried back.

So she closed her eyes and all was dark.

The little girl sat and pondered for a moment. But this won't help at all. With my eyes open: I am blinded by the light. With my eyes closed I have no sense of direction.

“Must you have a sense of direction?” It asked her.

“Well how am I supposed to get anywhere if I have no direction?” She began to cry.

“Really now, there is no need to cry.” it asserted patiently.

“But what am I going to do?” The tears were coming steadily now.

“I don't know. I suppose crying helps a lot though,” came the reply.

She hiccupped, her tears stopping for a moment.
“Well, I suppose it doesn't. But it was quite rude of you to say so.”

“No, it really wasn’t. It was just the truth.” It replied.

“Yes, well if that was the truth than the truth must be a rude sort of a thing. Besides, what am I going to do?”

“Wait.” It calmly replied.

“Wait?! How can I wait? I’ll just be wasting time.”

“Time? Oh, you cannot waste time! What a strange thing to say.” It replied.

“But, that is what we are doing right now!” She was anxious now. “If we keep waiting nothing will happen and I won’t get anywhere.”

“One does not waste time. No, we are letting time run its course.”

She started to get up, “I really must be going!”

“You won’t get anywhere. You’ll walk in circles, it’s to bright to see anything and with you eyes closed you’ll fall.” Its voice was matter of fact.

“What would you have me do then?’

“I already told you. Just wait.”

The little girl weighed her options. On one hand she could follow this stranger’s advice, but how did she know if she could trust him? Yet, she knew the voice was right, she would not get anywhere and something made her feel like she could trust the voice.
So she kept her eyes closed and waited.

The little girl could see the halo of the searing light that warmed her closed eyelids.
“What are we waiting for her?” She asked
“Just wait.”
So the little girl continued to wait.
The little girl began to relax in the warmth of the light as she waited the stillness slowly enveloped her.
Am I sleeping? She wondered.

“No,” came the voice. “You are waiting.”

The little girl continued to wait. The longer she waited the more the stillness seemed to come alive. She began to hear the quiet flow of a creek, the twittering of chatty birds, and the sound of the wind whispering through tree branches.

“The wait is over,” it whispered.

The little girl slowly opened her eyes. The light had dimmed so that she could see. Instead of the blinding light her eyes opened to a softly illuminated sky that whispered the herald of dusk.

She took a deep breath, taking in the enchanting sight before her with awe.
“Where did you take me?” She asked.

“No where” it replied.

“No where?”

“No where.”

Hello! she cried out into the light

Hello! It called back to her

I can't see! She cried again

Close your eyes! It responded

So she closed her eyes and all was dark.

white

The color peace?
The color of death
After the blood has left the body
after the heart has stopped.
I am dead, I have no claim
Tall, stretching for more
but without roots,
without roots I fall.

My past
my heritage
white-washed.
A past that most cannot find
behind the layers and layers
and strokes and strokes
of white.

But I do.
I do
and I carry it on my back
I carry it in my eyes,
I carry it in my feeble attempts for forgiveness.
Your land, your family, your life
I have taken without thought.
Your ways, your customs I have diluted to make you like
me.
colorless
white-washed

I carry shame
I humbly carry this shame.

To be me
is to stand privileged.
But I stand burdened
by the forgetting of people.
Of my people?
No, of my skin.
It forgets
It forgets the beat my heart skipped,
the past my memory will not recall
the time when I was dead.
I live under a heritage of death

a cell

funny thing

that we who are i

can talk like you do

strange

when we meet

it is you that speaks out of me

and only my voice do i hear from your lips

your words resound in my voice

your thoughts i argue with passion

we are the same

we are the same

i am the same

funny thing

that i am not myself

when i am near you

stranger yet

alone

uninhibited

i am no one

alone in an unlocked cell

oh and also

and another thing....

today i came across a thought. There is a God i believe in. My beliefs are formed from my experiences and what I have been taught. The God I perceive, He whom I believe in, is good. However, God is more than the way I perceive him. I have faith in a God who is great. By great I mean a God who IS. This is beyond how humans perceive and understand. Goodness is a way of measuring that is defined by humans. Therefore I work to know the God who is great. The God who is great is not necessarily good, because goodness leans on human understanding and God in his wholeness is outside of that.

The God I believe in is good.

The God I work to know better is Great. He is great, but not necessarily good.

And both are one and the same.

Hmmm...excuse my use of terms such as "faith," "belief," and "understanding" I tried to use them correctly, but may not have.

That was my thought.

Next week, I will have thought more and might return to remove this post.

but there it is.

Potential Energy?

Words are meaningless on their own without context, without a past, without a future.

an individual has an energy in them, both kinetic and potential. an "is" versus a "could" versus a "can." One can choose to step in a great variety of directions. You go one direction and find great pleasure meets you. But does that enjoyment make the path meaningful? I could choose to live my life in coffee shops with ink stains on my hands and books in my lap. But, if I spend my whole life solely learning and solely seeking knowledge, all my energy remains as potential energy. I am on the brink of action, but not in action because all that I have gained remains harbored within me, secluded within one being.

That is why writing is so important and also holds so much danger. It can trap an individual, it can trap me within myself, so that I remain egocentric. I live a life that flows from myself, I begin to raise my thoughts and ideas on a self-made pedestal.

But there is a potential that writing holds to spread knowledge and reveal ignorance in a wider circle. Writing can move an individual. It can excite emotions within one person, one group, one class, one nation and incite them with a contagious energy. Writing combines knowledge with emotion to create force that will drive its audience to the brink of action, a build up of potential energy. However, it is less common to actually create action, instead it builds awareness. What will it take to tip that edge into a present and active form of energy.

I can't just write. I can't just read what others write. It is not enough. I can't live as an academic. I can't do without the scholarly world...shallow answers are not enough for me. But it's far too easy to lose oneself in thinking.

So how do you shift from the knowledge that learning and reading brings you into the action it calls for? Once you reach that edge you need a complete shift...a self-upheaval. At this point your view has changed, your paradigm now aligns with another's. The step to action is to take the new found awareness and throw your thinking away from yourself. This shouldn't be mistaken as throwing thinking away in general, but allow it to center on something other than yourself. To move forward one has to learn to think in a way that doesn't orbit around oneself. All that is you is known and one has to step into the unknown (or away from oneself) to make it into action.

driving

Today, I find myself drinking Stumptown coffee in a small coastal town. My brother had a business meeting in Astoria and I opted to be his travel buddy.

There's something beautiful about driving into the daylight. We left when it was still dark out. We twisted and curved away from Portland's sleepy city lights until we found ourselves in a different world. The world that in actuallity makes up the majority of the American population. Rolling hills sequestering valleys that are green and coated in the moist morning rain. Bridges arch over winding rivers. Factories and lumber mills flock around these areas. Large cargo ships slowly march towards the shores. Before the car stand beautiful, live trees densely packed near one another. But beside us are the remains of yesterday's industry. Dark logs stacked in enormous piles, nearly carpeting the entire valley. Smoke rises from the factories, patching the dark morning sky and we drive on.
Within the shelter of the car, Band of Horses plays, "I could sleep...I could sleep," as the sky begins to lighten and the sun fights the low clouds to wake up the world. Morning arrives and soon we had arrived in small town Astoria.

I'm always amazed when i realize what a small representation the city is of the state. Portland, or whatever city one lives in, can seem like the world until you drive away from its borders. Than you realize that run-down factories, trailer parks, and towns that can be driven through in 5 minutes are really what make up the state.

Yet even in Astoria, Ive found a cup of Stumptown and a window from which I can watch the rain. Here the customers are older, retired couples reading the morning paper and drinking bold coffee instead of hip, young adults drinking rice milk lattes and discussing the latest trends. It's a contrast reminds me how much I take for granted the rhythms of my life.
The shop has already emptied out so, I think I'll leave the baristas an empty place and venture into the misty rain. A used bookstore down the road is calling my name!