Redemption Song

How many songs have been written for redemption, or to inspire revolution, a new world, peace, and new ways of thinking? How many artists, writers, and musicians have hoped to inspire millions, perhaps even the whole world, only to have had their works fall flat,  or to have inspired just a few of the hundreds of people who follow them and their works?


Just how do you bring people together? How do you unite a nation, much less the entirety of mankind?


It really shouldn't be all that hard, after all, we all come from the genus homo sapiens, we all live on the same planet, we all live and breathe and eat and reproduce, more or less.

Most of us are taught the same basic truths through our religions; love, compassion, the golden rule. That ought to bring at least a great majority of us together.
And yet religions set themselves far apart from each other, refusing to acknowledge their similarities, refusing to work together for the same end, the end that, really, all of them are looking to achieve.

Once again, we really aren't all that different.

So why hasn't anyone been able to accomplish world peace or unity as of yet?

Alchemy

---> I watched it turn
from metal aggregate-grey
to warm, soft gold in
the heat radiated from
the top of our wood
stove.
---> It took a couple
of days for alchemy
To transpire,
replacing heavy storm-
cloud atoms with shining
sun molecules.

---> the dumbbell,
transmutated.

Spaceship clouds

from my Tao journal 12/9/11

“Trascending Decline” the ninth passage of the Tao Te Ching;

‘Holding to fullness

Is not as good as stopping in time.

Sharpness that probes

Cannot protect for long.

A house filled with riches

Cannot be defended.

Pride in wealth and position

Is overlooking one’s collapse.

Withdrawing when success is achieved

Is the Tao in nature.’

            The last line speaks deeply, truly, personally. It means much, though it says little. It makes sense, though what it says is not how society works currently.

            Instead of a fish scrabbling to keep it’s place in the perceived waterfall of life and success, this passage speaks of a needle dipping in and out of the fabric of the universe, staying above the material only long enough to secure a stitch in place before diving back down beneath. The longer-lasting mark on the world belongs to the needle; The fish fights to hold its place only for reasons of the self, but the needle strives to strengthen and beautify the fabric of all.

           

            To stand only as long as the effect holds, and to dip back down below the threshold instead of milking the deed -the attention bestowed upon the deed- for all it’s worth. 

Sunset in Grain (Stupid blogger...)

Tell me, what are you thankful for?

Well, Thanksgiving is tomorrow, and lately I've been thinking about what I'm grateful for in light of recent events, in the personal and global spectrum. So, without further ado, here's a list of the ten things I'm most thankful for as the hours tick off to Thanksgiving:
# Youtube
# Free internet
# Family
# Raven, B., J., and Kathryn
# My entire family
# The Tao Te Ching
# Lloyd Alexander
# Orson Scott Card
# Innovation
# Free thinkers

Whoever reads this, I'd very much like it if you would post a list of the ten or more things you're thankful for, I'm looking forward to reading your lists :)

Three

The sky in Fire and Ice (grainy, 'cause Blogger stinks)

Society forgets the old and wise, while the young and fresh are institutionalized

As the river flows-

On, or off, The eyes that see-

begin to fade dull

Kira-Kira, by Cynthia Kadohata

I've read "Kira-Kira" three times.
I don't particularly remember reading it the first time, but the second time,  I remember thinking I had read it before.
The third time, I faintly remembered reading it, but I thought the characters had been American-India-an... I have no idea where that came from, as they're actually Japanese.

I've cried at the ending at least two times; it's a powerful story, written from an intriguing point of view.

I find myself wondering if I'll remember reading "Kira-Kira" the next time I come across it in my home, library, or anywhere else. I wonder...

Letter that I wrote originally for my letters blog

Dear Occupy Wallstreeters,
        I recently read an article about the letters and donations you guys receive from all over, one letter caught my eye in particular, it said that the Occupy Wallstreet movement must have -needs leaders, in order to survive with it's values intact.
        I disagree completely.
I think that leaders would ruin the whole idea of what you are trying to do, and what's more, leaders can be easily swayed and corrupted.
        Followers look to a leader for direction and influence, It is too easy to allow a leader take over your opinions, values, and your entire movement.
The reason the Occupy Wallstreet movement has survived this long is because you have no concrete demands; as has been said before, you have no particular requests, so nobody can say 'I've solved your problem, now quietly go away and bother us no more'.
        I believe you are changing the people's thinking, they see you and what you are doing, they hear what you have to say, I think that is more important than having a strongly opinionated leader.
        A leader would direct toward division, not unification.
        And I believe that unification is exactly what you are aiming to accomplish.
               Sincerely yours,
                    Amoniel

Photographs in the Life

(I swear they aren't all this grainy off of blogger.)

Rain Is Joy

Funny how rain represents joy to me, I've been happier today than I have been in a while.

Windows Into a Cream and Azure Sky

These are all unedited in any way.

Opal

Character study, page 63, “Writing a novel”

1^st study

“An old woman is opening a letter from her son. He is suggesting she moves into a home for old people. She doesn’t want to go.”

Opal carefully slit the letter open with one of her long, dark-purple nails.

            The porch swing she sat on swayed back and forth in front of her beloved home; her adoring young husband, Eli, had built the small, pristine white house as a celebration of their marriage. He had died more than four years ago, but Opal still felt the gaping hole that had been left in her life after his passing.

            She began to read the tidy penmanship of her eldest son.

            “Dearest Mother,

                        “I know you have reassured me that you’re quite fine; I still worry about you living all alone in Vermont, so far away from my brothers and myself. Since you won’t consider my offer to come and live with me and my family in California,” Too damn hot, Opal thought to herself before she continued to read the letter with trepidation;

“I decided to research homes for the elderly in Vermont. I’ve found a very promising institution, with minimal rules, and it’s close enough to your neighborhood that you won’t feel out of place.

Please consider this offer, Mother, I truly want the best for you.

            Your loving son

            Michael.”

            Opal set the half-open letter down on the porch swing, the edges of the paper trembled slightly in a spring breeze.

            If that well-meaning, persistent, eldest-son of mine thinks I’ll move into an ‘old folks’ home’, he’s as crazy as the kaizer. She thought, while a fond and annoyed grin stretched her wrinkly mouth. Though her face was as creased as a Shar Pei puppy, she was a beautiful woman.

            She sat up from the porch swing, her joints creaking more than a little, and stalked through her front door to fetch a pen and paper, a determined look giving strength to her face and stride. 

Interpretation Heart Translation

All of my words are gone today


there is poetry in my heart, 
but it does not translate well in the open air, 
the words are born translucent-white and empty,
no substance, no weight.

Not That Different After All.

"The kingdom of heaven is within", said by Jesus.

I read this yesterday, not for the first time, but it got me to thinking about what it really meant for me.

I started thinking about the truth it held for me, which is not necessarily the same for everyone else.
My interpretation is that God lives within me, God, in my belief, does not live on some far off planet, removed because of the unbearable sins of his children. I am a physical manifestation of God power and so on. God is always near, always listening, always teaching me that I have power, that I am never alone. 'The kingdom of heaven is within'.

I also apply this same idea to the whole of the Earth; plants, animals, rocks, trees, the ground, the sky, the wind. God is within, God is all around, God is everything.*


I think that this is very comforting, God, my heavenly creator, loves me so much, loves you so much, perhaps even loves the world so much, that he can't bear to be parted, and, I think, is really just not able to be parted. We; God, you, me, are a piece of the same whole; 'namaste', I recognize the god within you that is akin to the god within me. Or, as defined by this yoga website;  
"The divinity in me bows to the divinity in you, because I know we are one", 
and also as described by this website; 
"The definition of Namaste (pronounced na, ma, stay) is both a physical gesture and a spoken spiritual salutation, which is the recognition of the divine spirit (or soul) in another by the divine spirit in you"
This whole thing nearly-almost leads to another subject I've been thinking on, to continue in another post. 


What is your interpretation?






*There are many different facets to this idea, but I'm only addressing about two right in this article to try to simplify this enormous subject a bit.

Crash (Rewritten) [Pay no attention to the numbers in the parentheses.]

“Wait!” I yelled after him,

“Pointer! Wait for me!”

            He was bleeding badly; a piece of Dramaticon shrapnel had ripped the side of his right calf open and blood drops spattered the tree tops as he shot away.

            I jumped on my Rotor Floater (3) and cranked after him.

            He was riding in a North-Easterly direction through the tall pine trees, his longer-than-fashion-dictates-as-proper black hair whipping around his fine-boned face.

            I was having a hard time keeping up with him, he goes especially fast when he’s upset.

            He seemed to be heading for the lake; we had done recon around it yesterday, and Pointer had, well, pointedly remarked on how beautiful and peaceful it was. Later that day he had told me in private that the place had actually been soothing to his normally harried soul.

            I figured that he was heading there to be alone and to sort out his current emotions.

            But I, personally, did not trust him to be by himself in his current state of mind and body. I could only guess at the thoughts currently racing through his head. Erratically emotional at the best, he was down-right dangerous to himself during the current circumstances. (1)

           

            He had almost reached the soft blue pudding bowl that is Benedict Lake, and I was just about ten yards behind.

            I was starting to really worry about him; he nearly crashed into an imposing bristlecone pine at the beginning of the pepper-and-salt sand. He wasn’t all that great of a flyer, but he was also usually much more careful than that. It looked as if he was entertaining some sort of a death wish.

            He crash-landed, his rotor floater sliding in the sand, then landing nearly a foot away from the softly lapping water.

            I carefully maneuvered around the tallest bristlecone pine; the same one Pointer had almost crashed into, and landed my RF next to his.

            He had already stumbled off his Rotor floater, and was kneeling in the water, blood from his right calf trailing scarlet swirls in the miniature surf. I couldn’t see his face, he was bent over, fists clenched to his chest.

            I knelt down next to him, and put my arms around his shoulders.

            “Pointer, it wasn’t your fault that we lost the Omotor containers,” I said softly, he angrily jerked his body, nearly dislodging my arms, but I held on tighter.

            “How do you know?!” He spat, his face contorted with anguish and fury as he turned to look into my eyes.

           

The whole point of our mission had been to retrieve the highly explosive containers, but they had caught fire at the last minute. Pointer had doggedly tried to hold on, but Robert had wrestled them from him and chucked them at a pursuing Dramaticon, therefore blowing it and the entire Lonquine base up.

            A pretty successful mission, if you ask me.

            “Robert made you leave the containers,” I replied, “You would have blown up with them if he hadn’t.”

            “I should’ve put out the fire, Crash, I could’ve spat on them or something!” Pointer said wildly, an imploring look in his eyes.

            “You know that’s nuts,” I told him gently, “There was nothing you could have done”

            “Maybe you’re right,” He gave in, “But I still feel like an utter failure.”

            “Don’t, you have no right to, Pointer.” I admonished mildly, despite my choice of words. “Besides, you successfully blew up that Lonquine base, and even if it wasn’t part of the plan, it worked out pretty fillerackin’ well, if you ask me.”

            He leaned back into me, inner turmoil calmed, the previous rigidity in his body lost. I held him tighter. We kneeled in the water a few minutes more, letting the peace of the lake sooth us both.

           

I noticed that Pointer was still bleeding.

            “Come on, get up. We need to go back to Robert and get your leg wrapped.” I told him, giving his shoulders one last squeeze and then standing up, water dripped from my jeans.

            Pointer raised a hand, and I heaved him upright.

            I kept hold of his hand as we walked back to the Rotor Floaters, supporting him as he limped along.

            We climbed onto our RFs, and began a much slower and safer journey back to camp, leaving the semblance of a peaceful world behind. 

It Was Named 'Enlightenment'

Stricken, I am pain.

Beauty, a sharply sweet sword.

My eyes are open.

The last few were a sort of panorama, but my camera is frustrating, that's why the colors don't really match.