First Half Week of College

School is terrifying. There we go. 

Now I shall move on. I can do college. I will do college. I will make it through college, and I will learn, and I will have fun. It will be hard. Some days I will probably despair of ever getting through all of it. But I will be fine, and I will move past those moments, hours, and days. 

I may feel like an imposter now and then. That's okay, and I do belong. 

Musings

Life as battle or quest? Or something else entirely?
Life as battle, war; everything is won or lost, everything is a struggle and a fight, an upward climb and tearing of the heart and soul and flesh. You can only ever conquer or fail, pulling yourself up a cliff's edge by your fingernails and teeth, crashing down onto the rocks below when you falter and lose your grip. Life as some great thing you must win, only one pathway, only one right. Inflexible, binding and restrictive.

But life as quest, a wending pathway of discovery, exploration, learning and seeking, is a beautiful living. Then life is stream and pathway and wind about your ears. Then you can shine and love and really see, really understand, and understand that, honey, you're really never going to get it all, and that's perfectly okay. Life as quest; life as play and happiness, life as learning to be with sadness, tears as rain on the ground, nurturing growth and further beauty. Being in emotion, all emotion, acknowledging and allowing it. Life as flowering, a great opening up and unfurling and shedding color and light. Giving, not taking. Creating; not only destroying. Life as pulse, wave, flow; up and down and back and forth.




Rumi;
"Great lions find peace in a cage.
But we should only do that as a last resort.

So those bars I see that restrain your wings,
I guess you won't mind if I pry them open."

And Hafiz;
"How did the rose ever open its heart and
give to the world all of its beauty?

It felt the encouragement of light against
its being, otherwise we all remain too
frightened."


If I let it be, and don't try really hard to fit it all together, it will fall into place in its own structure. 

October Fly on the Porch

Oh look at how beautiful they all are,
why come down when I can watch, detached,
unobserved and alone.
But they're absolutely lovely, and yeah, I want to be them-
all and everything,
And here I am,
watching,
seeing,
Wrapping my heart around them,
wings behind my ears like fingers and hands.
Wry smile, silly,
Maybe someday I will break in half, I don't know,
I swear I'm not torn,
just a little too expansive sometimes, and terribly ADD.

Follow the numbers

Looks like somebody got a hold of some chalk... (Not me, I just followed the numbers)

Liebster Award

A while back I got a lovely comment from from Mary at Cogitational Counterpoints nominating me for the Liebster award, which is kinda fun and totally unexpected :) Thank you Mary, for reading and the nomination :)
If you've been nominated or would like to nominate somebody, all you have to do is follow the below set of rules:

1. Link back to the blogger who nominated you.
2. Give 11 random facts about yourself.
3. Answer the 11 questions set by the person who nominated you.
4. Nominate 11 other bloggers who have a small following.
5. Create 11 questions for your nominees to answer.
6. Tell your nominees, on their own blog, that you have nominated them.

11 Random Facts About Me:

1. I dislike long sleeves, and nearly always roll or push them up.
2. I miss my dog terribly since he died last January.
3. Lately, I enjoy doing things that terrify me, I've been able to push past fear in the past couple of years, and I've found that I enjoy the things that are difficult for me all the more fiercely once I've somewhat mastered them. Take guitar tuning, for example, once a vast unknowable unknown, now one of my favorite things about practicing the guitar. 
4. I love writing and receiving letters, though I'm not very good at actually writing and sending them in a timely manner. 
5. The San Rafael Swell is my happy place.
6. I have no idea how to go about getting ready for Christmas this year, I haven't got a thing done and it's not much longer until December arrives.
7. The movie Inception was quite the spiritual and enlightening experience for me.
8. Right now I'm wearing my favorite blue sweater which will quite soon probably fall apart, as it is getting fairly threadbare in places. 
9. I say I have no expectations, I think I have no expectations, but I'm quite open to the possibility that I might. I still maintain that relationship is organic and a thing of space rather than just bonds. 
10. I love deep and thoughtful documentaries like Kumare, I Am, and The Nature Of Existence. 
11. Life is terribly interesting to me, adventure, people, discovery. This outlook does tend to ebb and flow though, as all things do. I'm not sure balance is stillness so much as wave, pattern and resonance.

The 11 Questions That The Person Who Nominated Me Asked:

1. What is your favorite past time?

I don't really have any one favorite past time, I'm kinda scattered all over the place. I love hanging out with my friends and family, reading, writing, playing guitar. Hiking, whatever. I love doing everything, and it is all my favorite :)

        
        2. Does art imitate life, or does life imitate art?

Both, yin and yang. Not opposite, but intertwined.

        3. What's your ultimate goal in life?

Enlightenment and deep relationship.

        4. What is the last thing you bought via online shopping?

Light Martin acoustic guitar strings. I'm awesome because I can break a string tuning down...

        5. How did you get started using blogspot?

I got sick of how much I was on facebook in 2009, so I created this blog with the help of my dad to sort of experiment with for a week of abstinence from fb. 

        6. Do you have a favorite film, and if so, what is it?

Far too many favorites, and perhaps all because I have learned or can learn something from them.

          7. What's your preferred fall outfit?

Jeans and a sweater over a t shirt, maybe a hat.

        8. What's your biggest accomplishment to date?

I don't really believe in that. I just live. 

        

        9. Who inspires you the most?

Yo

        10. The best show on television right now is:

Doctor Who :) (That's basically the only thing I watch right now that's ongoing and current, though.)

I don't think I shall nominate anyone else, if someone wants to nominate themselves from me, that'd be great, haha :) Just let me know and I'll come up with some questions :]

Thanks again Mary, you're a sweetheart.

The Internet (Namely Facebook) and Other Things

This place strikes me as very facade-like. There's so much more going on under the surface.
Do you think about the things I think about? Do you want to talk about them too? Do you see the things I see? Or is this just not the designated place to talk about them, is this not the place to bring them into the light?
If not now, I wonder, when?

I probably just read and think too much...

The curtain comes down
Fall to the ground
The stage of my heart
Giving up my part
Join the audience
We're all one
joining the audience
Now life is fun

The curtain comes down
To a smile, from the frown
Barriers no more
Join me on life's seashore
We're all just grains of sand
But together we've created solid land
We're all one
Let's make life fun

My heart
Your heart
Three hearts
Four,
Join me on the dancing floor
No longer separate,
Don't be a degenerate
Join us
Join us
Won't you join the dance.

Once you felt all alone,
I felt the same way,
But I've realized we're all one,
And we really do have a say
In what's going on,
What's been done,
Let's change the world,
Let's truly make it fun.

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 :)

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.

Ever wonder if eternity starts now?
Or if you're already creating your world?
Ever wonder if it's really as simple as that?

Ever wonder if all these Mormon dreams aren't as huge and impossible as they sometimes seem?

It's rather cozy, in my heart.


Contentment.

Seymour

I wish to give you a Davega bicycle, right from the longings of my own heart.
Read J.D. Salinger's "Seymour: an introduction", and pass on the Davega bicycle to another in a long line of (unknowingly) yearning individuals.

The Accidental Activist

http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/25/the-accidental-activist/?hp

There is hope, don't you feel it too?

Probably not a single person will find this on my blog, but even so, I'll be able to find here for future reference, hopefully :)

Questions of, perhaps, a delicate nature

I'm not very good at these long, rambling online journal-like posts that a lot of people seem to like to write.
I've got these things I want to say, but don't know what or how.
Or if I should say them on here.

I guess I'm just confused.

The world's so weird lately, I find myself basically just not caring about much.
I don't get obsessed anymore. I used to get really obsessed about a lot of things, but I'm just really neutral about a lot of things lately.
I can still feel, I can still care, but not to the point of despair.
I guess I've developed this after years of watching my parents work themselves up because of their beautifully deep empathy.
They were always terribly sad about something, and they're still rather like that.

Do I understand now? I'm not sure.
There are still things I want to say to you, but feel like I can't because they might seem like feeble protestations, like I'm trying to... I don't know, the feeling's there but the words won't come.

Is this how it's supposed to be?

What do you think?

Six Billion Secrets is a really sobering website.
It makes me want to be an even better person.
It makes me want to rid myself of all surface judgments.
It makes me want to tell I everyone I know "I love you" every day, because I do love everyone.
It makes me want to become the best version of myself right now.
Funny how that works, isn't it?

Sneak peek of something I've been working on for a very long while. (can't remember what the inspiration was.)

The canvas he had found was dingy and old, he had once started halfheartedly painting a Chinese bowl with a daffodil design over a dark blue background a little toward the top corner of the left hand side, but he had never finished it.

Must-see article.

The Shoestring Philanthropist rocks in my opinion! Maybe instead of studying with a bunch of different religions like the Amish, Quakers, and Buddhists when I come of age, I'll become a shoestring philanthropist for a few years :)

As I wrote in my journal after pasting the article in; 
"the article proves that it is the little things that count, and we can make things better on a much wider level than we'd ever thought. 
"That's beautiful.
"But then again, I think almost everything is beautiful..."

"It is important to question the ideas and decisions of people in positions of authority?"

    "Question everything", as my mother has repeatedly told me throughout the years. I have taken that sentence to heart, I even question my own actions and thoughts.
    Questioning my country, state, and town leaders is no exception. Examining every aspect of their words and actions, are they moral, ethical? "Do they resound with my opinions of right and wrong?" "Do I have clear ideas of right and wrong?"
    Sometimes you may even have to revise your own opinions of right and wrong. I've come to learn that nothing is a fact, everything changes with time and with new perspective. Constant change is an important part of our world and our lives.
    Some of our country's greatest triumphs have come from questioning old ideas and beliefs, as well as the authority figures of the time, Take, for example, the Declaration of Independence, and later on in our country, the civil rights movement. Both are powerful events in history. Both times, the people pf our country decided to question laws, customs, and authority figures, and they decided that it was time for change,
    The ability and right to question one's government, and that governments laws, is an important aspect of our society. Use it well.

Dream Trash

Invisible trash

Collectors of glowing,

Immaterial

And broken winged

Orbs, blue and green, pink and pure,

Depending on the

Imagination.

Do deer, with liquid brown eyes,

Windows to wild and

Meek souls, dream of green

-er meadows, stronger legs, or

A world without man?

Birds of a Feather

1.

There is a bird,

A maternal little bird

Who visits the

Westerly-peak of

My little green house

But once a long gray year.

There is a bird,

A motherly little bird,

Shaped like a teardrop,

Brown and gray

With a sharp black beak

Pointed

Toward the end of the day.

There is a bird,

A wise little bird

Perched silent and unmoving,

A guardian of seemingly

Unimportant things,

A guardian of the voices small.

There is a bird,

A knowing little bird,

With striped-black wings,

And an anticipating look

Above a

Lovely spotted vest,

An anomaly of things

Uncertain.

There is a bird,

An occasional little bird,

At whom I sometimes wonder,

“What

Is your purpose in this

Particular place?”

“And what is so special about

My space?”

2.

There once was a bird,

A hushed little bird,

Who was always deep,

With lovely spoken words,

Of a thoughtful and a

Soulful kind,

Full of voice,

And full of mind.

There once was a bird,

A silent little bird,

Who sang to me often and long,

Of a charming scene,

With a wonderful song.

This little bird,

This thoughtful little bird,

Prompted me once to write

Of the Visiting bird.

3.

There once was a bird,

A hushed little bird,

A black little bird,

And a silent little bird,

Whose word about the

Brown and knowing

Little bird

I

Have always kept.

Theory

I have this theory: The teenage years are when children should be given more freedom of choice and will, this is their time to experiment within the safety net of their parents. It is likely that when they move out, when parents usually relax boundaries and set them totally free, they will no longer have a very secure safety net. The freedom can go to their heads, and they will often make bad choices. They shouldn't be given total control as teens, they still need boundaries, but they should also be treated as adults, with many chances to prove themselves.
Parents shouldn't be completely removed, but they shouldn't hover over their child's every choice and move. Rather, they should let the child know that they are there for them, and should always put down whatever it is they are doing in order to talk. Parents should be supportive, and open to everything their child has to say.

I will probably change this as time goes on. I might add things I have forgotten, or have not discovered yet. Thank you for reading, I appreciate your every insight on this post :)

You don't need to be famous in order to inspire.

I stand on the shoulders of giants.
They're not all in the past.
They're not all well known.
They're not all adults.
They're not all the same, in profession, status, personality, or inspiration.
I stand on the shoulders of giants,
Many of them from my own generation,
Many of them just beginning to bloom...