Sunsets, Sunrises, and Cool Clouds

Selection of Sunbeams from SUN Magazine March 2007

"War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious."

-Major General Smedley Butler

"Here's what I think the truth is: We are all addicts of fossil fuels in a state of denial. And like so many addicts about to face cold turkey, our leaders are now committing violent crimes to get what little us left of what we're hooked on."

-Kurt Vonnegut

"If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there'd be peace."

-John Lennon

"In war, there are no unwounded soldiers."

-José Narosky

Happy box thoughts

Subject: The smell, sound, feel of rain. Utter bliss with siblings.
4/1/13
Running around the block, bare feet and socks slapping on the wet asphalt. Jesse took his shoes off at the start of the third block, barely in the faint orange light of a lamppost. Jm, Torthadiel, TE  and me.

Subject: Wet cloth and fur under gray skies.
Running through the rain with the Chocolate Chip dog, her leash in one hand, my umbrella flapping in the air in the other. Elation, wet, wonderful happiness.
5/7/13

Subject: Easter
Mar/31/13
Hiding eggs around the yard with B and the big kids and then watching the little kids dart to and fro, spotting the eggs in the high places, seizing the ones in the low.

Six Photos From My Happy Place and a Bonus Sunset From a Drive Home One Day

The Key to the Universe (Imagination and Seeds)

(A sort of game I played with my little friend while we walked her dog.)

What if everything had a magical key that unlocked extraordinary powers?;

A key to a dog that allows it to be understood.

A key to a tree that causes all of the branches to draw up into a protective bubble, a living treehouse. Or a key that would unlock its original Entish nature, roots would pull from the ground as a long-forgotten face would bloom into a slow smile and very un-hastily, the newly woken Ent would greet you.

A key to the sidewalk that would make it sink into the ground and be swallowed up by grass and flowers, or turn it into stairs that would spiral up, on and on into the clouds.

A key to a butterfly that would cause it to follow you around, your own small companion.


The key to the universe in a beautiful, entirely significant, scaly pine-cone.

Ramblings

I wish to create a place of complete understanding and balance within myself.
Or maybe I should say; I wish to be completely understanding and balanced as a whole.
I do not wish to be influenced by fear, but by truth and compassion, and by clarity of sight.

This world is terrifying. This make-believe society and human world-view are terrifying and destructive.
I do not wish to be a part of it, but I do not see a way out. I am not really a part of society right now, but I depend upon people who are, and this is not fair to them, nor is it going to change anything. How can I ask for change, hope for change, dearly, dearly want change if I do nothing to oppose the thing that disturbs me?
I've hoped all along to create world of beauty and kindness around my family and myself in safety and cooperation, but as I grow older, this hope seems more and more unrealistic, though I find  that much of what human beings call "reality" is entirely made up by them anyway. Why should I accept and integrate into a world I do not agree on or even like?
I'm finding myself torn between this God I pray to and speak with, and a hopelessness in my heart that is a response to the hopelessness I see in this world and whispers "How could any god exist and allow all of this pain and hardship to be imposed upon people deemed weak by the arrogant, delusional "strong"?"

This adulthood, this "growing up" has created a strange duality within my being, a push and pull of high, heart-felt ideals and new, incredibly disillusioning glimpses of the world I live in.
I crave quiet from my constant thinking, and balance in the wild pendulum of my heart.
I keep thinking over and over; we must have a place in nature, in ecosystem and earth and the balance of life. And I keep thinking; Why have we lost it?

(An article I read this morning that contributed to things already on my mind and heart: activist post.com "Civil disobedience or death by design" . Not terrifying as some things are, for it is not actually an exclamation of "oh no we're all going to die", but a call to action and empowerment, and brings attention to the things that people in power are imposing upon this world.)

Sorry, Don't Have My Journal To Vent In

Things I left up at the cabin and probably won't see again until the end of the week:
1) iPod
2) Camera
3) Journal
4) School Notebook (the very same that contains the latest part to my story project)
5) Colored pencil case

Things I really miss and badly need:
1) iPod
2) Journal
3) School Notebook

Things I could do to get them back:
1) Make my mom or dad drive me up there since I'm lame and don't have a license
2) Walk up to the cabin
3) Bike to the cabin
4) Wait until the next time we all go up there together

What I will probably do:
4) Wait until the next time we all go up there together

a selection of sunbeams from The SUN Magazine October 2007 with Society lyrics played by Eddie Vedder

"The most striking contradiction of our civilization is the fundamental reverence for truth that we profess, and the thoroughgoing disregard for it that we practice."
-Vilhjalmur Stefansson

"In order to live with integrity, we must stop fragmenting and compartementalizing our lives. Telling lies at work and then expecting great truths in meditation os nonsensical"
-Sharon Salzburg

"You don't see things are they are. You see things as you are."
-Talmud

"The experience is there, the reality is there, but how to get at it? Everything I type turns into a lie simply because it is not the truth."
-Joyce Carol Oates

"Could anything be absurder than a man? The animal who knows everything about himself -- except why he was born and the meaning of his unique life?"
-Margaret Storm Jameson
(The meaning of life?... We fit into nature someplace, why don't we seem to anymore? How do we remember again?)


"Say not "I have found the truth," but rather, "I have found a truth"."
-Kahlil Gibran


"Society " Written by Jerry Joseph Hannan, performed by Eddie VedderIt's a mystery to meWe have a greed with which we have agreedYou think you have to want more than you needUntil you have it all you won't be free
Society, you're a crazy breedI hope you're not lonely without me
When you want more than you haveYou think you needAnd when you think more than you wantYour thoughts begin to bleed
I think I need to find a bigger place'Cause when you have more than you thinkYou need more space
Society, you're a crazy breedI hope you're not lonely without meSociety, crazy and deepI hope you're not lonely without me
There's those thinking more or less, less is moreBut if less is more how you're keeping score?Means for every point you make your level dropsKinda like it's starting from the top, you can't do that
Society, you're a crazy breedI hope you're not lonely without meSociety, crazy and deepI hope you're not lonely without me
Society, have mercy on meI hope you're not angry if I disagreeSociety, crazy and deepI hope you're not lonely without me

Notes and Musings

I'm not sure if the first true paragraph to my story is scientifically correct...
It's going to be interesting brushing up on my science in researching the microbial world for my story.

Most hero's journeys to higher-being seem to be centered on characters with a background of fierce tribal or communal societies, for example, "Jonathan Livingston Seagull". But these characters break off from their communities to pursue the their interests, often after being cast off by their own kind.
But what if my bacterium had no such problem, being a member of a very loose-knit, tolerant population? What if he pursued his own path due not to derision and alienation, but to his own inner strength and will?
If bacterium aren't really very communal, then I believe that is the path my story will take. I suppose it's already sort of the way I've written it, but it does mention bacteria being "social creatures ". I shall have to clear that up, factually and story-wise. 

An Accidental Quest (Second draft, Pt. 1)

Once there was a bacterium.

            He was set apart from the rest of his kind, by his own choice, which is strange, for bacteria are social creatures who live in constantly growing (or diminishing) colonies.

           

            This bacterium very much wanted to know the purpose of life, and very much questioned the answer he was given every time he asked any of his own kind. He suspected that he might be given a different answer if he ever asked something else besides his own kind, but he had never really come across anything but another bacterium just like him. He was also terrified to venture out of his usual rounds in the small, soupy world he lived and swam in.

            He didn’t know much about what else was or could be out there. Even though this made him terrified, he was also desperately curious about the world outside his own.

            One day, (if you could call it a day, maybe it was more a fraction of the many cycles that dictated our bacterium’s life,) as he was wrestling back and forth between his morbid fear and avid curiosity for the unknown world that lurked the edges of his lonely routine, something much larger than him appeared on the edges of his consciousness. He thoughtlessly fled, uncaring as to whether the thing might be possibly friendly or definitely predatory.

            He was heading straight for the edge of all he knew, and would have stopped, fleeing for his life or not, if he only would have noticed, but he was too busy fleeing the unknown thing behind him to have any thought for the unknown ahead.

            Still unaware, the bacterium quickly overtook his carefully accepted boundary and left it far behind, along with his pursuer, who had stopped stock-still, curiously, at the border of the bacterium’s familiar world.

            But he was once again unaware. Numbed by terror, and a little bit oblivious by nature, he raced onwards still, on and on, everything a blur to his frantic consciousness.

           

Completely spent, he finally directed his attention behind, the good news: he was no longer being chased, and the bad; he had no idea where he was.

            If bacterium could hyperventilate, this one would have at that very moment of realization. Instead, he swam in rapid circles, faster and faster until instead of being small and rod-shaped, he was rather large and oblong and hollow in his middle, like a dog chasing its tail. Eventually, he came to a stop, and returned to his normal size and shape.

            Finally calming down, he noticed a steady, pulsating glow, as if another bacterium was trying to get his attention, but the thing emanating this glow seemed nothing like any bacterium he’d ever encountered, which, granted, hadn’t been very many.

            “Who are you?” The bacterium cautiously communicated with a dim light from his own body. He would have fled, as before with the other unknown entity, but he was too exhausted, and intriguingly, this new thing made him feel calm and peaceful. He had no idea why.

            “I am” The thing simply emanated, and drew closer to the bacterium.