I really hate having to structure my writing...
I'm not happy with any of my drafts on this thing.

Voice

Man, nothing will come to me today. Can't seem to write anything well, neither poetry, essay, nor stream-of-consciousness. Nothing will really fit together, and I'm dissatisfied with all of my drafts and writing ideas at the moment. I want to write, but it doesn't come out very well, I'm still not complete or clear, I've got shallow-digging dis-ease (as our friend G would call it) and ADD in some form today. Don't know what to do, and what I want to do, I think I should do something else instead. At least I finally practiced guitar today -I want to learn; I want to learn how play guitar, drive, write, be with people, and just generally apply myself. I can be fierce and focussed, but I guess I don't fixate much. --Even that isn't true though, I like to think I'm not obsessive, but when I really look into and at myself, I am totally obsessed. I am so so so redundant, but, balance. It's hard to talk of balance, though, it's so easy to fall into duality and polar opposites and untruths. Juggling differently colored balls from hand to hand and back again. Why keep them moving though? Can't they just be? I'd like to think they're not even separate; the yin and yang symbol, though overused, is beautifully fitting; two things as inseparable, interconnected one. -That's pretty cool, and in some ways it simplifies things, and in others, complicates. But you know, this world is more than one dimension, and to look at any one thing differently, the whole web shifts. Nothing is just surface, or just depth; no one is only one thing. I dislike referring to people as occupations because it seems to dehumanize them. I'm not even a "writer", I'm Amoniel, but that doesn't quite cover it either, I'm this thing that takes form around, I'm this that changes shape constantly, that never fits into the world the same way for longer than right now. Yes, I fall into shallow-digging dis-ease every once in a while, but even that is not how I work always. --I want to dive deep deep into the world, life, the universe, -it sounds silly, and I don't always want that, but -everything. I love stained fingers and dirt and all of the marks life and time leaves on us, scars are beautiful; wrinkles, freckles, and moles, absolutely lovely. I love to get paint on my hands and graphite all over my fingertips and face. I love calluses and rough hands, tough feet. I don't want to be perfect, I want to be alive. I am life's canvas, my own canvas, the canvas and paper of others, mirror and imprint. When I get firewood with my family, I like to see the scratches on my arms from the hard work of loading and carrying and unloading, and I like to watch all of the marks fade away. All of these things that fix and flow us in time, now then tomorrow. I want to dig deep into my own soul and examine it intently, and I want to do the same with others. I'm looking looking finding the thread that ties and unwinds all things. Maybe it has a name, maybe it doesn't, but I seem to be able to find and talk with and about it just fine without a name, and even with an imperfect name. The imperfect name reminds me that it won't fit forever, I think; that I know it all and I know nothing, and everything fits perfectly. 

I said I couldn't write today, but perhaps I was trying too hard. And now I have found my flow, my track; my voice. 

Home on Building

If my Drivers Ed class was written as poetry, maybe then I could absorb it and actually remember...

Oh gods alive,

Oh gods alive,
the beauty and sadness of all...
The heady soup of my nature,
Earth and sky,
stone and ether,
made from each other,
The figure eight of eternity;
Don't you see?

Perfect imperfection,
I can feel it deep
deep swirling in my head,
my ribcage;
that universe of universes
and song-filled black hole
just the depth, the depth of it-
Counter-clockwise
as energy goes, a black hole,
But perhaps in name only,
could a black hole accept, create,
or give back rapture?

Heady head,
grounded heart,
deep gut.
Ha, I am matrix,
Woven weaving
Twined, my dear,
Nothing but something
sculpted around other things,
To see, you must confront
what seems like emptiness,
but never ever is.
God is empty space
which we try to put form and substance to,
Then missing the point entirely:
Masked and cloaked and idolized,
Perhaps we do the same to ourselves...

I worship
the all in,

everything:
I want to swallow, and have swallowed the sun,
And I have been swallowed in return

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.

Heartsong

Curled tight over my guitar 

An ache in my wrist as our hearts sing to each other.

Resonance; two songs into one. 

Life from my breath into your curved body,

Condensation underneath my lips.

Our song is not always perfect, 

But it is always beautiful. 

I did not shape you, 

But I am shaping you 

And it seems you are shaping me

A selection of Sunbeams, The SUN magazine issue 237

"What does education often do? It makes a straight-cut ditch of a free, meandering brook. "

Henry David Thoreau

"Prayer gives a man the opportunity of getting to know a gentleman he hardly ever meets. I do not mean his maker, but himself."

Dean Inge 

"Whatever our point of view or frame of reference, the world is richer and more amazing than we realize. All frames of reference are limited. All points of view can be supplemented by further experience under new and various conditions."

Donald Granger 

"Both class and race survive education, and neither should. What is education then? If it doesn't help a human being to recognize that humanity is humanity, what is it for? So you can make a bigger salary than other people?"

Beah Richards 

"In the late 1600s the finest instruments originated from three rural families whose workshops were side by side in the Italian village of Cremona. First were the Amatis, and outside their shop hung a sign: "The best violins in all Italy." Not to be outdone, their next-door-neighbors, the family Guarnerius, hung a bolder sign proclaiming: "The Best Violins In All The World!" At the end of the street was the workshop of Anton Stradivarius, and on its front door was a simple notice which read: "The best violins on the block." "

Freda Bright 

"The way to get things done is not to mind who gets the credit for doing them."

Benjamin Jowett

We are complete on our own, but together we are more complete.

Cracks of Gold: right now

Where am I right now? I’m not writing about where I want to be, or where I’m headed, but where I am right now. So often I write about where I want to be, but instead of that helping me move forward, I just feel lost and helpless.

Right now, I am lost; right now I can see a tiny light, but I can’t seem to feel a pathway. I’m blindfolded; enough that everything is hazy and unsure, but not so I don’t know I am blindfolded. I am numb; finger and toe and heart-blind. I am deaf; hearing but snatches of sound and song. I am dumb; half-communicating with incomplete words and fluttering hand gestures. I am aware of so many perceived limitations, but I am also aware of what might be, beyond all of this veil and insulation.

All is but impression on me, and I have fractional confidence. I am an imperfect mirror, reflecting wobbly, watery images of others, and myself, but reflecting non-the-less.

I am in a chrysalis, but I can’t tell if I, butterfly, am emerging; or even if this, also, is nothing but a reflection of someone else.

I can sense patterns; but when you’re in the middle of a pattern, yourself, with other people, it is so hard to stick to that pattern sense, and to have confidence in it. It is so hard to sense that pattern truly, objectively, and not reason yourself out of what you do really understand. The pattern of my days lately seems to be the only pattern I can see without having to feel, without becoming lost in emotions and the avoidance thereof. Mornings are lost in melancholy and a certain sort of moping and ennui; afternoons are merely lost; evenings terrifying and stressful (seems like that’s mostly just when I try really hard to wrest back control, though.); and the night finally relaxes into pieces of the puzzle settling in and temporary comfort.

Today, this afternoon, is lost and wandering; raw, drained, and dry. I really don’t feel terrible though, because I finally shook off sentimentality for a time, albeit ennui is not entirely gone. Maybe I am sick in heart.

Still I manage to find puzzle pieces, and still I manage to stick them, if only temporarily, to their places in life.

Why all of this writing of where we’re going, or where we should be? Jonathon Livingston Seagull, how beautiful in its idealism and teaching, but I can hardly see myself there. Did Richard Bach ever reach the point his characters traveled? Did he even mean or strive to? Did he find any of what he was looking for, and did he learn to practice it?

I keep finding small pieces in small places; small answers in short books. We look for answers in other people and their works, but they don’t even seem to be where they say it is possible to go. Maybe all they mean to create is beautiful metaphor and nothing else. I have yet to actually meet anyone who truly loves or flies or heals with their bare hands. Only healing with herbs and heart, loving at all, and flying in mind and spirit. Isn’t any of that, imperfect as it seems to be, still miraculous?

Don’t we find something in the search, don’t we come to understanding as we share? I don’t believe in disregarding wisdom in a great person -or any person- because they’ve done something stupid or bad in their lives. Wisdom is wisdom, and we are all so complex and flawed, beautiful in our imperfection, beautiful in our strife and struggle. We can come to some sort of completion, some sort of wholeness, in sharing.

To finally answer my first question of where I am right now; Estoy pero aqui, curled up writing on my bed, wandering life and my own heart and mind.