Hopi Elder, Radford Quamahongnewa (PT 1 of 3)

1001 Places to Clean

How do we accumulate so much stuff? When I look at all the stuff that is in my home, I wonder what will become of it when I die, or even worse, what will I do with it when I move. At some point, I will be moving and, like all other moves, there will be a moment when the realization hits that much of it must go.

My secondary, imaginary life's work should be that of a stationary store owner. Pens, paper, tablets, notebooks, diaries are stacked in shelves or held in strong, plastic containers. It is time to take them out, hold them closely and kiss them good by.

Art and books are everywhere, too. Some of it in boxes, waiting for the house with more walls and more bookshelves. Yet, the art must stay and books can be catalogued and, then, sold or recycled to stores and people who love to read. A "Free" box is going in the front yard, when the sun starts shining again, here in the Northwest.

Although not many pass by the house in cars, there are a lot of walkers and bike riders who might need another dictionary or a Nepalese phrase book. What people read interests me.

What grabs their imagination is a good measuring stick, as to who they are as creative, intelligent beings.

Although, when you look at my library, you might have a hard time figuring out something about me, since it is so eclectic. One of my favorite things to do, when younger, was reading encyclopedias and dictionaries. Lost in Roget's Thesaurus, summer afternoons would whittle away, as new words replaced the simpler ones of the mind.

One week was spent memorizing, the longest word in the world, in a dictionary, which has 45 letters, PNEUMONO­ULTRA­MICRO­SCOPIC­SILICO­VOLCANO­CONIOSIS. It is still the longest, in a dictionary, however, the longest word in the world has 189 letters and is commonly referred to as Titin, also known as Connectin, which is a protein that connects muscles. You may never see it in Webster's, though.

One thing that always intrigued me was Proust's claim to fame in that he sought to use words precisely, and spent much time seeking the literal, exact word. He had a lot of time to do that as, unlike many writers, he was financially secure his entire life and never had to work.

Is that reason enough, though? Even with time to write, as I do have now, choosing a word can always lead to a spiral of creative exposition which may lead no where, and may never get me to the next paragraph. Choices are always so unpredictable, aren't they?

However, they can be very exciting and gratifying, also. Some of my most interesting and terrifying moments were commenced with a single word. Yes, No, Never, Go, Stay, Come, Stop. The power of words and actions not realized, until you move into them and use them.

Latin has always been my favorite, precise languages. Basis for so many languages, we currently use, in the world. When in Italy or France, the enjoyment I take in reading the Latin words on monuments or plaques, never wanes. There is an incredible pleasure while translating a plaque, posted on the door of a Medici mistresses' suite, in the garden of a Florentine, Franciscan church's patio.

I wonder what the mistress stored away, in her beautiful suite? What do we hold onto, even though we may never use them again? What freezes you from letting them go, recycling them, sharing them? Could it be some simple memory, long forgotten, that arises, as you remember who gave it to you, how it came to be sitting there in that box?

There are about 500 cassettes, sitting in a storage bin, in my mud room. The plan has been to buy a Cassette-To-CD converter and enjoy them. Will I listen to 500 cassettes? Do I have the life time to do that? I have no idea, however, moving them to another house or city is not something that is in my plans. So, I guess the equipment will be bought, and a few weeks of my life shall be spent listening to music, once enjoyed, that still moves me,  and taped shows of Coast to Coast with Art Bell, that will always be incredible discussions, never to be heard again.

That should be a step back, into the past, for sure. Connections to the past is why we store things. Many, of them, we never have again, but need to touch, every so often, something from those moments and memories. I am grateful to have all this technology, so music and pictures and voices can be saved in megabits, on a thumb drive. What wondrous times we love and live in.

So, my promise, to you, unknown reader, is at some point, this summer, before I go to LA in August, the 500 cassettes will be gone. The DVD's containing the songs and conversations shall be sitting on the library shelf, taking up maybe an inch of space.

And, as is often said, in Florence, to beautiful, American women: 
 Amicule, deliciae, num is sum qui mentiar tibi?

"Baby, sweetheart, would I lie to you?"

"I Thought That I Heard You Laughing"

I know that the fight for equality for partners is on the docket , in the next election, in many states. You should know, I am voting to make sure, we all have equality under the law, to choose partners, no matter preference. Freedom cannot exist, until all have equal rights and protection under the laws, that we can change now. 

I was married to a homophobic man, a lifetime ago, and because of his hatred of gays, learned I could not abide intolerance, in any form, toward another human. So, I must thank him for allowing me to see the insanity of his mind. One thing, that bothers me, is he probably still has that tattoo that says: Death before Dishonor. To dishonor the life choices ,of another human being, which is causing no harm to you ,or the planet, shows a disdain of allowing others freedom to love and live as you do.

I was living in San Francisco as AIDS was destroying bodies and lives, as it does to this day. The general effect was that there was no one walking down Castro Street, for a few weeks, hiding in homes, many afraid to catch something from a spoon, or spit or even a hand. The horror of the illness and the rumors and fears it caused, brought the city to a standstill. At that time, I lived on Russian Hill, with a man who was cheating on me, as I came to find out a few weeks, after the first round of media blitz about AIDS, hit the world. He was involved in relationships with two women, in Sausalito, and decided to reveal all, one, beautiful afternoon, when we were picnicking in Muir Woods. (Thanks, a lot, Fred).

I decided to move to Santa Barbara, and found myself one afternoon, before my migration, walking along Union Ave., half-dead from the exhaustion of the anger and craziness, of getting rid of things, so I could drive down with one car full of "stuff". I ran into my friend, Ralphie, who moved to SF from Virginia, where we had met in D.C., and become good friends. He was gay and Virginia was not a gay-friendly state, and still isn't from what I hear. He moved to SF a few months before, I did, and luckily, for me, that day, he was still alive. He was one of the gay men to die from AIDS in SF, and his death and the horrors it wracked his body with, will always stay with me. 

That day on Union, he realized I was not myself, and dragged me into a Martini Bar, after I told him about what Fred had done. He was more upset, about the fact, that I had not gone to my doctor for sexual disease testing, and told me that we were going the next day. I had not even thought about it, still wrapped up in the bottom-less feelings, in my body, caused  from exhaustion of crying and not eating, as humans tend to do when in shock.

He went with me to my doctor's and insisted I get tested for AIDS. I did, and, thank god, had no sexually transmitted diseases. I could have, might never have found out, and could of died from it, if he had not suggested it. He, in a way, saved a life. I will always be grateful to him for his wisdom and that he asked my doctor to give me that AIDS test. 


He loved me, as a friend. He didn't care that I was a wild, red-head who loved to go out dancing late at night, and made some bad and good choices, about the men I dated. He didn't care that I was Yankee, born and bred, nor that I came from a upper class family, who were into politics, which he didn't agree with; and, religions, that he did not believe in. 


A few weeks, before he died in a San Francisco hospice, I drove up to see him, to say my goodbye's, as I knew he would be passing soon. His body could no longer tolerate the destruction and pain. Before I left S.B., his nurse called and said that Ralphie wanted to hear a song, and would I bring it with me, so he could listen to it before he died. Ralphie knew what was happening as he had stood by many friends, watching them die, from the deadly disease, and knew the signs. The tremors, the boils, the bleeding, all the horrors he had seen, and the funerals he had attended were now part of his life, and soon his death. 


The reason I am writing about a political right denied to the gay community for decades, today, is that song just played on the radio, a little while ago, and I remembered that day with Ralphie. 

Sitting next to his bed, he had lost the sight in one eye, his emaciated body could hardly handle the next breath, and the sun coming in the window was the only bright light, in a blue room, with a man under a Celtic Green bedspread with the Celtic symbol of Eternal Love on it. Ralphie had his Ph.D in English Literature and could recite Yeats, Shakespeare and both Brownings, by heart. He knew Ode to a Grecian Urn and would delight friends, on balmy afternoons, when we would go sailing on San Francisco Bay, reciting Shakespeare's sonnets to the dolphins.
A cultured man, a kind man and a man who died because of the need for understanding and love. 



So here are the words, to that song, and I hope you can understand that all people deserve the right to make the choice of who to love and who to marry. Because in the end, it is all about how you loved and who loved you. 
 

R.E.M.-Losing My Religion

Oh, life is bigger

It's bigger than you

And you are not me

The lengths that I will go to

The distance in your eyes

Oh no, I've said too much

I set it up

(chorus)

That's me in the corner

That's me in the spotlight, I'm

Losing my religion

Trying to keep up with you

And I don't know if I can do it

Oh no, I've said too much

I haven't said enough

I thought that I heard you laughing

I thought that I heard you sing

I think I thought I saw you try

Every whisper

Of every waking hour I'm

Choosing my confessions

Trying to keep an eye on you

Like a hurt lost and blinded fool, fool

Oh no, I've said too much

I set it up

Consider this

Consider this

The hint of the century

Consider this

The slip that brought me

To my knees failed

What if all these fantasies

Come flailing around

Now I've said too much

I thought that I heard you laughing

I thought that I heard you sing

I think I thought I saw you try

But that was just a dream

That was just a dream

(chorus)

That's me in the corner

That's me in the spotlight, I'm

Losing my religion

Trying to keep up with you

But that was just a dream

Try, cry, why try?

That was just a dream

Just a dream, just a dream

Dream

Feeling Sparkly, Today

What a day! Organic strawberries and bananas along with the magic green shake and a hike down to the beach in the rain. Feeling sparkly! Cannot imagine what my body would be like now if I had not begun the dietary changes, I did a few years ago. Looks like the weight is still coming off and there is another 40 to lose, however, looking back to 10 years ago, I am an amazing machine now. Every once in a while, I run across an old photo of myself and wince, then I realize the soul has changed and the experience, of all that weight, was for good reason. I now know what it is that makes people do, the things they do to their bodies, and how hard it is to make the changes. 

I used to hike mountains before the head-on car accident. I could hike along trails for hours, at end, and sit inside a tree stump, in snow, on sunny afternoons, sucking in vistas of unimaginable beauty. If there was a mountain or a hill, I needed to get to the top of it. Promised myself, that one day, I would be back there and someday I shall, however, for now, to be able to walk 3 miles and not feel pain in my hips, is a really fine day for me. I am heading up Mt. Rainier on the 27th, and hopefully, will be able to get up to around 9,000 feet or at least close to the John Muir cabin. The ice field will still be in place, however, I shall spend 6 hours walking and taking photos, along the way.

Swimming has helped a lot and,in my next house, there will be a pool or a swimming lane, since I think the amount of water placed into a pool is an exorbitant waste of natural resources. Swimming lanes save about 60% of the water used inside a pool, and yes, it will be solar heated, even if I am in California, Santa Fe or Hawaii.  I love to swim at night, under the moon.

I love swings, too. I love to swing. That feeling in my stomach, as I hit the high place, in the air, and stop, for that moment, before rushing back toward the earth, and up the other side of the sky, still shoots butterfly and laughter through me. I am going to have a perfect swing at the next place, suspended from some monstrous, strong tree, just for me. One thing that is going to happen, in the next year, is a trip to Costa Rica, so I can get into the tree tops and take that ride across the jungle tree tops. That would be a hoot, for sure. 

Today is a great day for me. I feel so good and grateful for the experiences I have had in my life. Everyone of them, whether a lesson or a magical development, was all mine and worth the ride.

Yes, I know we all have those events or do those things that make us shudder, as we look back, however from this vantage point, this moment, they were all worthy of the great lessons which brought me to an understanding, of myself and life, in all its manifestations. 

Some people live with regret and get no further, never reaching the joy. Awareness of mind and heart is the point to all experience, and I chose mine. To live in regret, denying my actions and keeping my eyes closed to the realities and reverberations of those actions, stops me from understanding the great joy of the wisdom they presented to me. I can say, without tremors, there are no regrets in my life. Accepting all of my actions and words, across my lifetime ,may not seem right, to some, especially those I wounded, however, the lesson is learned and hopefully, never to be repeated. 

To lie on my deathbed, and at the moment of transition, to have a thought arise of regret, is not the way I wish to go out. So, in my human way, I try to do my best with what I know now. That is all I can do because that is all I have now. More wisdom will come, as I share my heart, and walk into situations of which I am fearful of, knowing that if I do not walk through them, I run from my life.

There is a book, A Still Forest Pool, which lays out the meditations of Achaan Chan, the monk who founded Wat Ba Pong, in Northeast Thailand. He once said: "You will reach a point where the heart tells itself what to do." I think I am heading toward that point, and for all I know, may have already reached it. In any case, treat yourself well today. Go out for a walk, look into eyes of strangers and smile, and create something to share with others, then give it away. 

 

Want some new music? Listen to this!

Cumbia Beat Volume 1 by Various Artists

Trying to Find A Way

Well, it is almost 5 a.m now and I am still up, after spending the wee hours researching RV rentals from Reno to Burning Man' My friend, who was one of the main instigators of the Festival, out in the Black Rock Desert, wants to go, too. I was going to fly into Reno and pick up an RV and she was meeting me from SF. Once I started looking into the prices for the RV rentals which are now in special prices brackets for the Festival, I realized that it would run around 2,000 for fees, admission, flight, hotels, etc. Most of them are already booked.  Yikes! 2 of the RV rental places would not rent new RVs for the desert festival and one of them had a "lazy" air conditioning system. Salesman said, they had learned from the past, not to rent new RVs to Burning Man festival goers, as too much damage is done to the new vehicles, sometimes. 

One of the places had their RV torched when some idiot fired a gel fire ball under the RV, one evening, and luckily the fire extinguisher worked before the RV gas tanks blew. Now, that would have been a spectacular event for everyone in camp, and probably would have ended in song and dance from viewers and ex-RV occupants alike. 

So what to do? Pondering all the ways to get there is part of the fun. I know when I get my mind set on a travel destination, it usually comes to fruition. I think it would be a spectacular way to begin my birthday week celebration, culminating on the 9th. It may be that we will have to find separate ways to head there, and meet up in the Cafe on the Playa, which was founded by her. 

She ran the first cafe, for a few years before heading off for her Master's in Psychology. She still gets a free ticket every year. I want to go. How is it going to happen? 

Was looking forward to the music and heading to the dance tents at night, to dance the night away. The 40mph winds and The Ancients (mini cyclones) would also lend an air of mystery, something like in my Arabian Nights dreams, of big moon desert glow, eerie shadows and the drums, guitars and voices drifting across the desert to sooth my wild mind. 

The music for the road trip was in the planning stages and shall continue to be ripped, since one never knows when a little miracle will happen to get one to the next freeway.The Hawaiian dresses and the Indian silk sari's were about to be washed. Am looking forward to the new bathing suit and debating if I would strip off my clothes, when the water trucks came by, as they do on the playa, squirting swathes of water for those who need a cleansing from the desert sands. A trip to the Army Surplus store for desert boots is also in the plans, since you cannot wear anything that would melt on a 130 degree, desert floor. Forget the flip-flops, the bottom of them will turn to paste and your feet will burn off. 

An extreme event like Burning Man requires a lot of planning and also a willingness to let it all loose. A bit of common sense required as the desert is a stern taskmaster and preparation for all eventualities is an impossibility. How well do you sleep in 110 degree weather, no showers, if not in an RV, and you have to pack all your trash and take it with you, when you leave? 10,000 vehicles trying to exit on Monday and Tuesday along a 2 lane highway, which may have a few broken down cars and RVs along its edges? Oh, what fun and adventure. 

I have a love/hate relationship with the desert. Hate the heat and love the way my mind slows to 18 ohms per second/beat mimicking the earth's pulse. The sound of the earth rises and the body slows from modern pace to natural flow. I can hear my heart beat pumping away as I walk across the sand. Do some of my most remarkable writing upon awakening, in the early morning glow, as the sun pumps its heat to the receiving crystalline structures beneath me. As the sweat pores out of my body, my skin begins to glow as the impurities release as gallons of water pour in to keep hydrated. 

Spending time in some of the world's deserts has always been both a trial and a blessing. There's reasons why great sadhus and mystics go there. The desert strips away all your preconceived futuristic plans for your life and cleans the entire mind out of anything unlike your true self. All that is left in the scorching heat, wafting winds of higher temperatures, which may burn your nostrils, is your self. Like an ocean, the desert purifies you and cleanses anything old, from your system. That is why there is a medical tent at Blackrock with Psychologists as many people, during Burning Man, freak out. Drug induced freaking, sure, a lot, however the real issues are people who begin to let go of everything inside themselves forced upon them by nature, and are left without anything to connect to in their minds. 

It is a rich experience. You learn quickly about those who travel with you and about yourself. The desert has that power and she is a wild, extreme, dangerous and beautiful mistress. Few have spent 6 or 7 days in that type of extreme environment. It is not Las Vegas. 

So will I be there? I don't know, as it may be I will have to depend on the help of friends or strangers. Well, it is 5:55 am, now in the Northwest, and it's to be a rainy day. Guess it is time to make some Mate, and think about the 4 days I spent in a tent, out in the Patagonian desert, alone, praying for my train to come. If I do not find a way to be there, this year, then I will have to buy a ticket to see John Mayer & Keith Urban, out at The Gorge. Gotta love the earth choices! Vaya con Dios!

Interlude at John Wayne Airport

A few weeks ago I was flying home to Seattle, from John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana, CA.,  after spending a weekend in Venice, CA. While I was waiting for my departure, I found myself sitting next to a woman who had the most delightful smile. As strangers do, we started chatting about what our trips were about. She was 80 and had just spent the weekend in Rancho Santa Fe, visiting her son, celebrating his 50th birthday. As people do, after time, impersonal conversation morphs into more personal, as you begin to sense a similarity in energies. A companionable trust builds and you begin asking questions and discussing things of a more personal nature. 

I have been thinking about that conversation for 2 weeks now and as much as I do not want to write about it, I must or else something inside will keep eating away at me, as it has for a number of years now. It is time to release the poison.

Until our discussion, the realization that it was still there was not apparent as the years, relationships,personal growth and wisdom developed. It lay buried among memories and realizations. I think she was an angel sent me that day, so I could lay to rest this anguish. 

The question she asked me was if I had any children. Answer: "No". She asked me why not? Answer:"Never met a man I wanted to raise a child with." She looked at me sharply and said, "But you are such a beautiful, charming woman, what man would not want to have children with you?" Response: "Thank you, however I never met that man." She asked, "could it be that they were never meant to be the one you would spend the rest of your life with?".  Pause, Answer:"Oh, God, you're right!". She leaned closer to me and said, "Don't worry about it, my dear, someone is here for you. God always sends us a mate, just as he does for the geese." 

We laughed and I thanked her. 

She pulled out her cell phone and scrolled to show me a picture of 4 people. Her children, all adopted. 4 months after they married, her husband was involved in a car accident and lost the ability to have children. He asked her a few months afterwards, if she wanted a divorce. She said, she was devasted that he would think, she would leave him because they could not have children. He was her love. She told him that she could not imagine being in the world without him and said they would be parents of children who had lost theirs. They would adopt. Each of their children were orphaned because the parents had been killed in car accidents. 

Sometimes you cannot get the seat on the plane you want. I like the aisle seat, however that afternoon a window seat was mine. It was perfect for what I had to process. Thinking about her bravery and love, for her husband, and the last thing she said to me, before we parted, brought tears to my eyes. She asked me if I believed in love. I told her I did. 

She said, when you find that one person to love and he finds you,  that is the first surrendering, in a relationship. It is the "playground" for the adventures you will have together. She said you never know what type of day it will be on the playground, you never know who will be out there with you, but you are there with your dearest, and that is all that matters. The second surrendering occurs when God throws you a curve ball, as it did them with her husband's accident. They could have divorced, however, because they had played so well together, everything that happened in their lives since then, stemmed from the first surrender to love. Their love for one another was the basis from which love grew into their lives.

That is wisdom at its finest, isn't it? Glad I could not get a good flight into LAX, that weekend, otherwise we would have missed one another. 

The anguish in me is gone now. It took a week or so. 

 It was the fear I had surpressed for so long, because of mammary ductile carcinoma which visited my body about 10 years ago.  My life was saved by a wise surgeon who was able to remove the bright light, as it appears in a nuclear x-ray and had only to perform a lumpectomy. He saved my life and "the ladies" as he called them.  

Because of it,however, I am unable to have children. This happens sometimes to women with certain types of carcinomas. Doctors may not mention the risk, however mine did,  and, so, it came to be. I was happy to be alive and well, and the secondary effect did not bother me, until I began dating a man, about two years after the operation. We had a few dinner dates, some kissing and hand holding. Then one afternoon, we got into one of those more personal, "fishing-for-similar-goals" discussions, we all have when dating someone new. 

He was a nice guy, good teeth, knew how to hoist a sail, and actually had a career he was good at and he could dance. Oh, ya! Well, the short story is when he found out I could not have children, he stopped calling. I could see it upset him as he could not hide the STOP sign, when it appeared in his eyes. He was kind enough to tell me that it was a "major" goal of his to have children (from his own seed, I gathered), so I deleted his phone number from the address book, that night. (No, we did not have sex.)

Why am I telling you this? Because, there are a lot of people out there who cannot have children because of things like this, and probably have the same worries I did. Guys, is it your blood line that needs to continue? Will it cause you to walk away from maybe the love of your life?

Is it that important or is it the raising of a child, who carries your name, with someone you love,  important?Are you going to require your bloodline continue and walk away from the love of your life? It happens, as it is true  for women who want to experience the physical wonder of birth, and would have walked away from a husband, in a car accident, who could not produce semen.

Just trying to get it out there, that love is all around and anything is possible, as was for that lovely woman and her husband. It all worked out because they loved-- Nothing else mattered.

Being a "beautiful and charming woman", my worry since that health challenge was that a man would come along who loved me, who wanted children. How could I tell him it was impossible, after the sailor boy quit calling incident? To not give someone I love, the one thing they desire, would be a sorrowful travesty for me. Evidently, as she reminded me, sailor man  wasn't The One ;). Her story made me realize that I had to trust in love, and the First Surrender. 

From that love, all else would flow.

Time to Write

A lot of people have been asking me about my book writing project. It is time to tell you about the hell this writer goes through, some days, as I scrawl out the next 60,000 words or so. For the love of Mike, don't do it to yourself unless you are sure you can handle your own insanity for about 5 months. The cut off date for delivery, of my new love, is August 3 (this year). 

So what is it like? 

It is always in my head. The next chapter, the correct format for the bibliography, or what I am missing down at the beach when it was 70 degrees today, in my little village on the Puget Sound. It rolls around inside the cranium, like incessant jabberwocky. The ability to be lured away from the laptop is slapped away, like a mosquito, since I also have a netbook, so any forays down to the beach, or for a walk along the Chambers Creek Trail, will include a backpack with the netbook , water bottle and a pound of organic red grapes. 

Technology encompasses all that I do and there is little escape from The Book. When I am driving, I think about it, and since the digital tape recorder was invented, my car feels like the one that Deep Throat drove around D.C. in, recording his memories of the White House antics of that president, from the past. Nixon? Remember him?

Friends call asking what I am doing, beginning around 7 PM. They know what is going on here and after a while the conversations, may get boring for them, since I do not discuss what I have written, with anyone, until it is done. Then it gets handed over to an editor, and the real work begins, for me. Which is watching bits and pieces, of the tome, being thrown into the Recycle bin, and creating new paragraphs and chapter re-arrangements for your reading pleasure. A most painful process, which can be compared to that moment you see your spouse or lover, move the final piece of clothing out of the closet, once the love affair ends. 

A writer's life is a weird one. I work alone with no one telling me what to do or how to do it. It is a flash of inspiration, an ability to pull out the superlative expression which ties together noun and verb, creating an intimacy between writer's mind and reader's heart which goads me into submission, of this love of writing. 

Where do the words come from and when do the lovers know the right moment to allow their souls to touch one another? That, I cannot answer for you. Only that it does happen without preconceived expectations and absolute faith, in the moment of movement, or the words arrive to create perfect harmony. 

Writer's lives are very simple ones, when they are writing. Quiet, sometimes, and other times I need to have The Stones, or Lady Antebellum or Andre Bocelli singing, Je vis pour elle, with  Helena Segara. Depends on the mood and the mind. Food and drink are secondary thoughts, when preceded by intense concentration. Many times, that intensity expands into another page, or another, before I withdraw from the keyboard. Other times, I slam the top down, grab the Ipod and run out the door, heading along the dirt road, and into the forest, next to the house. 

Sometimes, just to jump into the woods and sit down against an old fir tree, that looks like it has been around for a couple hundred centuries, is all I need to relieve the intensity, or to celebrate an incredible few pages that were gifts from the cosmos.  Just to breath and release the tension from the heart, which benevolently bestowed another 5 or 6 pages of words, without me knowing how they got there is all that I need to whisper a prayer of gratitude.

A book takes on an energy of its own, unlike, any other book written. 

The topics and the seminal seed for the book begins to grow with each sentence and, like a new lover, you never know where you will end up, as you dance into the relationship. Sometimes, the excitement from seeing the number of words written to date, can destroy a relationship with the new manuscript. No longer do I get excited as the numbers grow from 1000 to 5000 to 20,000, in my toolbar. I will pay the dues, for my false pride, once the editing begins. 

I have thousands of words on paper, in boxes, and on thumb drives, that will never see the light of day, in a published manuscript. There are probably 4 good books of poetry sitting there, that have aged over time, which may never be printed, bound and sold on Amazon.com. 

A writer, like any artist or musician, practices for years. Writes, edits, creates crap, creates a work of pure genius, and yet none of those things may ever be known to anyone else but to their creator. Many of us put those works in boxes, or on hard drives, and look at them once in a while, or pull the oil paintings, out of boxes, and gaze at them, then smile or wince. 

I keep mine, like you may keep yours, not because they are abysmal or admirable but because they are authentic. Me, at a time and place in my life, when the authentic self emerged and wrote a story or a poem about something pivotal, emerging from my soul's consciousness. That is all they were then. Whispers of memories which moved me silently along life's path.

Hours? How many hours do I write a day? A lot and sometimes none. Research takes up a good bit of any book and I do not care what you are writing. There are times when I am writing poetry, where I can spin off into a thesaurus for an hour, forgetting the original word I was looking up, as the love of a new word, the way it winds around my lips and enters the world, lunges into the room as spoken word. The promise to self and goal is 35 pages a week, which is facile for me.

Put me on a plane about 100 times a year, or a train or bus and let me stay in hotel rooms around the planet, and two books a year would be easy to produce. For some reason, unplugging from a home base and throwing myself into the planetary, uncharted paradigm, releases the visionary, fecundity imagination inside. The great thing about it is that anyone could be in that hotel room, with me, with the stereo or a meeting going on, and my tunnel vision kicks in and the writing just flows. Writers are not anti-social. We have ears, even though we are typing or hold pens in hand.

So, the life of this writer is variable and rich. If I stilled live in a big city, I would be hitting the streets around 10pm to eat dinner and go listen to music somewhere. Now, the stereo gets flipped on, when I am done, and I dance around for a half hour or so to re-energize and shake all the words out of my head. 

It is a writer's life and although self-indulgent, it is rich and varied and filled with lovely friends and family, who understand there are actions and desires which can be fulfilled, if you are on your life's path, doing what you love, and diving into its depth, without taking a breath. The breath comes at the end, when the creation is complete and through the creation, I learn a little more about myself and humanity. 

The impulse to write comes from my soul, of course. How can one not follow their soul when it consistently bellows one word: write, paint or sing? Am I a good writer? I no longer visit that presumptive question since who art appeals to is a big crap shoot. You never know who will like what you offer the world, all you know is it has to come out and is sometimes shared. I stopped worrying about it, when I read one of Van Gogh's letters, when I was in Arles, France. I sat at a table, in the same square where he painted Cafe Terrace at Night. The Cafe terrace is still the same now, as it was when he painted it. 

In the letters, Van Gogh writes: "My only anxiety is what can I do...could I not be of use and good for something?

And in a picture, I wish to say something that would 

console as music does...The world only concerns me

in so far as I feel a certain debt and duty towards it and 

out of gratitude want to leave some souvenir in the shape of drawings or pictures, not made to please a certain tendency in art, but to express sincere human feeling." 

So, tonight the writer writes, the wind blows across the Sound, and someone is sitting in Arles, in the same chair I sat in, a few years ago.

I look at the pages written today. Reach for my copy of, The Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins, and slip in John Cruz's, Acoustic Soul CD. Time to write.

My Heart Hurts

Something strange has been going on today and I just realized what it is now, at 2:07a.m. My heart hurts. Like the fish dying in the Gulf of Mexico now, suffocating from the millions of gallons of oil, pouring into the molecules of water, once clean, fresh, alive. My heart is hurting, unable to leap into joy, today, feeling the pain of so many dying for no reason, other than mismanagement of earth's treasures.

How do I deal with that feeling, now?

Once the resource is gone sometimes it never returns. Oil is the blood of the underside of earth's skin. It is bleeding and if you think that it will not cause disruption of the movement of earth's energy, then you must be one of those people that do not get oil changes for your car until the engine ceases. How much more torture can earth take from us? The more we abuse her, the smaller the planet surface becomes for us to find space, water and fresh air to continue our existence.

I spent a few hours yesterday probing the internet. Reading Mission Statements, of many large non-profits, which are claiming to save the planet. I found many tied into some of the most subversive, multi-national groups on the planet. If you trace the board of directors or see which large multi-national "clubs" formed these groups, you could begin to see how the not-for-profit curtain thins, as the profits made from those who contribute, without examining the masks behind the showmen, running the game are being controlled by those who run the banks, oil companies, and governments. Many non-profits do not have such associations, of course.

I cannot save everything, on the planet, since I have only so much energy and not enough money, to save every living entity, on it , like those so impoverished they are ghost-like, invisible, living in poverty and pain, unimaginable to those of us who have food, roofs and gas to help us move around. Take a ride up into the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, some sunny afternoon. You will come back a changed person. Perhaps frightened, as many do, or else more compassionate and stunned, as was I, at my changed perception of poverty, sick at my blindness to what was 3 miles from my hotel in Rio.

When I walked out onto the street that evening to dinner, and walked past H.L. Stern's, I looked down at the green tourmaline, 22 carat gold ring I had purchased for myself, and felt sick, for a moment. Brazil Avg. Income per year - 2,342.00. The women, who I spoke with in the favela, who allowed me to enter her shack, told us she earned about 20.00 US a month. That was a good month.

I thought about the children of Africa, who have been raped or maimed, because they happened to be living inside a man-made, imaginary line of demarcation, which puts them in one country at war, rather then the one next door, that is without such bloodshed on its soul.

My parents once owned a Civil War hospital, in Gettysburg, Pa, which had been converted to a wonderful, warm farm house, with 2 foot thick, stone walls. It had been a Confederate hospital, and then the Union took it. There was a sun porch running across the front, looking over the pastoral view and our fields. A ghost lived there, in the corner of that sunroom. Many people who slept on the sun porch, when they visited, would come to the kitchen for breakfast and say they had seen "him" again. The ghostly form was that of a young man, crouching in the corner, crying, and his crying is what would awaken them at night.

I would sit in the sunroom, when I would visit from my place in Alexandria, VA., and think about him, wishing him to appear so I could ask why he cried. From what pain, or sorrow, arose his mournful sounds, still emanating since July 1,2, or 3rd, 1863? 75,000 soldiers from one side vs.94,000 from another, on that bloody field. What horrors for that boy, I cannot imagine.

I never saw him. I didn't need to since that house sat in the middle of one of the worst nightmares of the North and the South, the battlefield at Gettysburg, where thousands died, more from wounds and amputations, than instantaneous death. Instant death would have been much more preferred by most of them, I would guess, than the grizzly operations, without anesthesia. For me, it is always the sound of those in pain, or breathing their last, which I always remember, and arises in me the memory of their pain and agony.

Today, my senses where affected by the cries from an ocean of fish and other creatures, screaming to the sky, for release from the painful deaths they are all enduring, inside their home of once magnificent water. Hellish and unexplainable to them, a miasma of death, without warning and no escape for the mammals, birds, crustaceans and molecules once living, now destroyed. How many molecules destroyed, I wonder.

The number of electrons in the known universe is 10^88, which is ten-thousand

quattuordecillion. Just for perspective, one trillion dollar bills laid end-to-end,

at the equator would circle the planet nearly 3,000 times.

Trying to imagine how many molecules and living organisms were destroyed

because someone didn't lay the cement down right, at 5,000 ft. below the ocean's

surface, which caused a bubble to rise and blow out hundreds of millions of oil,

and kill not only men on that derrick, but anything within miles, and thousands of feet below,is truly something we all are accountable for since we all want oil.

You and me are dependent on it, and we need it to fly our

planes, run our cars, heat our homes, and make all those plastic containers

that your printer ink comes in. You know --ink cartridges.

We are using Earth's blood to feed ourselves, and provide our comforts for travel

and personal agendas. Instead of Soylent Green, let's call it Soylent Black.

If you have never seen this sci-fi movie, pick it up this week and

then look at some pictures of what that mass of red in the Gulf

looks like from the satellites.

[Soylent Green is a 1973 American science fiction film directed by

Richard Fleischer. Starring Charlton Heston, the film overlays the

police procedural and science fiction genres as it depicts the investigation

into the brutal murder of a wealthy businessman in a dystopian future suffering

from pollution, overpopulation, depleted resources, poverty, dying oceans

and a hot climate due to the greenhouse effect. Much of the population

survives on processed food rations, including the eponymous "soylent green".

---Excerpt from Wikipedia]

Where am I going with this blog, today? I do not know. When the screams of those

animals, dying, in the Gulf reached my consciousness today, I became sad,

then angry, then tired of ongoing destruction we all support, silently,

because we "have to have" something which, in order to get it, we need to

destroy the earth's gentle balance to satisfy our desires.

I know there is a solution, somewhere in our hearts, in someone's mind,

that will allow us to live without oil. We will never have to stab the earth,

with steel straws, 5,000 feet long, puncturing ocean floors, or ripping across

Gaia's body, with steel claws to gather minerals, and strip Gaia of all hers.

We are all one soul, are we not? Maybe this blog today will bring some

awareness into your heart. Maybe you will do something to help.

I recalled a wonderful book, I read a few years ago. It relieved my

anger, about my part in destroying such a beautiful body of water, and all that

lay beneath the Gulf, this week, and the pain, I felt for a few hours today.

Here is the excerpt”

Every Warrior of the Light has felt afraid of going into battle.

Every Warrior of the Light has, at some time in the past, lied

or betrayed someone.

Every Warrior of the Light has trodden a path that was not his.

Every Warrior of the Light has suffered for the most trivial

of reasons.

Every Warrior of the Light has, at least once, believed he was not

A Warrior of the Light.

Every Warrior of the Light has failed in his spiritual duties.

Every Warrior of the Light has said ‘yes’ when he wanted to say ‘no’.

Every Warrior of the Light has hurt someone he loved.

That is why he is a Warrior of the Light, because he has been through all this

And yet has never lost hope of being better than he is.--

Paulo Coelho, The Manual of the Warrior of Light.

I know I am a better human than I was yesterday, or last week. I believe that

as we move through space at 25,000 miles per hour, I am evolving also in

that energy transition. The overwhelming sense of being barren of any solution, this morning, as I drank my mate, from Argentina,wondering how I could to stop earth's destruction is gone now.

I don't stay in anger mode, very long, anymore. It takes up too much energy.

My joy in life always exceeds my frustrations. I am not a ghost, I am flesh and blood, alive, worthy of love because I love deeply, even though I may not show it

in my actions or words, all the time. Love is there deep, abiding and whole.

The one thing that can change All.

That soldier, the young soldier on the farm in Gettysburg, lived in fear and died,

probably, a painful, lonely death, as did many of the beings in the Gulf of Mexico

this week. I send all of them love today, for it is the only thing I have today to share.

I send love to you and hope you are the one that finds the solution,

or part of the solution to end our dependence on oil.

It would be a worthy offering to such a beautiful place

that has allowed us all a home, a place where we learn to Love

and act from Love.

Do You Need More Than Love?

Some things become clear as you walk along a beach. Sound, relationships and life's purpose seem to flow through my psyche normally walking along a long, sandy beach. This weekend, I spent time, in So. California,  to walk the beaches and found that my mind was not focused on those things,  instead it was trying to answer the question of what is it about people that overwhelms me with joy, inspires me, makes me laugh or cry? The richness of it all, the depth, the passion, the love, the truth was the answer for me.

Their stories of sorrows, joys were highlights for me, this weekend. I paid attention to a lot of stories from people who, like myself, needed to understand that part inside themselves which relies on the rest of us to listen, comment and provide adagios for our souls' to touch love.That is our treasure to one another.

Humans are an incredible lot. We create drama, find love, walk away from love, walk with or away from one another, depending on our fear of commitment level. I spent hours walking the beach in Venice, Ca. this past Saturday evening. Had not been there for a couple of years, and found myself seeing many of the same sights that had been there before. The faces had changed, the products, too, but not all. One thing, I love about humans is their ability to replicate historic memories and conserve them for the rest of us. There is something lovely in the familiar, like Constantine's Gate in the Roman Forum, or Michelangelo's, David.

The Venice astrologer was still in the same building and in the same apartment! When I saw the sign on the balcony, I smiled. A little memory laugh rose up my chakras, as I recalled a night, years ago, when a friend went in and came back with the answer he needed about his girlfriend. I think they may still be together. Familiar. 

I have changed a lot over the years, however, not so much, as I stood in front of Jimmy Hendrix, playing his heart and singing there on the sidewalk. He looks just like Jimmy and if you did not know Hendrix was dead, well, you'd believe he was still on earth with us, looking at the Jimmy-double. I was happy to see Jimmy, there. It brought back a memory of a visit to Hendrix's grave, the first time I visited Seattle, at the Greenwood Memorial Park in Renton, Washington.

I parked at the memorial in Renton. There was no one there in the cemetery with me. Not all his songs appealed to me, however, there is a loss for all humanity when a musician dies, as his music rises to the sky with only the air to carry it into the ethers. Notes rising from earth, harmony collectively joining minds and hearts for a period of time, a period of emotional recognition of something in all our souls. 

I opened all the doors on my car, and put on Beethoven's Sonata in C Sharp Minor Op.27, No 2.The stereo volume set to the highest level.

You could hear it all over the cemetery and it was magnificent.

Beethoven dedicated the Sonata to his pupil, Countess Giulietta Guicciardi,  whom Beethoven had loved. The piece came about when Beethoven heard music coming from a house. and knew it was one of his compositions. When he entered the house, he found a blind girl playing the piano. She wished someone would show her how to play the song correctly. He offered to play it for her, and when he finished, she realized who it was. He then improvised the sonata, inspired by the moonlight streaming in through the window.[wikipedia]

I sat at the grave and listened to that incredible, expansive piece as it played to me and the birds, that warm, summer evening, while I thought about a man who had been wild, extreme, creative and gave up his life to the addictions which plague men, like himself, when too much, too fast arises from the creative genius and is sold to the world for the price of a life, his life. 

When I stood there on the beach, in Venice, this weekend, I remembered that day in Renton, and my hope that one day I would like to have someone play that Beethoven piece, to me, alone. Somewhere on earth, which takes our breath away, because of its beauty. Just to sit alone with the pianist and not a word spoken, between us. Just the music, the piano, the light, the fingers, the breath moving from our bodies, and his fingers touching the keys. Just that and nothing else. To walk from that room, together, blinded by the beauty of it all --well, that is heaven to me.

The joy of creation is reward itself. The money, fame, glory is not why a musician composes, an artist paints, a writer writes, is it? Perhaps, the Venice Beach astrologer realized, years ago, and made a decision that the gift they had was enough to be happy.

Paulo Coelho said, in an interview,-- that people think that a winner is someone who is loved by everyone. But as you climb the steps of fame, there's always another side to that. People might be fascinated by you, but on the other hand, those who haven't been as successful are bound to view you with a certain amount of bitterness. That's where the loneliness comes in.--

Maybe loneliness is what overtook Jimmy. It all comes down to a choice and eventually that

choice should be made based on what you really need to survive in this world. 

A man once asked me what I wanted from him and I could not tell him, because he was not the man I would accept those things from, if you understand me. I know now what I want.

I need a roof over my head, food and drink on the table, a warm bed with a kind-spirited, loving man in it, books, art, music. Anything else, any gifts are treasures,given lovingly and with the knowledge they were chosen with love. What is it that you need? Do you need more than love?

Is love not enough or is it too much to bear? Think fast. Act now.