Open Up

Open up and smell the rain. It is coming. 
Soon the clouds will topple over with accumulated sweet tears and I will be there to drink it in. I will have my pearl goblet embellished in skulls and teeth and the sweetness of sky will move through me, turning me from flesh to air. 
Open up and smell the coming rain. Open up and let the walls of your chest creak, they will make a joyful noise and sing with mine as we stumble into awakening.
Like rusty doors in long forgotten castles, the sound is wild and out of place. Now is the moment to take the scuffed up brass skeleton key from the old woolen pocket. It is time to twist, yes, with a shaky hand, and let the gates crack. 
Open up and smell the rain.  It comes as a gift without words and explanation. The scent of night moves towards us in lustful abandon, coming with its sweet tears. Clouds full of wetness sweep in covering us in newness.
Now take this knife, make perfect slits along the length of our single piece of okra. The glue on our fingers will bind us to the walls and from time to time we can hang from the ceiling and look at the world like geckos.
Or you can take the form of a purple goddess and travel among the trees like the wind. There are no obstructions as purple scented air. You move wildly through thickets of oak leaves, sending a torrent of them to the ground.  You bash against the boughs, bouncing and twisting over shapes and continue forward.  Perhaps these things will eventually slow you down, all these rocks and faces of matter, but for now you roll over them as purple scented air. 
Or you can dance ecstatically without form, picking up pollen and dispersing it over fields and houses.  Twisting, twisting, you bend the clouds into mermaids and smiling paintbrushes, an entire canvas of sky all orange and red and glowing. 
Or you can lie down and become gold grass.  Feel the skinny white roots slowly digging into the soil, pushing so softly past the tiny bugs dwelling in the folds of pungent earth.  Feel the sun turning to food on your delicate upturned blades.  Can you feel the green of your flesh? 
Open up and smell the rain.  The clouds are colliding and soon we will be droplets once again.   Gold is the sky as we take the form of clouds, there are no obstructions as we take new shape.

The Golden Eye

The hilltops are high above me as I search for my brother with the golden eye. 
All the others have fallen, somewhere between the sea and the desert there are many corpses, brown hair with waves, blue eyed boys who stare up at the sun without blinking, a mother who has lost her young.
They are there, on the land, in the rivers, boys, brothers. And it is me who climbs these cliffs still searching for the one with the golden eye. 
Brother or god?  Man and lover, father of life and creation.
I scan the black ravines and wonder if he can see me here on this treetop, my strong thighs gripping the bark as I cling and scan and squint.  Birds come and perch on my thin white arms like branches, they sing in my ear little melodies of encouragement.
The black streaked ones sing a melancholic tune, and when they sing my body grows desperate. Perhaps he is gone forever, our father and lover, our king and creator, our leader with the golden eye. 
Does he run or is he lost?  Does he hide or does he wait to be found? 
I am unsure as I take each step, not quite able to read my heart in the clouds.  The leaves stir on the parched ground, all red and yellow and crackling beneath my soft footsteps. They are of no help.  I can't read them, their silent fortunes are obscure and lost to the wind. 
I keep walking, I have been here before, so many times on this search.
Brother, brother- I have written about you before.  Father lover, I have written of your name and this search.  My fallen kin among the seas and sands, I have written of you in countless pages. 
I walk clutching my breasts, yearning for comfort, for the mother that is lost in these trees and shadows. I add my tears to the ocean, lending them only briefly to the trickle of the river. 
Perhaps in the next world I will drink my own sadness in a goblet of glass. These steps seem like a very wide circle, so wide it becomes invisible. 
My brothers are gone and I continue on, still looking for the man with the golden eye.

You Are Dying

Do you know that you’re dying? Don’t stare at me with big wide eyes, You Are Dying.

Through the tunnel from the womb, into the cold air, breathing, gasping, a moment from death.
Our birth is an immediate tolling bell of what’s to come.
Our only disease is life itself.

We are dying.

Each breath,
another step
Each day,
a moment closer

There is no need for doctors or prognosis. Skip the tests, the transfusion, the trips to a place of many rooms and fluorescent lights. No man in a white coat can say it any different than I can… you are dying.

Let it sink it.
Let it go to the core.
And if your heart doesn’t start to beat just a little faster,
Then let the words go a bit deeper, for you still haven’t heard:
YOU ARE DYING

Look around, it’s time to pay attention.
There’s no time for anything else, no time for watching the spilled milk or crying for the crimes of the past. We’ve all been fucked, screwed and spit on. It’s part of the experience, like strobe lights at a rock show, it’s just part of the deal. As was once said by a great band, there’s no time for fussing and fighting my friend.

You’re dying, the light at the end of the tunnel is clear, the end is inevitable, you are standing on the tracks, you will be food for the birds.
And so now, take a breath. It is coming. YOU.

If only we could stop the little bits of swirling sand and dust clouding our vision. They are sentences from the past, nuggets of resentment hidden in clenched fists, your father’s wrinkled brow. They whirl so fast, blinding even focused eyes. Clouding the path, making enemies of friends, pointing towards the cliffs.

You are dying.

There’s no time for the complaining.
For the excuses, no time.
The habit of anger, resentment, comparison, there’s just no time. We all end up as dust.
Shall you spend your last few minutes squawking? Complaining about the tart strawberry, the irritating glare of the sun? The child laughing loudly?

There is just too much to do. So much to write, circles to build, songs to hear, careful steps to take. Don’t let it all evaporate below the sun, growing lighter and lighter by the minute, fading into nothingness.

It is all here, every laugh and cry, every person in your path, every sound floating in through your walls. It is all here for you to use, coming to you free and untainted. It is the raw matter for you to bend and shape, bursts of energy to wrangle and harness, converting into fuel and long sticks of light.

It is all here, take it before you’re gone. Before they mourn the bit of dust you were. Before your steps are silenced and forgotten. The path can use another set of hands. There are weeds and misplaced rocks, there are stories to write and gnomes to meet.

Did you know that you are dying?

YOU
YOU who read these words.
YOU ARE DYING.

Look around and breath it in. Then start to work.

The Question

There has been a lifetime without understanding. A simple word. As though words were simple. As though a mere string of letters could ever begin to describe the shifting of something so subtle. Uttered, spoken, shouted with disgust, thought of with envy. A word. The simple word. The complex word. The question remains, what is it? The study has given me more questions. The statements, the answers, the thoughts, the ideas…they have all fallen, one by one. 2,4 ,6, 12, 16…the understanding has fallen, there never was an understanding, just the knee-jerk recollection of the letters.
How many more words are there? How many more ideas…how many more things that are stored up with no real study, with no real questioning? There is a lifetime of rusty accumulation. A lifetime of words, a lifetime of supposed understanding and usage. I ride the wheel and I am left holding an empty bag. The wind blows and I hear an echo. I truly don’t know. I have never known. Each thought is an elusive grasp into the fog of truth.
For what is truth? What is understanding? What is power? Traces run along the ground, I run my fingers along their trail. But where do they come from and where do they go? I look forwards, backwards, I call to my friend… “where are you?” there is no answer, just another gust of wind.
I have been listening to the sound of wind, the sound of dust hitting a window over and over. I have listened to its bell for three decades. I have called to it, played with it, danced with it…I have never known it. I have never looked beneath that skirt, never studied the shape of the long first letter, the curve of the last. And I haven’t looked in. I haven’t felt the muddled ball that whirls in a fog of letters and symbols and blue and black. I think I see traces, I think I can poke it…and maybe, maybe…but I look into the distance with squinted eyes. I look out and know that the earth is covered in fog and letters dance in the wind and my fingers are covered in slime and my mind is coated in an even thicker sludge.
First, I will need to scrape the green ooze off. First, I will need to sit with the stillness, the evaporated shapes, the missing thoughts. This is not ignorance, this is the understanding that I have never held between my fingers.

Never Too Late

When I looked at the birds, I saw the wind. I saw the moment of freedom that cannot be truly savored unless the cage has been experienced. There they are, way up there, specks in the blue canvas of a sky that knows no bounds. Blue turns to the speckled expanse of black and I am unable to watch.
But some can fly. Some without wings. Some without a body. We just need to learn. Whatever this body does. It might teach and eat, it might build or destroy, it might sit at an object they call a desk, it can learn to fly.
Just don’t get too caught up on the image of flight. Flight is not just a wing, not just the taste of a summer breeze tinged with jasmine, not just the rush of movement.
You can learn, but will you? Will you cry when the new nubs sprout at the place you knew as shoulders? Will you shout as the homes you knew melt into the shimmer of lakes?
A new freedom comes with the turning of a new moon. We watch from a balcony and howl in unison.
It is not too late, but we must shout and sing.
It is not too late, but we must dance, we must move.
The launch pad awaits a sure step. We await ourselves, or the thing we know as self. It does not come cheap, nor fast. But it can come.
It is never too late to learn to fly. The portal can open, deep inside that lump encased in bone. The door can open, deep in the beating organ known as heart. Steps are not always needed. Skips, jumps, hops, they will all do.
It is never too late. And so look to others that have gone before. Look for the keepers of the way…their dust is gold….their eyes a black that writes poems and sings to hummingbirds and worms alike.
For to fly is to transform knowledge. To fly is to learn and to learn again. To have learn how to learn. To learn to transform.
It is never too late. This is the sprouting of wings without feathers, flight without distance, sight without eyes. This can be the beginning. The real. The wind. The moment. There is nothing to believe, because there is no faith. But there is the taste of jasmine stained wind and there is the hurried laughter from a morning of narrow escapes.

Consequences

It was late at night and it was very dark. The clouds were hidden behind a thick layer of fog and the world moved around her in only three colors: black, gray and white. The roads were nearly deserted, just a bus with its hazard lights on blinked quietly as she passed. And she drove on, driving up the twisted road that skirted like an asphalt snake along the edge of San Bruno mountain, her car’s headlights outlining the bulbous forms of gray clouds that enveloped her like a hungry ghost made of mist and sheets of moisture. There was a musical piece on the radio, an electronic composition without words that seemed so tender, coming right from the unknown heart of its creator and entering hers with an unrelenting curiosity to see what lay open in the late hour. Small tears pricked her eyes as she reached the crest of the hill. The music was too beautiful, how could something like this arrive to fit the moment so well? This was music for the tender dark hours, when night and day blend into one. When the sleeping and the awakened dance between clouds of fog and pull dreams from the void. The music held her, as though the notes themselves were made to caress her curvaceous tears, as though the notes knew why she would cry and they pulled the tears out with a little more force, taking her with them on their voyage through time. As the road flattened out, she suddenly realized she might never know the composer, another song would come on and the beauty of what she had just heard would remain forever in her memory, encapsulating the moment like a dream. Someone, somewhere had made this music, and that person would never know that now, there was a girl driving in a small black truck in the middle of the night, going home. She could never tell them that the notes cast themselves around her like a magic circle, holding her as no other piece of music could. It was made for this. It was this. She was that, and it was her. It took her hand and led her down a psychedelic road where owls feed and coyotes sometimes wander. It held her in its palm, a loving teacher that pulled on her metal gates just a little more. “Open up,” it said. And whoever made this piece…they would never know. What were they doing right now? Sleeping? Eating? Working? Making love? The infinite consequences of their creation were unknowable. Once born, the creation had its own life, moving through time, radio, stereos, ears…moving into and out of perception…being heard by some, being shut off by others. Were there others crying? Others dancing? A thousand ways this piece could go…its creator would never know.
The consequences of what we create are unknowable. We create for the sake of creating, we do for the sake of doing, and then, it is sent, it goes out into the world, drifting like a carefully constructed leaf in the wind. Will someone catch it? Will it go straight to the sea, straight to the blue waves that will swallow up the orange and yellow and green? Or maybe it will drift to land with the high tide, and perhaps a little girl will pluck it from the ocean foam. And maybe it will end up in her collage of thoughts and dreams and her memory of changing seasons. There is just no way to tell what will happen, so we just let them go. Just as we were once let go, like tears already dispersing into the fog before the song that provoked them has come to an end, like ribbons of stardust dancing in the bottomless void of the infinite night.

Climbing Aboard

Staring brightly into the sky, they dreamed of rainbows that never ended, of colored trails that flew around the earth like great open freeways of possibility. The singular road forked with smaller trails and disappeared over bridges and down pixie-dust covered tunnels. Rainbows arched in the sky like Becky had once described over a pipe of psychedelic grass and created concentric circles that looped back in on themselves before branching off into the distance that was lit with the hope of red and green and purple. The roads moved like pretzels and clovers and dove in on themselves, leading to other planes where rainbows were called by other names and seen with different eyes and painted with other colors. They stared at the rainbows from the ground, their necks pinched and eyes wide with the energy of amazement. How would they ever find a ladder big enough to reach the road?
They just needed to get to the lowest point on the road, but even that was close to the hawks that coasted the sun drenched sky. Until now, they had only heard rumors of this road, great yarns overheard in pubs and simple lines read in old books. But the storm clouds had opened one morning as they walked home in the quiet hours of a new day and as white gave way to the awaiting blue sky, they saw the rainbow highway. They stood at the bottom, standing just under the lowest dip of the road they could see, the spot that they just might have a chance of accessing if they could figure a way up. Bright speckles of light moved on the colored current.
There were large wooden ships and nearly invisible shapes that expanded and contracted like dancers. No one spoke, but they all wondered how to ascend. Just how did anyone get started? How can you get from here to there? From where you stand to the place of your dreams? From present reality to the farthest goal, to the unknowable without shape? To the places where dreams smoke and speak in other tongues, where creation is in the simmering pot, the golden cauldron tended by a silver spoon. Just how do you get from here to there?
Out through the black hole of a sparkling tunnel came a ship. There was the silhouette of a person, a young man along the side of the helm who looked to the landscape below while his right hand was raised to his eyes, blocking the gleam of the sun. His head was slightly lowered, scanning the ground patiently and then looking out towards the horizon. He looked out as though expecting nothing, as though he had looked out into the distance for a thousand years, seeing nothing but birds and water. As he passed along the lowest dip in the colored road his body twitched as he saw them, “Do you want to come aboard?” he shouted to them through cupped hands. “Yes!” they shouted in unison. They didn’t know who he was, they didn’t know were the ship was headed, but as the boy threw down the braided rope, they grabbed a hold tightly and started to pull themselves up using strength they didn’t know they had.

Binary Tree

The last dash of the “t” is in place, the words are checked for spelling, the sentences for grammar…I wrap it all up with a colorful graphic that exemplifies the text and send it off, through the system of tubes and invisible helping hands that deliver it to curious brown eyes that read it with interest in a dark, warm room. And I take a breath, a plane roars across the sky like a metal dragon and then…silence…the void…there is nothing here. All is blackness and I stand naked and alone, wondering what will come next. A flicker zig zags across my mind sending sparks to retrieve my attention, oh yes, I remember, there is another text to write. There is never an end. There a dozens of notebooks, each full of ideas and within the scope of this lifetime, there could not be enough time to finish them all, and even if I did, there would be more. Each fork in the path, each level of completion leads to another task waiting to be done…a new piece of writing, a new dance. There is never an end, just the cycling of energy from one form to another. The last breath will be the beginning of another branch. A thousand lifetimes will pass and each will lead to the same set of steps, the same writing, the same brown eyes that hold the world in their soft gaze.
The infinite tree, with its infinite forking branches, spiraling off into the colorless sky of a million suns. It is never the end, unless I stop looking, unless I close my eyes and cover my head in a blanket and fall asleep within the deep knot of its trunk. The branches may exist, the endless work may exist, the infinite lifetimes may exist, but what can I do when my eyes are closed? They may spiral around me like sequined circus clowns and spring fairies, but how shall I fly without wings? I may be walking the small, slick branch right now, walking along its curving path into the orange sunset, and yes, I think I am, I feel the fading rays against my skin, but still, my eyes are closed and you promised that we would walk through the doorway together, is it still true? Each branch leads to another segment, another fork in which to choose a path, will it be the left or right? And when I come to the end of this small wooden segment? What then? Left or right? And on other trees, there are three choices, should I take the center path? Should I take the path of crying, the path of fear, or the path of containment? Intellectualizing is simple, the choice is objective and thus, clear. But sitting there, heart pounding, fear licking at the heels, demons whispering in each ear, dragons tugging at the nipples, the steps are difficult to gauge, the distance of their points cloaked in a haze. Visions of a lion strike my face, oh, a wet tongue has found me. The cry of an eagle warns of other, even more difficult choices to come. There will be no end. On my back is a tattooed map, it traces the covered veins below. Go! Go! Go! There is not much time. There is no end, it stretches on and on, two choices at each fork on the road.
Will it be life or sleep?
Work or death?
The path must be walked, decisions must be made, words must be written, melodies must be sung.
There is an infinite amount of choices behind us.
There is an infinite amount of choices ahead.
But the choice is always the same.

To A Crisp

I am the baked chicken, my skin is brown, almost golden in its heated hue. I’ve been baking for hours, though it feels like years. The recipe is on the marble counter. Oil spots and a thin coating of flour soil the edges of the paper. I glow in the florescent light, green seasoning and dots of pepper decorate my skin. I’m pretty enough for a cooking show and soon, the guests will arrive, marveling at my color and crispy skin. With mouths watering, they will compliment the chef, job well done! "She looks perfect," they say, "the crispy skin is sure to be delicious."
For a moment, before the show continues, a slight tear in the crispy skin opens. After a fleeting moment of music and sound, when voices open and move without fear, without the barriers of control and doubt, the white flesh is exposed. Juicy and white, tender as the moment of birth, the insides are naked, open to all that have the eyes to look, and they are few. The salty tears come without anticipation or explanation, for the moment, without hesitation, the body opens wide.
In this moment, I know clearly why I am here. Why I beat this drum, why I sing this sustained note. This is beauty. This is raw and dark and light and the strength of time moving through us. Through the tear, the world comes through. Through the tear, the whitest of light seeps out and meets the deepest of blacks. In the bed of sounds, the piano cradles the drum, the fork finds his lover, the chandelier. The tears well as the cymbal is hit, lightly and unafraid. Harder, harder, there is no hesitation, there is no wrong, there is no right. It is. It simply is, now. This sound, this symphony.
There is no show, there is no skin, there is no crispy barrier protecting me from the watery-mouthed watchers or hungry guests. There is no secret, there is no skin, there is no me. The brittle design has been cut in half, and I find myself here, beating a bass. Through the opening in the candy coated shell, you find your way in, building the wooden bridge that connects one universe to another. When the tear is repaired, when the authorities are alerted of the breach and the hungry guests demand their dinner, hopefully the bridge will remain, just large enough for the Unknown to find its way inside and for me, to search for a way out.

Influence

There once was a kernel of knowledge, and although it is described as a kernel, its beauty and wonder stretched further than most eyes could see and went deeper than most could even begin to imagine. It lived in a clear void of light and constant movement that displayed itself with rays of electricity that darted like fireflies across the blackened expanse. The kernel lived eternally, existing before beginning and lasting beyond end…and although the kernel would bend and re-form and breathe, it always remained a kernel, a nucleus around an orbiting mass. The kernel was boundless, able to touch and transform itself through solid matter and muscle mass. It remained contained outside the world of laws and concrete, outside of human society, yet, it traveled and moved through their realms. It journeyed in and out of the earth with the help of human bodies through a system of paths and golden corridors and sparkling moments of serene attention. The earth was cluttered with metal buildings and rigid gray institutions that were rooted in generations of dogma and habit. It was full of gluttons and those who could not eat. There were morals that were woven through generations like woolen thread and pretty fashions that changed like the seasons and boomeranged with the wind. There were men who desired power and beautiful women, there were women who hoped for fine hats and smart children. Some wanted gold and rugged health, some read mountains of books and drew pictures of the world’s monuments on white napkins. There were people who believed in law and order and there were slaves who were forbidden to read. There were women forced into small rooms with only a fire and a cooking pot and there were certain plants which were forbidden by those in power.
The kernel existed before all this, long before human history and moral codes and lawyers and banking institutions. There was once a man who had a moment of blinding insight. He sat under a blue sky, his thin legs were crossed as he sat close to the earth. The wind blew across his face, and for a long moment, he felt inhuman, he was, in this awakening, open to knowledge beyond the human world. He was experiencing the kernel. Everything he had been taught as a young boy was irrelevant, what he felt, now, was beyond the people of this world and everything they created. The knowledge, the kernel, was far beyond his social status and beyond his ethics. As he sat, he felt a channel open up within him and a radiantly blue cord flowed into his heart with the force of a runaway train. He received it, his body slightly fearful, but his will was open and receptive. In this moment, though his direct contact with the kernel, he developed a way. A way to live, a way to walk, a way to experience the universe, a way to work. He developed a set of tools so that others might open up to the channel as well.
While he was alive, his ideas spread. His students spoke to others who spoke to more people. A large web was formed. After his body died, his way of life traveled across seas and mountains, from person to person. Schools were built to study his way. For thousands of years, his way was passed through language and books and song. The popularity was not without consequence, though, and his way had become words…a religion…an idea or philosophy that someone could try out and perhaps quickly move on to the next tantalizing idea promising inner peace. The initial discovery of the kernel was diluted into an organization with leaders and foundations and bureaucracy. There were workshops and seminars, people paid hundreds of dollars for a couple of life lessons on anger and love, but in the end, there were no life teachers and guides. Some tried the way and gave up after a few weeks. Some tried it and devoted the rest to their lives to it. Movies referenced it and it became a household name, along with the other religions with scores of followers. Entrepreneurs made T-shirts with quotes and people browsed bookstores with hundreds of titles in the genre.
This Way, this way of living life and working with its electrical nature, began with a man that had a deep moment of awakening, a true moment that left behind a changed man and a path into the void. But after thousands of years, moving through continents and people, many of its secrets were lost or misunderstood, its power became diluted as people without teachers experimented with the ideas and then became dogmatic. People practiced what they thought was the way, they claimed it as their own, yet they had no direct contact or connection with the man who had opened to the source. The initial knowledge was so contaminated by the human world that most traces of its way had been lost on the human machines, its power to awaken, its "ways" that required devotion and constant attention were lost on the sleeping, even the sincere workers had no real power or skills to do the work required and nowhere to get it from.
But still the kernel exists, it stands outside, now, living, alive, moving, shifting, glowing. There are other lines. There are other channels that run from the kernel and others that run in, feeding it the nutrients of attention and work. There are long lineages of work, passed from person to person, always under the shadow of secrecy. There are too many chances for contamination if the ideas are distributed freely. This knowledge is beyond humans, it lives outside of humans, but it can pass through them, like sparkling ions through a willing conductor. A direct channel flows from the kernel to the people, and, from them, the energy flows back into the kernel. A circuit in constant movement. The eternal kernel flows out, passing from one person to the other, and the energy comes back, slightly more diffused, back to the source, where the current flows out once again. This has always been so. It cannot be otherwise.

The Ship and its Maintenance

The ship is afloat upon a buoyant ocean. In a thousand points around it, the sea rises into small sharp peaks with white foamed caps and then falls back suddenly into the dark blue mass that extends endlessly in all directions. The ship is large and elegant, shaped in a style from the eighteen hundreds, with a wooden hull and white sails which are presently full and heaving with the soft wind. In the air is the sound of muted thumping which comes from the subtle beating of the wind on the thick woven canvas. Taught ropes come from every direction, attaching the mizzen to the main mast to the foremast.
There are a few people aboard, a captain and his crew. In the captain’s quarters, there are piles of maps and charts for the stars. He knows his way well and when he talks, one eye is always on the horizon. This ship is afloat, upon the conglomerated mass of fish below the surface, above the worlds of kelp and deep sea canyons and mountains. But the vessel is not resigned to move only upon water, it has the capacity (when the moment is ripe) to sprout tiny wings from the main mast. Then it can venture into the vast atmosphere above, unconstrained by the laws of gravity. The wings have shown themselves only occasionally, seldom enough that some of the travelers often forget their ability to fly. They wait invisibly for the precise conditions to arrive, when every passenger is ready to be transported to another place above the clouds.
For the ship to stay afloat upon the choppy sea and voyage to the intended direction, all parts of it must be in working order. The sails must be patched and free of holes, the hull and the floorboards must be sealed and polished. Before they can fly, they must do the bare minimum and stay afloat and, sometimes, even this is hard for the small crew. This ship requires continuous attention and more so, continuous ambiguity. It sails among pirates and sharks, it moves past hostile lands fearful of foreign voyagers and upon an ocean ready to swallow the vulnerable without a drop of regret.
The crew have figured out a small weapon, a way to remain invisible even though they travel through the day and the night. A simple secret passed down through many generations, they have learned to keep silent. They keep their intentions quiet, they keep their ability to fly hidden, they keep their desired location a secret. Their course and wings depend on their accumulated energy, and as long as they keep their energy aboard the ship, the ship stays afloat. By revealing too much, the ship begins to leak. And with the leak, the ship sinks, ready to be received by an unforgiving sea.
The journey to wakefulness is a seldom navigated path, only the voyager whose skin can grow used to the salty spray and whose heart can learn to flower among the desert of ocean and open sky…only such a person will learn to avoid lustful mermaids with spiraled hair and hungry sharks eager to taste warm flesh. Our partners in this voyage live aboard an invisible ship, a small space between ourselves and no one else, which voyages into realms unknowable by most humans . This constant quest requires the containment of our energy. To preserve our energy, to contain it and mount it, is essential in order to build ourselves so strong that our wings can sprout and move higher than normal bodies usually venture. The easiest, the fastest way to lose energy, is to speak about our work with anyone other than our direct partners. The mermaids will ask and the night sky filled with stars will seem innocuous, but all of these will leak our energy into the normal human world and they will only serve to bring the precious ship down. Through an open leaking hole, dirty ravenous fish may enter, chewing upon the soft interior and bringing the safe dry space further into the dark waters.
We strive for lightness, we work for levity and accumulated energy. Keep silent. Keep your appearance and speech as utterly normal and vague as possible. It will only be the naïvely intuitive that will softly ask permission to enter. By speaking with anyone else, you dilute the power of the shared group, you leak out into a world of hostility and sarcasm and human misunderstanding. Preserve the strength of your will, of your attention, of your group. Keep silent.

The Work Relationship

The human experience is filled with varying qualities and degrees of relationships. There is the earliest contact between mother and child, between siblings and with pets, between friends, between lovers. All of these relationships make a dent in the pliable mold of skin and organs- although it is not the only thing that changes us, they certainly represent a large influence over our life. And once we are walking and talking and know how to bathe and feed ourselves, if we are so lucky, we will discover another kind of relationship. It is a working relationship. It begins with two people who consciously decide to go on a journey together. Since we begin blind and naïve to our habits and sleeping state, the relationship begins in a state of intuitive trust. A baby clings to its mother’s breast without asking for references, it just latches on, trusting it will be guided and cared for. A work relationship between adults begins in this way as well, with trust and an intuitive sense that this is the mysterious path to tread.
This is a delicate state, akin to the small sparks of twigs and crumpled newspapers which begin a great breathing fire. Each step along the path is taken slowly, with tenderness and strength. Piling too much thick pine wood on a slowly lighting fire could smoother the flames, too much lighter fluid could cause an explosion, while waiting too long to add the larger logs could also extinguish the mounting flames. It is a delicate balance, a fine razor’s edge.
A working relationship is maintained by constant devotion. Devotion to the constant work, devotion to the master who guides with all their ability, devotion to the objective of a waking state, devotion to honesty and keeping an open heart, devotion to transforming our negative habits into things of beauty that have the power to affect more than we normally understand.
It requires renewed trust when the moment feels bleak and the machine spins in turmoil. It requires renewed attention and focus each moment of the day when our thoughts drift into identified and distracted states. It requires self sacrifice: sacrifice of ego and image, sacrifice of personal glory and lifelong habits. These are not things we do once and then forget about it, like conquerors on deserted shores. These lessons and struggles continue throughout our lives, and each day we must sacrifice, sometimes more than once a day, for as long as breathe enters and retreats from our body.
A work relationship is the bond of people with a common objective. To reach the waking state is a test of endurance and practice and growing will. The people we work with are our partners in this practice. Together, as our energy mounts, we move higher in the labyrinth, holding hands and pushing higher still, we climb not knowing what comes. But we can only rise if the relationship works. If all partners are open, without barriers and machine masks. These artificial walls obstruct the flow of energy and love. They keep the relationship at its most base and human level, and at this level, we are asleep.
While some human relationships can continue to exist with lack of attention- like estranged parents and adult children- the working relationship cannot continue to function with neglect and unspoken aggression and distance. Negative emotions and manifestations, which are completely common and accepted in the world, like sarcasm and eye rolling, rudeness and harsh tones, all of these, while practically the norm at a typical family thanksgiving dinner, can destroy the working relationship. Machines will react to each other. Barriers will grow tough and impenetrable. A distracted moment, a careless sentence, a shrug of the shoulders; as small as they might seem, they can break a strong contact. It can shatter an elevated space. By constantly acting out our negative emotions, we can quickly forget what we are working towards and simply dwell in the sleeping state. The working relationship will always require more than what we are used to giving, it seems un-normal, and it is. It is absolutely special and tender, hold it with all the love you possess.

Skeleton Memory

I saw the skeleton in her face. Blue eyes turned into black holes of the dead. A skull in a cave, resting on the long lost path. She sits in front of me now, breathing, moving just slightly. In the left eye I see something strong, in the right, something more caring; as a whole, when my eyes relax, there is something else. Softness.
And the skeleton emerges. And I feel the enormity of death. The ever-present that can shift this space in seconds. Every breath, a precious gift that I never respect. Every tear shed in identification, a wasted moment, a bit of energy expelled in clear ejaculation. But the tears slide down my cheeks. In identification, in understanding, in fear, in relaxation. I see myself, a girl, sitting in a garage, looking at another girl.
Nothing ever has happened.
Nothing ever will happen.
They are looking at each other. They’ve been this way for a while. Thirst, sore limbs. My head feels crooked. My nose drips. The skeleton. What will I feel on my deathbed? Held down, moments from my last breath, will my mind worry about the roommates, the sex, the jealousy? Will I go over and over the pains? The suffering? The weirdness? What will be the regrets?
The wasted time…the wasted time…the wasted energy…the un-given love…the useless ideas and thoughts I used to distract myself from the Real. The light comes. The darkness arrives. Where is my place? My numbers…are they shifting? The body, the vehicle for the unseen, it holds all of the Real in its withering, useless grasp. The kisses, they were wonderful. The beautiful chance to learn something beyond the normal circles of consumption and death.
Why, as I’m alive, as I’m breathing, do I choose to liter the path with the glittering junk of machine waste? The path is silvery and elegant, yet it passes through the most difficult of lands. Through jungles of wicked forms, through the dirtiness of a consumed mind; into the depths of purple sheets and slithering leg-less animals. I crawl, simple and mute. To death, I crawl.
Each day, a chance at something high. And each day, I push us back into the land of machines, pink and brown, pale and slimy…this must be the landscape I desire. The realm of my birth. Ahh, but a voyager in the hollowed space of a small Jewish girl. She cries often. She worries and frowns, finding herself in the strangest of places; where the fog rules the weather, where men love more than once. Where the energy of the city is still palpable in the moist night air.
The woman that laughs, high and explosive. The man that makes her smile, that pushes her into tears. She takes the bait…each time, she takes it and swallows. Diving far, fast, into the murky water, blue and dark. Thick with ocean weeds and colorless fish. I go, in search of mermaids. They told me she was there. Waiting on a golden rock. But it is you, beautiful love, with your black curls and dark knowledge.
Allow me to love you, if I know how. Permit my ugly childish ways, for I know nothing. My death is near, I fear its greatness.
Nothing ever has happened.
Nothing ever will happen.
I fear the nothingness that I sense. My numbers…endless? Or just definite? This body, easily squashable, you know what will remain. I almost grasped it. I stared out the window, no words, no thoughts, just the strangeness that swept over me…the numbers, the unchanging code. Can I surrender? Can I sacrifice myself to understand? Can I let go so I may begin to truly learn? May I keep breathing, so I may try again tomorrow.

The Brotherhood of Making Butter from Air

There are fast-food wrappers on the ground, their streaks of red and orange lettering attempt to capture the hunger triggers in this mushy substance. Grey buildings capture the acoustics of tapping horns, manifestations of taxi drivers and supped up caffeine addicts.

Click, the imprint of the sky against the towering rectangle, sheathed in reflective blue glass. Click, I snap that bit of trash, forever ingrained in strings of numbers and letters.
Code.

Captured and framed. The grass, towards the upper left hand side, the wrapper, crumpled like a misshapen origami piece dashes across the canvas of nothingness, leaning towards the lower right side of the space.
It is done. Soon, the wind will come. It’s journey is far from over. I have but recorded a moment in its existence, like the old snapshot of a girl blowing out the candles from a Barbie-shaped ice cream cake. Forever still.

Organized with intent, unified by movement, thought and action.
It is form.
It is a form.
A particular shape from an unorganized collection of debris and urban relics. Scattered by the winds of chaos, its shape is unified, forever lasting within another form.
And then there is more, more noise…wind, horns, laughter, shouting, a jackhammer. Shapes, an endless variety, unclassifiable. Torn bits of leaves, sparkling cars, a plump white woman in an orange dress. The bicycle chained to the stop sign, the man with a white beard that holds his Styrofoam cup out to unblinking passersby. Red bricks, plate windows. A girl, dressed in black from head to toe, her gold earrings wink as she turns to answer her phone.
Click.
Mouth open, seconds away from animated speech. Eyebrows furrowed, one slightly higher than the other, her red straight hair, practically a mile long dangles over her left shoulder as she cradles the phone between her shoulder and ear.

Code.

Form.

Unity.

Structure.

An endless moment, yet invisible to so many. To me, when I sleep. And it swirls. Boundless, stretching beyond the reaches of my comprehension…this chaos, which I am, which I come from. I will always be.

It Is.

But for moments, for stretches of time and space, another shape may emerge. Brought forth by the brotherhood of those with intention. Carried from the womb of scattered sounds and shapes. Licked into existence by the mouths of chanting girls and ravenous shamans. Unearthed and cherished.

You, sacred form.

You, sacred structure.

You, the memory of my intention.

May I always remember, may I always Work.

To Reveal

Many years ago, a famous poet from El Salvador talked about the writing of poetry to my mother, while I listened without being seen. He was trying to communicate something very subtle, very elemental and intimate. He said that in the true writing of poetry you must rip yourself apart, you must reach inside, grab the innermost tendrils of your nature and pull out hard with all your strength, spilling yourself outwards in a messy explosion of blood and guts. It must hurt and it must be uncomfortable. Anything short of that he would not consider poetry. When I heard those words I felt the twinge of truth inside me but the understanding didn’t sink deep enough, it floated around on my surface, reappearing every once in a while as a memory or a linguistic code.
Many years later, playing guitar, I heard someone say that distortion could be used to add to the guitar but that it was commonly used as a way to hide, to protect yourself from criticism and deep examination. By implication the same would be true of all other guitar effects. They can all be used to emphasize and highlight the core musical motif that is being played (in this way bringing it to the forefront and making it more alive) or they can be used to protect the player from displaying mistakes, vague intentions and unclear obfuscation. Again the message tweaked me delicately and the sensation of intuitive understanding ran through me like lightning but I pushed it out to the surface. Again I remembered the words, and assigned a label of "true" to them, but didn’t really swallow them completely. I let them float around the tip of my tongue but didn’t open my own throat to take them in.
Ultimately it was impossible. It is only through direct and constant creative work that such a truth can be swallowed. No amount of communication can replace that. Knowing that, understanding that from the inside out, I make here a new futile attempt to make this communication, in the hope that it may spark practical constant effort.
In the process of constructing a new piece, a new world, a new multi faceted universe of simple elements coming together to form a complex whole, a single clear and simple gesture will always be at the core. This is not an "idea" or a "message" or a "moral" or a "lesson". I don’t speak here of political communiqués or the exploration of deep psychological issues. Instead I refer to a simple shape, a straightforward curve in the fabric of reality, that resides at the core of this new Universe you now create. In the visual realm, this is a shape, a particular curve or form that resides at the heart of the construction. In the world of sound and of text, this shape may be more elusive but it is just as real and just as simple. To maintain a good, clear focused contact with it is difficult. It requires intense and constant attention. It requires some kind of knowledge of the law of octaves (whether direct or intuitive) to prevent the inevitable deviations that will make your focus float away from the original impulse. It requires a clear and honest ability to look at yourself and your habits, to recognize when these habits are taking over and to have enough skill to stop them from doing so. It requires the skill to add without hiding or subtracting, to bring in extraneous elements without destroying the foundation in the process.
None of this can be learned in theory. You cannot learn it by reading it here or anywhere else. In fact, it probably won’t even make any sense unless you are currently involved in the process of constructing. Only with that as a context will the words carry enough referential weight and practicality to have any meaning. A true and sincere effort may be made to attempt to reveal this but you will have to be in a particular inner and outer place to have any chance of receiving the communication and taking it deeply enough for it to have any effect. In this there are many obstacles, but there is also hope. But if the initial effort to reveal is not there, then there is no hope.
The nature of the initial shape is not important. Any shape will do, taken from anywhere through any process or method. What is important is to be constant in your work with it, to be truthful and sincere in your effort to reveal it, to allow it to come forth and take on its hidden significance, a shining clear light that will be found in any one thing and in all things. The secrets are everywhere. When you understand this and you develop enough skill to create with a shape (any shape in any form of construction imaginable) then your search for truth is over and your work has begun.
When I first heard these things, both in the examples I have pointed out and in others I may have left out, I did not truly understand them. They were words that had the ring of truth and that I would store away in my mental filing register for future reference. The same will be true of anyone that reads this text without a context or a real Necessity. This is then a message in a bottle, lost in a vast ocean of thoughts and opinions, aiming to somehow find its true recipient. This text is a seed scattered to the winds in the improbable hope that it may find a fertile breeding ground in a receptive Being ready and willing to bring it to Life.

No Other Choice

Thickness is not part of the disguise. The joke is not carefully hidden. A pink veil, hardly larger that a handkerchief, attempts to cover it all. I can see parts of its broken frame from every corner of the room, from every angle I try to capture with my hand. Little pieces of metal fall continuously onto the tiled floor, and as the structure breaks, I can hear muted screams and terrible laughing. I am in a yellow room, completely alone, and the structure sits in the center, on a high backed wooden chair. An airborne metallic spear nearly stabs me, disintegrating as it hits the plaster wall to my rear. And continuous, within the mayhem, a continuous stream of foul smelling smoke rises from the center.
I knew it to be an illusion.
The complete package, containing all my perceptions. My inheritance disguised as love, and passed to me with unconscious care.
I felt cold…alien.
I watched everything I ever knew, all that I thought I needed…I watched it crumble, nearly impaling me with each moment of decomposition.
I cried and remembered.
The moments of bliss, so far and few between. My moments of wakefulness, opening to the Real.

For a second, the illusion had vanished. I was awake.
And then, the desires began. The attempts at recreation. All of them, false roads and no teacher.
Sunbathing naked,
Burning man,
Train trips
Sex
Only failed attempts at waking.
Where had it gone?
I spent my years unhappy. Aware of the veil, aware of my human trappings, but unable to stop the desires.
When would my peace come?
When could I rest?
Would it be the artistic job? The wonderful lover? The trip to Africa?
What would it take to feel alive? As I had once felt on a train in Italy.
And so I spent my time in continuous struggle, believing, on the worst days, that everyone else- every person on the planet- understood something I didn’t.

And now, I struggle still.
With a new set of tools, yet unable to control my desires.
I know they are not happy, and there is no peace that can be found within the world of possessions.
And yet, peace is not what we seek, although my body craves its illusion like a drug.
I feel pain
Knowing that a normal life provides no happiness.
Knowing that a life of Work promises no rewards either.
And there is no other choice.
Delusion or struggle
Illusion or Work
But I see mirages on all sides.
Above and below, and I am bound tight.
They beckon me to rest, to lay upon their soft breasts and hide.
The Real darkness cannot be seen pressed between two nipples.
Their naked bodies call to me.
Their promises roll over me like waves of pink sleepiness.
They beg to throw the veil upon my eyes.
But never again could I lay naked on a beach, the hours passing like slow moving clouds.
I exist, in neither world.
I do not exist at all.
Yet I claim to.
I see my attached hands grab at my breasts.
I feel tears gather at the corners of my eyes each dawn
I look to the others, with their shopping bags and lovers.
I too, have tried to escape by these means.
It does not work
Not for me.
Disguised in cleaver, colorful clothes, my smile danced upon the lips of crystal goblets. Extending my tongue, licking the purple wine like a cat lapping milk.
Each droplet forever infecting me with the need of contact.
It is the blood for which I craved.
To dig, deep.
Into the veins with my long, pointed teeth,
My lips, parted and red from another encounter
The goblet has been offered, and I accepted with tongue outstretched. Lips opened by hands of long fingers.
A piano plays, pinkied notes of high esteem dab at drops of blood escaping. As I am only a novice, I let them dribble down my chin.

Delicate Space

Wrapped around his solid trunk are creamy legs, soft and smooth, they cross at his back. Like shimmering roots from a magical tree, her limbs nestle themselves to his waist. At each moment, with one movement succeeding the other, she pulls herself closer to him. Atoms attempt to flee, running ferociously to the warmness of his skin.
His hands grip her waist, with the force of pure love, he slips in. Building the energy with each passing moment, with each thrust and pull, her wakefulness blooms. Feeling every bodily detail, each kiss is a world unto itself- a universe entered and quickly explored. Again and again, lips are shared, planets become defined in all their spherical wonder. It is not only his arms, not only his cock and body, stronger than all are his attention. Capturing each of her cells, each little vein and drop of blood. Like a thin net meant for stealing fairies, he finds her; the little lost pieces, the bits of physic power flailing into the ethers, he recovers everything, bringing it all before his eyes, holding everything before him.
Is this real? Perhaps not, probably not. But he holds her despite this, because of this. With this. She feels a wave, unlike anything she has ever known. Oh, they are on top, an eternity of water below them. Hold me, she thinks. A sound escapes her mouth, a bit of fear that exposes the newness. The crest rises, entwined, they bounce together, the rhythm of the water propelling them higher. She has never known waves like this, with the power of everything she has yet to understand. She feels his arms, enveloping him with a love she could never describe…but they seem like her arms. Is she holding herself? Is it her arms that are his? Is it him that holds her? Is it everything that keeps her close? Everything and nothing. One and nothing. She cries, remembering his massive strength, she sinks into him, trusting he’s there.
Later they rest, warm and soft together. She moves her hand across his chest, each stroke against him is lovelier than anything known. Together, they hold a space- more delicate than any known matter. It breaks with the slightest foul wind. And she, most inexperienced, does not have the knowledge to care for this tender space. Within a couple sentences, she has become human once again, speaking as humans do, worrying as humans do- with all this, the wave moves past. They are left in the water. In the distance, they watch as the peak crashes ashore.

Night Time Garden

With reluctance the wooden door opened, swollen from days of rain, it releases, moaning like a woman. From the safety of the garage she looked into the deep black of evening, not daring to step past the doorway.
The night was more than black, it was thick as ink and high fog passed through the bare tree tops like spirits on a mission. Calm and secluded, hidden under silky wings of darkness was the sacred space of the garden.
Silent to her ears, but not at all empty. There were worlds within worlds in the rectangular enclosure.
Times that both began and ended, that moved up like a whirling dervish into the atmosphere and destinies that spun though five thousand dimensions simultaneously.
Rationally, she recognized it as the space she was used to working in, but her heart felt the reconfiguration.
There was a new form and entity at work. It was in use.
Although the shrubs of sage and tall trees were barely recognizable silhouettes in the dark, she could feel the fullness of the garden.
There were dancers and chants.
Drums and daggers.
Worlds, universes, beings eternity.
It was all there, held beautifully within the sacred chamber. Swirling fire gods and people of stone. Maidens and magicians, people and forms with no name that travel among time like hidden black birds of evening.
Assembled, each working separately and as one.
It was no longer a realm for the human, and she knew.
She smiled. "Beautiful", she thought.
There was singing she could not hear and low rhythms she didn’t dance to…but it all came in, like a well pointed laser to the heart.
She turned around in awe and caught his smiling eyes, "yes" he said.

Workspace

She closes her eyes and sets herself up to meditate.
The short term goal is to remain motionless for twenty four minutes, so she pushes her frizzy hair away from her face, she layers the pillows just right, she fluffs the blankets so they don’t press on her toes.
Despite the preparations, there is always an uncomfortable sensation and instead of focusing on the mantra, her mind becomes occupied with her numb limbs or the persistent whistling of her nose. Hard as she tries, something comes up each day.
One day she realizes- she is wasting time. Avoiding the uncomfortable is not the Work.
In fact, she’s messing up. She’s trying to avoid an opportunity she could USE.
Once she gets that, she stops making such a fuss.
She arranges herself quickly, and begins. Her arms quickly go numb, but she notices it like an observer, not someone who’s invested in the comfort of the body.
When a sensation arrives, she takes it as an opportunity, a beautiful opportunity to practice containment and remaining calm.
The "problems" –the sensations- will always keep coming, no matter what she does to prevent them …the nose will itch, the bills will come, friends will die, the earth will crumble…there is nothing to prevent this, there is only the Work.
The ingenious machine will always find something to struggle against, but when we can see it coming, when we can recognize the habit and use it to practice and work, then we are in the Workspace.

Demon Keeper

I am the demon keeper.
Housed in this pretty body are legions of monsters, each one a new configuration of savagery and wretched ugliness
Colored like chameleons, they blend into every landscape and season; showing themselves only after it’s too late and the broken space is left littered with the colored fragments of a kaleidoscope.
They laugh with pleasure, always getting what they want.
Swimming in the bloodstream like drifters on a river, they make their mark, leaving no occasion untainted with their poison.
In the moments after lovemaking, the demons rise in folly, bringing worry and distress to a tingling body.
They are disguised as self interest, boundaries, morals- a handful of names cloak them, but they only serve the machine. They are playmates and lovers, partners in the game of sleep.
They feed on my fear.
They lick the tears of my jealousy.
They dance to the rhythm of my anxious heart.
It is all they know.

I am the demon keeper,
Young and wide-eyed, I train to crack the whip of master. It is the art of subtlety and stillness, for they are crafty and ingenious, insidious and sly. To contain them will take absolute patience, observation, and obedience to my own master, for now, it is a battle of will versus habit, and they are strong.