jared

"To find yourself all you have to do is look at the wreckage of your past...
To lose it all you have to do is laugh"

rogue

rapture

precipice

she

he

mordor

buddha

Hanh

"Without a spiritual dimension, we will not have the capacity to confront suffering, to transform suffering and to offer anything to life. A person without a spiritual path is a person walking in darkness. With a path, we are no longer afraid or worried."

What we Resist... Persists.

"If you bring forth that which is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you."

Pema Chodron

"Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible be found in us."

Imprint

hDt

"If you want inner peace find it in solitude, not speed
And if you would find yourself,
Look to the land from which you came
And to which you will go."

da Vinci

"For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and there you will long to return."

thoreau

"live each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each"

Huntress

I look across the open plain sun burning – glinting. 

I see the wildebeest chasing the lion.

Swarm intelligence propelling her forward and releasing her. 

No longer bound to her instinctual herding principle. 

She has awakened. 

She has left her children to be protected by her clan. 

She will no longer fight only when attacked. 

She will safeguard our future;

the lion senses this power shift and is overwhelmed. 

My huntress has caught her prey. 

She rips into Screaming Flesh. 

The sound eternally seared onto my consciousness. 

She ravages her kill and I cannot avert my gaze. 

The wildebeest looks up at me and whispers: mutiny.

Eleanor Roosevelt

"Do one thing every day that scares you."

Che

"Let the world change you and you can change the world."

Paul McCartney

"If anyone wants to save the planet, all they have to do is just stop eating meat. That's the single most important thing you can do."

peace

"May all beings everywhere plagued with sufferings of body and mind quickly be freed from their illnesses. May those frightened cease to be afraid, and may those bound be free. May the powerless find power, and may people think of befriending one another. May those who find themselves in trackless, fearful wilderness -- the children, the aged, the unprotected -- be guarded by beneficent celestials, and may they swiftly attain Buddhahood."

St. of Assisi

"Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born."

Leto

"I believe in nothing
Not the end and not the start
I believe in nothing
Not the earth and not the stars
I believe in nothing
Not the day and not the dark
I believe in nothing
But the beating of our hearts
I believe in nothing
100 suns until we part
I believe in nothing
Not in sin and not in God
I believe in nothing
Not in peace and not in war
I believe in nothing
But the truth and who we are"

be true

“Above all, be true to yourself, and if you cannot put your heart in it, take yourself out of it.”

When Dreaming Ends

poetic impulses bled out
leaving behind an empty pen...

mother teresa

"People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered;
Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, People may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies;
Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.

What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;
Build anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;
Give the world the best you've got anyway.

You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God;
It was never between you and them anyway"

T.S. Eliot

"Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go."

R.W.E.

"All that I have seen teaches me to trust the creator for all that I have not seen."

Lubbock

"Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass on a summer day listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is hardly a waste of time."

Franklin D. Roosevelt

"When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on."

Rumi

"There is a candle in your heart, ready to be kindled. There is a void in your soul, ready to be filled. You feel it, don't you?"

Jr.

"One of the great liabilities of history is that all too many people fail to remain awake through great periods of social change. Every society has its protectors of the status quo and its fraternities of the indifferent who are notorious for sleeping through revolutions. But today our very survival depends on our ability to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas, to remain vigilant and to face the challenge of change."

Erika Harris

"I frequently-regularly-often trip while reaching for my high ideals. Then I giggle, or cry, and get back up."

Warrior King

"Our earth is wounded. Her oceans and lakes are sick; her rivers are like running sores; The air is filled with subtle posions. And the oily smoke of countless hellish fires blackens the sun. Men and women, scattered from homeland, family, friends, wander desolate and uncertain, scorched by a toxic sun...
In this desert of frightened, blind uncertainty, some take refuge in the pursuit of power. Some become manipulators of illusion and deceit.
If wisdom and harmony still dwell in this world, as other than a dream lost in an unopened book, they are hidden in our heartbeat.
And it is from our hearts that we cry out. We cry out and our voices are the single voice of this wounded earth. Our cries are a great wind across the earth."

Luke 5:16

"Your soul needs the wild."

Warrior Gezar

"This harsh and splendid land
With snow-covered rock mountains, cold crystal streams,
Deep forests of cypress, juniper and ash
Is as much my body as what you see before you here.
I cannot be separated from this or from you.
Our many hearts have only a single beat."

Butterfly

The sound barely audible through my dry pursed lips. 

My final breath escapes. 

I die alone in nature’s soft embrace. 

Briefly, darkness falls. 

My senses cease. 

My heart forgets to beat. 

Blackness. 

Nothingness, only momentarily; 

Before my soul begins to vibrate – hum. 

Atoms, Particles, Remnants of ME. 

What once was, will now never be. 

My Self, My Identity, My I. 

has shifted. 

metamorphosed. transmutated. 

I am discombobulated. 

I see the brightness. 

I feel the warmth. 

I am pulled towards the glow. 

Contracting and Expanding. 

I flow into the light. 

I hear my Angel singing. 

Every sound I have ever Loved,

forming one new note. 

My heart explodes from the joy. 

Loving arms encircle and envelope me. 

I am being welcomed home. 

I feel the sense of returning after a long journey. 

I feel the sense of knowing that my adventure, 

has been completed. 

The all encompassing Love fills me; 

Fills my soul. 

I am complete. I am ready. 

I will re-enter all that I have ever Loved. 

Every Flower. 

Every Tree.

Every Animal. 

Every Human. 

The more I Loved the more I will Forever be.

Albert

"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."

Rumi

"Anything that comes to your doorstep is a guide from beyond."

King Jr

"In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."

Brown

"In the confrontation between the stream and the rock, the stream always wins - not through strength but by perseverance."

Confucius

"The superior person understands what is right; the inferior person understands what will sell."

Hedges

"The reason the ecosystem is dying is not because we still have a dryer in our basement. It is because corporations look at everything, from human beings to the natural environment, as exploitable commodities. It is because consumption is the engine of corporate profits."

Elisabeth

"People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within."

Hugo

"Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face."

Rilke

"For one human being to love another; that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation."

A Forest Hymn

"The groves were God's first temples"

Michael V.

"Welcome to all of those who hear these words… Welcome. For if you are here,… you know that today is a day that brings together, two bodies of one soul. If you are here, you are here because of the bond of love, the gossamer thread that is held for you by Our bride, Tanya and our Groom, Jason.

Today, here, near the ancient glacial waters. Do we witness, once again, natures return to balance… through the union of Jason and Tanya.

I asked Tanya and Jason to bring to words what they believe their marriage will bring forth to the world... I humbly give you their response...

“That answer is LOVE. We are giving the gift of LOVE to each other and to the world... The LOVE that we have for one another has changed us, and the way that we view the world, and the way that we act within the world... Everything we do now is done with, LOVE. “

And with that love, our bride and groom have come to understand that Marriage is the ultimate choice of truly making a commitment to another being... Not many of the people walking on this planet even comprehend the level of commitment I speak of... To truly commit yourself to one person, so completely, as to never leak energy to another person that is not your spouse... To always keep your mind clear, and your direction in focus, of a single unified path... of two beings becoming greater as a couple than they ever could individually.

Tanya and Jason turn towards each other

Jason, do you now choose Tanya, to be your Wife,
To share your life openly with her...
To speak truthfully and lovingly to her...
To accept her fully as she is... and delight in who she is becoming...
To respect her uniqueness...
Encourage her fulfillment...
And compassionately support her... through all the changes of your lives together?

Tanya, do you now choose Jason, to be your Husband,
To share your life openly with him...
To speak truthfully and lovingly to him...
To accept him fully as he is... and delight in who he is becoming...
To respect his uniqueness...
Encourage his fulfillment...
And compassionately support him... through all the changes of your lives together?

Happiness in marriage is not something that just happens. A great marriage must be created. It is standing together facing the world. It is forming a circle of love that gathers in the whole family. It is speaking words of appreciation and demonstrating gratitude in thoughtful ways. It is cultivating flexibility, patience, understanding and a sense of humor. It is having the capacity to forgive. It is giving each other an atmosphere in which each can grow. It is a common search for the good and the beautiful. It is establishing a relationship in which the independence is equal, dependence is mutual and the obligation is reciprocal. It is not only marrying the right being, it is being the right being.

As before, with Tanya’s and Jason’s, verbal, and energetic commitment… We now complete the circle, with a physical representation of their vow to one another.

Jason please take Tanya's left hand and repeat after me....
Because this ring is perfectly symmetrical,
it signifies the perfection of true love.
As I place it on your finger…
I give you all that I am and ever hope to be.

Tanya please take Jason's left hand and repeat after me....
Because this ring has no end or beginning,
it signifies the continuation of true love.
As I place it on your finger…
I give you all that I am, and ever hope to be.

Tanya, Jason…You have both joined voluntarily in this sacred ceremony of marriage, and have been formally united as husband and wife in the presence of your family and friends and under the witness of the ancients of the world, your relations... and the state of Oregon……

As you have declared openly your clear intentions to be considered before all the world as a married couple, expressing the gift of love, in all that you do... and have exchanged rings and vows attesting thereto, it is my pleasure and honor to pronounce you husband and wife. Jason…. you may, please, kiss the bride.

Tanya,… Jason... The world is yours, This day is yours, Please join your Family and Friends in Celebration of Life and Love."

Li Bai

'He gave up fame and fortune in his youth
for the high office of mountain pine and cloud.
He toasted the moon for its beauty
and paid his tax and tribute to the flowers.
Who among us can attain such nobility?
We only breathe its fragrance as we pass.'

Rilke

"Spring has returned. The Earth is like a child that knows poems."

Tao

"The more I learn; the less I know"

Another Wilde

“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”

Woolf

“No one sees anyone as they actually are…they see all sorts of things…they seem themselves.”

Thomas

“Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

solzhenitsyn

"It is not our level of prosperity that makes for happiness but the kinship of heart to heart and the way we look at the world. Both attitudes lie within our power, so that a man is happy so long as he chooses to be happy, and no one can stop him."

tolstoy

“Everyone thinks to change the world but no one thinks to change themselves.”

jacob

“If you are not free to choose wrongly and irresponsibly, you are not free at all”

Gauguin

"Art is either plagiarism or revolution."

Byron

'What deep wounds ever closed without a scar?'

Watts

'Do things wu-wei, by doing nothing. Achieve without trying to achieve anything -- savour the taste of what you cannot taste.'

Simone de Beauvoir

"...the individual is defined only by his relationship to the world and to other individuals; he exists only by transcending himself, and his freedom can be achieved only through the freedom of others. He justifies his existence by a movement which, like freedom, springs from his heart but which leads outside of himself."

Signifying Nothing

hdt “Things do not change; we change.”

Confucius

"Find a job you love and you'll never work a day in your life."

J.C.

“What shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul.”

Bella Abzug

"A Woman's Place is in the House... and the Senate."

Thurman

"In order to create something -- first you have to imagine it"

Disraeli

"There is no greater risk than matrimony. But, there is nothing happier than a happy marriage."

Covey

"Every human has four endowments- self awareness, conscience, independent will and creative imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom... The power to choose, to respond, to change."

Liberating Love

Intertwining Individual Bliss shared perfectly between my heart and yours a loving union is virtually inconceivable in real actualization completely interrelated supreme bliss automatic oblivion joyous nirvana Our Highest Goals independent and limitless all previously binding chains having been annihilated in the cosmic instant when total involvement became an unavoidable certainty. My truth becoming Yours Your reality becoming Mine. Cessation Termination Extinction of our dualistic designs. Your hand in mine for all time.

Perfect Domesticity

"A house in the country
to find out what's true
a few linen shirts,
some good art
and you."
~Light~

Explore

exploration of the

mind and body

liberation of the 

senses and soul

my dream experiences

lead me to

another consciousness

dream lucidly

die lucidly

knowledge of this life

in the next

in the between

in the transitional experiences

of today

remembering the environment

and landscape

of yesterday

and incorporating

that knowledge

into today’s actions

develops my senses

for tomorrow’s journey

every cycle

every repetition

propelling me forward

refusing to slip 

back

to old patterns

to old thoughts

to old mistakes

and, yet…

every mistake has created a grain of

enlightenment

for use in the next voyage.

don juan

"There are four questions of value in life... What is sacred? Of what is the spirit made? What is worth living for? and, what is worth dying for? The answer to each is the same...... Only love.”

salman rushdie

'A poet's work is to name the unnameable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world, and stop it going to sleep.'

Watts

"Just as the highest and the lowest notes are equally inaudible, so perhaps, is the greatest sense and the greatest nonsense equally unintelligible."

Hesse

"When someone seeks then it happens all too easily that his eyes will see only the thing he is seeking, that he cannot find anything, cannot let anything in, because he is always thinking only of that thing he seeks. Because he has a goal, because he is possessed by that goal. Seeking means: having a goal. But finding means: being free, being open, having no goal. YOU may indeed be a seeker for striving toward your goal, but there is much you do not see which is right before your eyes."

Proust

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes."

Valentine

I dwelt in darkness
refusing to trust
refusing to believe
refusing my love
for you.

You….
The angel whose light
Brightened my life.

You….
Pulled me out of myself
Created a trust unknown
Pushed my soul to connect

Your Love.
Your Passion.
Your Flame.

You….
Ignited my life
my mind
my soul.

You made me whole.

Garland

“For it was not into my ear you whispered, but into my heart. It was not my lips you kissed, but my soul.”

Dig

commercial art?
makes no sense
like
selfish love?

This
Real Life
Has
Real Meaning

continued learning
unpredictable growth

experiencing
midwife
symptoms

helping
birth
other
creations

uninspired
in
my
own....

a muse
needed
to stimulate

lucrative
social
anomalies

I dig
to retrieve

? quintessential ?
hidden
dreams

c. lloyd

"We are born onto this earth with no clear set of instructions written on the inside of our arms. We can look for instructions in a variety of religions; we can wander the planet searching; we can get a decent job and try not to think about death, purpose, meaning, and other cosmic party tricks. As we grow up we develop various ethical and religious beliefs that can point us in certain directions, but within these belief systems, there are still many choices and so much uncertainty...."

Decomposition

creeping
crawling
through the darkness

moving -- slowly
waiting for...

no breath
no pulse
no thoughts

pushing the momentum
of the moment
through to the next

silence
stillness

another beating heart sensed

known
in the
night

moonlight -- glinting
through the clouds

creating shadows
reflecting pale skin
stop.

W. Blake

"To see a world in a grain of sand
And heaven in a wild flower
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour."

secular

Kierkegaard

"To dare is to lose one's footing momentarily. Not to dare is to lose oneself."

goethe

"Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it"

Enzo

"I don't understand why people insist on pitting concepts of evolution and creation against each other. Why can't they see that spiritualism and science are one? That bodies evolve and souls evolve and the universe is a fluid package that marries them both in a wonderful package called a human being. What's wrong with that idea?"