The Stand

TAKE A STAND

At times like these at the end of the day it is you and I that are at play

As the winds of March blow the pestilence forth, I feel the need to address the source.

If all don’t heed the urgent call, I feel that many more will fall

In times like these there is a voice to stand in place with  just one choice
To face the foe with gale force

To think that we are alone out here will only serve to stoke our fears

Remember we are all one trust and to survive we all must work together in unity lest we succumb to the insanity

Plug In and Pray

I have never been a religious person, in fact you might say that I am an atheist of sort.

Spirituality on the other hand, when defined as the search for "the sacred," where "the sacred" is broadly defined as that which is set apart from the ordinary and worthy of veneration, is pretty much where I am at.

I worship the gods of nature, science and technology, where science and technology are used to enhance the life and the environment. Much like a cerebral tool kit, they should be employed to make our lives easier, to help us understand universal mysteries and riddles. However, it seems, especially recently, that instead they have turned on us and are becoming increasingly more disruptive and even insidious.

After leaving my home of some eighteen years and packing up all it's technology, which had severed me well for these past decades, I found that upon trying to insert it into my

new space it had become obsolete almost over night!

What happened in those few days of my move from one space to another is still a mystery to me. Could it have been that much like an time traveler from an earlier age, I had become cocooned in a situation that had served me well but who's expiration date had passed me by?

When I think of how many times in a day I find myself confronted by similar situations it makes me angry! How can we move forward if we are always reinventing? And what is the purpose of all this constant change and "upgrading"?

The answer I think is - we cannot!

What it really amounts too, I feel, is greed and money ... If we remain constant in our technology then corporate profits remain status quo. But if we constantly have to reboot than the share holder investments grow.

This is all fine for the privileged few at the top of the food chain but not so good for the rest of us trying to survive or merely hold our ground. Whatever happened to the caring and gentle human spirit? Have we become a world of greedy over achievers?

When money and power become omni important, and everyday sensibility is no longer practiced, I fear that we dangerously close to the eve of destruction.

Wait a minute, there is someone at my door, my new techno service provider has arrived and is performing his magical "tech fix". My Internet is working again, and it looks like all systems are go! Once again I have the power at my finger tips and I feel omnipotent. Maybe I was wrong - my plug and play life is back on track and all is good again. At least for the next nano moment or so ...
 

A Polar Vortex

Today I watched our wildlife gather strong upon our deck. All puffed up with fur and feathers they braved the Arctic nest. The cardinals came with calm and stealth the sparrows came with worry, and as they danced around and looked for morsels, they seemed very much to scurry. But then to the bushes they flew to warm themselves in a hurry.

Now came our squirrels in their furs and fine dress, to beg for some walnuts we keep the self. I wondered how long they could last in this tundra, concerned that the polar vortex might be their conundrum.

But try as I might to bring aid to the day, their courage surpassed my greatest if I may.

What a marvel mother nature has bestowed on her children for a reason, engineering their bodies to work with the season. Without much effort it seemed, you might say, it is knowledge of self that must save the day.

What is it as humans has made us forget all the treasured experience we have gained but regret? Perhaps if we take time to sit and just listen, our strengths might resurface and make our hearts glisten.

Could it be that we are more than just pawns in the game? When will we learn that to try is it's name ...

A year ago last August my partner Chadwick and were lucky enough to visit the palace of Versailles in the countryside outside of Paris. During my first visit to Versailles I stood in total amazement. The wealth and power that came together to build this mind blowing edifice is legendary. A Sun King, a proud but suppressed people, and a decadent upper class living off the efforts and bounty of their subjects.

That first visit was later in October when the multitudes of tourists had retreated to their mundane lives of contemporary work ethic and the palace shone bright and almost pristine in the afternoon light, in the hall of mirrors. We were almost alone in this monument to decadence but you could feel the electricity of another era, an era of unparalleled elegance and cruelty.

My second visit to Versailles was crowded and buzzing with a modern middle class pushing and shoving to see the sites. The mood was much different this time. There was an almost anxious feeling that the crowds had come again to raid and pillage the palace. This time the hall of mirrors reflected not the greedy aristocracy parading in their quaffed and coutured finery, but instead by a much different variety of aristocracy, this time curious and less cultured.

What happens when ultimate art and unparalleled wealth comes together to creat such an icon of the times? Perhaps this could be compared to our society today.

 

Shine on Honey Moon

This June has been a June of joy and happiness. A June like none I have experienced before. A time of much love and many unions. A space in time which exists both for those who see it, and for those who are living it as well.

What is it that happens when universe smiles and sends its solstice energy to us in a burst of such exuberance that the very ground beneath us glows with starlit magic? It is very simply a thing called love.

Of course there are always those moments of sorrow and unhappiness that can creep into our space. Bringing with them much angst and agitation. But we can also refuse them entry by out shining their gloom with the golden "Honey Moon" of this June, and let it shine on forever in a song to the heavens ...

We are the night wind blowing

We are the full moon glowing

We are the sun that is shining

We are forever

Namaste

Hiding Away In Hideaway

It is a brisk and beautiful December morning in east Texas. The solstice sun is shining on the wooded hills and lakes of Hideaway while the silent fields of grass and cattle awaken to a new and longer day.

The dark nights of the last years troubles and sorrows seem to be incapsulated in the stormy moments leading to this silent night. The hopes and fears of a nation were realized in the cries of its children as the festival of lights tries to purge this portentous moment.

But the winter will ware on and take its toll until the sounds of summer are heard in the the trumpets of spring when all will be righted, or wronged, in final moments of faith before the Fall again too soon.

I find myself strangely calm in the protective community of Hideaway with its placid landscape dotted by rolling greens and lazy lawns. But even here there is a unspoken and worried concern of future mayhem ahead if the demons of the past are not taken to term and finally laid to rest.

The Mayans and other civilizations foresaw their demise in the corruption of their society,  I think, and perhaps tried to predict ours. Much as the ancient Greeks and Romans we are perched on the precipice and doomed to extinction unless lessons are learned.

Perhaps the prophecies of apocalyptic revenge ring true most when unspeakable events occur. Perhaps it is in those moments of total terror and unbearable sorrow that the universe tries to correct its course and lead us to the light?

It is now only three days till Christmas, the Christian celebration faith and love. As we all clamor to prepare for the "virgin birth" let us remember it's true meaning. It is not how many packages and presents that we purchase and present but more in the giving of our love and kindness to friends and family. Because in the end there is no better gift than that of self.

Happy Solstice my friends and Merry Christmas Tide ... May it indeed enlighten!

Sunday morning, June 2nd, and a new life at the Loft begins. Funny how distant and far away from my life on Lakewood seems on this somber yet solicitous Sunday morning.

Mountains of memories stand towering around me while carefully unpacked collections begin to reemerge. They seem to say "hello old friend, we have made it to the next great adventure". As I sit and silently chronicle the debris of so many past perfect decades. They are both pleasant and painful pictures, reflections of where and how my life began and how it has transformed into the now.

The task at hand seemed daunting last night as I sat comatose in the midst of the shrapnel of the mid day move sipping my glass of Chardonnay trying to process the aftermath. Then out of the chaos came my cool and ever calming partner Chadwick, with his admirable ability to organize even the most challenging situation.

Salvation now seemed to be at hand, and a well deserved journey into dreamland followed shortly. I like the vitality of our new space. It feels very comfortable and kind. Lofty and rugged yet polished and purposeful too. The embryo of our new adventure is now stirring and the excitement of watching it grow is both exhilarating and auspicious as well.

The days and weeks ahead will be taking us on many a new adventure in our newly claimed neighborhood, and many more challenges await us I'm sure. But, remembering my own words from a former space in time, "we will weather them together, live them in the moment, and make them our own"!

Reboot 2020

Perhaps, just maybe, this new and frightening pandemic is here for a reason. Could it be that the universe, in its own way, is telling us that enough is enough?

There have been times in memorial that have ended millenniums and given birth to new growth through the cleansing of the infections that mankind has delivered unto themselves.

There was the Bubonic plague that issued in the renaissance of the Middle Ages. There was the Plague of Justinian.The pandemic is believed to have originated in Africa and then spread to Europe through infected rats on merchant ships. It reached the Byzantine capital of Constantinople in 541 A.D., and was soon claiming up to 10,000 lives per day. It is believed to have killed at least 25 million people, but the actual death toll may have been much higher. And thus the end of an era. 

Enter The Black Death in 1347. 

While the pandemic left much of the continent in disarray, many historians also believe that the labor shortages it caused were a boon to lower class workers, who saw increased economic and social mobility. The Italiait still Plague of 1629-31 killed some 280,000 people, including over half the residents of Verona. The Republic of Venice, meanwhile, lost nearly a third of its population of 140,000. Some scholars have since argued that the outbreak may have sapped the city-state’s strength and led to its decline as a major player on the world stage. 

The Plague laid siege to the city of London several times during the 16th and 17th centuries, most famously between 1665 and 1666. The pestilence first arose in the suburb of St. Giles-in-the-Fields, but it soon traveled into the cramped and filthy neighborhoods of the city proper. At its peak in September 1665, some 8,000 people were dying each week. Western Europe’s last major outbreak of medieval plague began in 1720, when a “mortal distemper” seized the French port city of Marseille. It still spilled over into southern France before finally disappearing in 1722. By then, it had killed roughly 100,000 people. 

The first two major plague pandemics began with the Plague of Justinian and the Black Death. The most recent, the so-called “Third Pandemic,” erupted in 1855 in the Chinese province of Yunnan. The disease traversed the globe over the next several decades, and by the beginning of the 20th century, infected rats traveling on steamships had carried it to all six century, infected rats traveling on steamships had carried it to all six inhabited continents. The worldwide outbreak would eventually claim some 15 million lives before petering out in the 1950s. Most of the devastation took place in China and India, but there were also scattered cases from South Africa to San Francisco. Despite the devastation it led to several breakthroughs in doctors’ understanding of the bubonic plague. 

In 1894, a Hong Kong-based doctor named Alexandre Yersin identified the bacillus Yersinia pestis as the cause of the disease. A few years later, another physician finally confirmed that bites from rat fleas were transferred to humans.

 I’m not saying that this pandemic is any less serious then the plagues of the past. But this time we have a history to learn from. The warning is to be vigilant and wise. But most of all to be strong, and to be kind to each other. We can do this! We have technology on our side if we take advantage of it. We have a wealth of knowledge in the palm of our hands if we use it for good. And we have each other.

Is it finally time for a global reboot?

 

Mortality 2

MORTALITY

mor·tal·i·ty

/môrˈtalədē/

Noun

the state of being subject to death.

It happened in my seventy first year. An explosion of thoughts and feelings that were and are my life finally came to fruition. A single moment that would time stamp my existence on this lonely planet, a speck of dust in a universe that for most is a means onto itself and therefore content in its existence.

My mortality is becoming most apparent in the fact that I am indeed a mortal after all. After chasing eternity I have found comfort in the reality of the ever after, that dark hole that both creates and destroys.

As material matters ebb and flow and seasons come and go, there is this thing that beckons me on to a place that I have created through my happy and sad moments, my nirvana, my heaven, the place I call home.

What is life after all if not a compilation of happy and sad moments in a torrent of flux that brings us to the reality of it all. It would be a tragedy if lessons learned did not help to progress us to a higher level of consciousness in order to evolve.

 So many sweet and sour tastes linger on my tongue, much as the seasons of the sun both warm and cool me with both content and disdain.

I live here now in the reality that while my life is still vital and very much alive, it is also evolving one more time into a new and hopefully more perfect me.

IN THE BEGINNING …

In the beginning I remember my life as a constant need to feed on whatever was given to me from the table scrapes of family, teachers and such.

Moving on into adolescence I discovered that I was more than the sum of my parts, I was in fact a growing organism that could change and evolve into whatever I desired.

The challenge here is to be studied and to evaluate any and all interactions so as not to lose sight of our ultimate goals – to become a kinder and better person without sacrificing integrity or our moral compass.

My journey, which is still unfolding and hopefully will continue to do so until I become one with my soul mates once more in the universal consciousness.

AND THEN …

Growing up in Rockford Illinois was a safe mid American town. Know as the Forest City because of its population of Dutch Maple trees and pastoral county side, it was a Norman Rockwell classic.

Life in the 50’s was so white middle class. In fact the population of Rockford was approximately 80% with perhaps 15% blacks, no Jews (that I knew of), and 5% transient workers of mixed racial backgrounds.

Sometime around the early 60’s I awoke to the Cultural Revolution that began with the British Invasion, Surf and Psychedelic Rock, and Motown/R&B, there was no turning back.

1966 was another wake up call. I left my safe place, parents and friends to make a new life in Chicago – the Emerald City, Gotham, and Heaven.

The vibrancy of the big city exuded a richness and passion that I had not experienced before. The sounds of the working days and silence of reflective nights gave way to a life style I could only imagine back home in sleepy and safe Rockford.

Somewhere between art school days and disco nights I managed to begin to create a new persona, a new and better me, or was it?

Both work and play are important in sculpting a facade, but personal relationships are necessary in order to refine the finished product. Thus began my search for a partner that could fill the void that I was feeling as a single entity. A father figure that was missing from my childhood past; a teacher who could continue the education instilled by my grandmother; and of course a lover who could comfort me and make me whole.

I am now living in a place that I have created for myself in the seventy plus episodes I call my life.
A mosaic that I have woven together with tears and joy, a master piece shared only with close friends and lovers. A sacred space that is unique onto me and those I care to share it with.

In our later years we would be wise to edit our feeling since, I have found, that to be too honest can be a dangerous thing. But then why should we be afraid of showing ourselves to our friends if they are indeed our friends?

SO HERE WE GO AGAIN …

I have often said, life is a continuum, it has no beginning, and it has no end. Therefore my determination has always  been to let it flow.

As we progress, or regress in our mortal quest, I have always felt compelled to proceed in the direction that my compass had been set from the start.

You see, like any endeavor whether it be physical or mental in nature, we are of needs destined to fulfill our quest in the manner that we have determined from our inception.  

So, as I move forward, I have decided to, as my grandmother used to say “raise my flag and let the colors fly”!

Monday Night in the Desert

It’s Monday night in the desert, our last week until next year. Another tranquil stay in my alternate universe. A place to play and relax, a place of infinite beauty and intimate pleasures. Looking out at the desert stars and watching the mountain etch a profile against the endless star lit night gives a sense of immortality. 

Nature when paired with mankind is the ultimate high. After all how can such majesty be contained or disregarded?

As I watch the endless desert sunset I am reminded that our life here on the planet is in fact very finite, and being so needs even more attention to its relevance.

Namaste

     🙏

A Desert Day in March

A most perfect day in the desert ...

As I sit by the pool looking at our mountain, I am watching a cat and mouse game between the clouds from the Pacific and the Mountain Peaks.

In a state of pure relaxation and contentment, I am bathed by the desert sun and cooled by the Santa Anna winds.

What more can anyone ask for? A sublime feeling of ascension comes over me as I watch the desert birds in suspension on the updrafts and feeling my own soul in flight.

What a magical place this is. So much grander and spectacle can make ones heart beat faster and ones soul ascend to heights only possible when beauty and nature combine to create earthly perfection.

And so, as our journey comes to an end until next year, I will keep these moments close to my heart and use them as an elixir to bring calm to my soul until then ...

The Wolf at Midnight

If there is one thing that I have observed in life it is that not only do the good die young but that the parasites and users live long and seem to prosper ...

Maybe there is a reason for this. No one wants to risk introducing that amount of negativity back into the cosmos until it has been neutralized! The Buddhists had it right, Karma is a hard taskmaster.

As I look around me I see a universe poised on a new age that I would desperately like to be apart of. The fact is that I most probably will not, at least not in my present form. Perhaps it is my demise that will ushers in the new order and in that I will forever revel.

This last week has taught me yet another lesson. And that is the fact that energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can change and be reconfigured, but it exists forever in one form or another. It is the essence of the universe and the reason for forever, it is all things at once yet perfect in itself alone.

Once I watched a butterfly, it struggled in the wind to fly

But when it turned its wings to sails, it flew faster than the mighty gale

The howling of the midnight wolf rings cold and clear in mankind's ear

A sound so lonely and so dear it tells of life and love, and fear

If only just a moment spent in the arms of nature soft and bent

We might remember much as the trees, that we are what we mean to be

We are stardust!

photo by James Provenzano

A Spring of Memories

A crystal clear bay in the new month of May
bounded by waters of dark blue and jade

The smell of the sea carries memories of days
resting in the arms of the earth mothers haze

A softness of soul conjures thoughts from afar
while the sun kissed breezes wash over your scars

Remembering places with sun dappled shade
recount journeys of purpose standing clear and well made

What comes of this place when the world turns to fall
can it stand its firm ground and not change at all

When memories are pure and reside in the heart
then nothing can touch them unless allowed to depart