Little Things

The daylight, the moonlight, the cars between the lines all spin me adrift. My resilient children liven me up like nothing else, but spirits fall when our short visits end, such are separations in this beautiful cruel world. Turns out 10,000 oceans of tears ain't really that many, that I didn't know what I was getting into, that sorrow cuts deeper than imagination foresaw. Laughing away nightmares has become difficult, dusk seems more a scary movie than ever. Thought this post might pump me up, help me project a positive vibration, but more work required.

November and my heart hurts

chest pain is no fun. been a long time since I've felt it, but I feel it now, in this dark November. This fear will lose hold of me in time, one way or another. See all the relatively relaxed people that used to seem relatively glum. Transform, transcend, trans-something, take a deep breath. not all is well, nor Hell. Another deep breath. For the love of me, us all.

Growing Pain

Wish to uplift, but I'm a bummer, most all the time. Had so many years of regularly feeling good, at least at some point each day or week, and felt fabolous beyond compare for many of those times. Will I ever get that ever new bliss back? Still believe in finding fulfillment in the now, which is why these words appear on this screen. Want the light to fill me, consume me, shine all around me, like it is. Too blind to see it. "That's not the electric light, it's just your vision growing dim." --L. Cohen. I see now why men perish after losing their families and money, harder than they could have imagined, emotionally honest or not. Of course, the October Country has left us to deep Autumn, the helladaze season, the frosty dying season. Must learn from then let go of past mistakes, work to feel light, remember to eat. Bless my friends and family for continuing to put up with me, believing that I'll come in around in awhile like a guy with a hangover sipping coffee.

Keeping it together, to dream happy

Good feelings drift out there, under the waves, along those long country roads, in the soothing tones of friends voices. Harvesting growth and simple joys I listen to the spin of tires, songs of birds and crickets, sounds of the woods at night. The pains of mind and body make their endless circuit around me, coming and going, and looming large then small in comparison. Sleep blesses me with happy dreams sometimes, challenges me with stressful nightmares others. I just went from The Grapes of Wrath into Tobacco Road. The book's not as funny as the movie, but it helps the time pass in an oddly uplifting way.

Been seeing my kids three times/week for awhile now. I would like to spend vastly more time than that ~10-hours or less with them, but it appears that for awhile I will see them even less. Life passes both quickly and slowly, but our visits end too soon. I see that they will join me ever again as long as I maintain my health and wits and life energy. That means working, excercising, sleeping, meditating, and eating with as much vim as I can muster. All those things are precious, and help me remain present for the next time with my darlings, not just my kids but all the wonderful people in my circle of love.

Paper Airplanes

A thought, some words, abstractions of a glimmer once upon a time. I yearn to sing the body electric, enjoy life, spread love, but these simple pleasures elude me with ever more expert finesse, or perhaps I elude them. The smell of pine trees, the feel of water all around me, dancing, cycling, where drift they now? Good moods and positive outlooks grace us sometimes just for a moment, other times longer, but forever lies now, and I thrash these words with vigor hoping for a better now, smiling at a tolerable presence.

Saw my children today, which felt terrific. We played hide and go seek at a local playground, swung on the swings, made and flew paper airplanes, played catch, had snacks, and did some drawing, all in 2 hours and 20 minutes. Blessings upon blessings truly, and time well spent.

Joy May Come, In Time

peaceful vibrations. listening to the birds chirp, digesting breakfast, working. curled leaf tea tasty. leap to meditation whenever fear grows, even before(difficult). Spirit glows inside us, and through our friends & nature. let bitter feelings free up, they upset our balance. joy may come in time

Feel better all ready

Summer breezes sometimes blow cold
Across the bay with pastimes grown joyless
But whip them in the eyes I must
To feel them surge warm and thrill once more

The rising sun and Jimi Hendrix
Losing traction on the curves
Forgetting self on carnival rides
Hypnotized by the abyss

The subtle joy of pain every true skateboarder bemuses
Has taken flight across unskateble cobbles, to werewolf moors
Self absorption steals the joy, lends power to death, fear to life
But the moving love that keeps me free is on the move again

To spin, to dance, to fly & sing
Meditation, music making, progressing across watery bodies
Sensing seasons, ignoring reasons, howling at the moon
Crying with the stars, trees grow with me, coat my car in sap

The Dark Days of Summer

Feeling intense longing for my children. I know they miss me too, which is the hardest part. Dear spouse has been consistently preventing me from seeing them, though the court ordered 10-hours/week of visits. So far I've had 6-hours and 20-minutes total over two visits, out of 35-hours and 11 visits intended. This is the darkest Summer that I've ever known, full of tears and nightmares trying to teach me something. I try to see through the all consuming sadness, but 10,000 oceans of tears blind me. Friends offer words and hugs I need and love, but the fact remains that I am separated from my wonderful children.

My son turned 7 yesterday, but I could not call him, see him, send him a card, nor send him a message of any kind. That's a world of pain, especially since yesterday was a Thursday, and Thursday is one of my court ordered days to see him and his sister. Father's Day has never been so painful either. I would accept just about anyone as a supervisor, but their mom rejects all suggestions, suggests no one. I love her, wish her peace and happiness, am crushed by the way this is going down. Even as I write this I know that we will rise again, meet again, have happy times. Peace to all the good loving parents separated from their children. Angels in heaven and on earth we need your mercy and love now.

Dreams of Dreams Within Dreams

My dear departed father visited me in my dreams last night, and not in a vague way. We shook hands firmly, sat in his car, exchanged the gravity of quite a lot. The weight of the world seems to crush me, squeeze my breath to shallow, make my body ache, race my heart. Keeping a positive attitude has become a hat trick, slippery and evasive. Looking for good here and now.

Juicy Green Friends

oh hell oh heck, my life, my love, now
trees still befriend me, daily, intensely juicy green.
nature advances grace without mercy for asphalt,
financial insecurity or beauty conceptions, in her own way
healing fear and trembling, the ultimate illness.
feel that happy tree cry, freed from conception of rain & sun

Creative Processing, Ghost Dog Love

Ghost Dog Love

da pain, da pain, da pain
rains snows sleets dogs and dogs.
epic dogs, pheonix dogs, Rumi dogs
across my core, through our collective soul

Brother John taught me Stinkface.
works for bright light
hard emotions, angry or sad
a mask of facial tension
reflected darkness of our abyss

Ghost dog becomes ghost dog
charges forever inside me.
energy seemed boundless.
Now so in soothe

Timeless Fragrant Love

light grows to dim again
eyes bright one moment
clouded and tired another.
no human power could relieve this suffering,
but relief you channel graceful
flows through us, trees, oceans, bird filled skyways
yesterday and tomorrow blind fiery ghosts
ego slips, macho trips, bring them all back
music beyond our minds
electric heat and cooling
clear sounds not too loud
round and around every little thing spins
orbitals of orbitals cannot obsure this
timeless fragrant love

Riven, Radially

May rains falling right on time, wet and wind driven, cool and not overly happy. They seem to challenge me, like the rest of the world, calling me out. Whatever happened to adventure cycling? Keep having to check myself to see what kind of animal I am, what species I'd like to become, seagull or hawk, panther or wolf, oak tree or mayfly. Riven, radially, as a log.

Yeah, I Got Change [walks away, dispensing none]

Keeping the faith that my big life changes are positive, for all involved. I have cried an ocean of tears and would cry ten thousand oceans more if that is what it takes to be true to myself and what I know is right. Lively drops of salty water fall like soldiers on D-day destined for makeshift incinerators, vaporized with full honors on my face of red-hot coals, some escaping to perish more slow on my black jacket, little salt markers of their temporary resting places. Great happiness cycles through as well, born from knowing that there can be no other way that my innermost self will tolerate, and that the world tastes like good fresh oysters on a warm seashore night. Our time on Earth is not eternal, so we must practice devotion to our spiritual paths now, with a sense of urgency, so that when hard times fall on us we can weather them with confidence, honesty, and joy.

Headed for the Big D & I don't mean Dallas, no malice. Got served in the sauna with a pack of vicious lies, but I don't die, just fly to the sky, no time to wonder why. Layers of pain unveil layers of pain, reveal oceans of loving support. Queen Califia hath forsaken us not, lets blessings fall like rain, then rise as vapor to become cloud art for wayward workers blessed with imagination and second sight.

April 2010, in Some Walnut Shells

Spring storms blow in rough and wild but cannot quench my blistered feet blazing around the verdant trails. Wind and rain, flowers and sun, this tree huggin' soil worshipper zims that vernal edge singing the body electric, feeling real Walt Whitman up in here, Leaves Of Grass, up in here.

"Buddhas do not wash away ill deeds with water, Nor remove transmigrators' sufferings with their hands, Nor transfer their realization to others. Beings are freed through teachings of the truth, the nature of things. --Buddha

Swam Donner Lake at 9:00 AM 4/26/10 for ~1 minute. Yes, there was snow on the beach. Immersion in cold water is some crazy stuff. I do believe I liked it. Then I learned to snowboard; loved it.

Used to wait for my favorite pet wild freshwater crab sitting on the shore of San Francisquito Creek. I did not know one could find crabs in freshwater until she scuttled by my favorite creekside basking spot, little blue devil with her home under rock. I hope her descendants scuttle there still.

Kids' art takes me places people plumb forgot existed, and beyond. My son convinced me to roll down a steep grassy hill in Tilden Park with him, the one between the botanical garden and the Brazilian Room. Had completely forgotten how dizzy that can make a person, but now it's the freshest, way. Daughter did it too, of course - 1st time's free.

Son says "I wouldn't want to live in a little bitty world, and have a little bitty life, because then you would be born and die in like five minutes." Might be good enough for Alan Jackson, but we're looking for that step up.

"Surrealism is not a school of poetry but a movement of liberation, a way of rediscovering the language of innocence, a renewal of the primordial pact, poetry is the basic text, the foundation of the human order. Surrealism is revolutionary because it is a return to the beginning of all beginnings." --Octavio Paz

Chthonic. Look it up. Jung laughs with us while Faust and Faunus smile vacant past unthinkable dreams, or are those memories? Reflections of reflections through looking glasses and shattered knives.

"This life disappears only very quickly Like something written in water with a stick." - Buddha.

Found daughter trying to figure out the cover to Cheap Thrills by Big Brother and The Holding Company, yes the real album cover from 1967. First it brought back memories of myself trying to figure that art out, then I went ahead and actually looked at it. It has to the funniest album cover of all time. Long live R. Crumb. About Janis on the back my daughter said "She's happy."

"There ain't no money in poetry. That's what sets the poet free...cold dog soup and rainbow pie is all it takes me get me by." --Guy Clark Windy

Winter night, edge of Tomales Bay: no tent, old bag, let breeze in strong through zipper. tickling chill woke me every 20 -minutes - I laughed and thanked lucky stars for wil...d gifts, turned over to more ochre dreams.

Feeling inspired for more night hikes after last full moon traipse in the howling cold wind & pouring rain. Have finally realized, with a little help from a extraordinarily visionary friend, that we do not have to wait for any weather, moonphase, or water temperature to arrive.

"May we have the confidence of joy and delight When food and wealth accumulated with miserliness are left behind And we separate forever from cherished and longed-for friends, Going alone to a perilous situation." -The First Panchen Lama

My First Song: Love Up The Dreams That Need Love

Title: Love Up The Dreams That Need Love

Got a righteous good feeling when I gaze at the sky
Light of saturn shines sweet on our smiles
dark green shadows with blue shades of night
Help me to sing out, "It's gonna be alright"

Dance, dance, dancing in downpours,
Skipping, laughing down every trail,
So alive, and so very willing,
To Love up the dreams that need love the most

Got a righteous good feeling when I smell salty water
Light of Neptune tastes salty on our lips,
dark green shallows with dark blue shades of the deep
Help me to sing out, "It's gonna be a great leap"

Dance, dance, dancing in downpours,
Skipping, laughing down every trail,
So alive and so very willing,
To Love up the dreams that need love the most

SO excited to live this good life

Yesterday I sailed for the 1st time. We left the Richmond Marina late morning and returned at sunset, gorgeous, giving, feeling, beyond previous experiences. The folks were friendsome and I was on point, maybe a little jacked up with the thrill of the saltwater and blue sky. Stopped at San Francisco Aquatic Park for lunch, realized a 10-year old dream of swimming there, delightful, delightful, cold, and salty. Dominique and Chris swam too, and we felt quite fab about it.

Just got home from the wildest full moon hike yet, and I have been leading them for years. Just one taker and I drove to the back entrance to Kennedy Grove Park in the blooming storm of the decade, disappeared into the shadows beneath the old trees, smelled the bay trees smelling bayish, brought the moss & ferns inside us, marveled at them, then turned ourselves inside out, the better to know the lonesome hill entire. Ineffable, ineffable, but still I feel the urge to try to describe this blessing based in mud and the windy woods at night.

A woodpecker, sounded like a big old flicker to me, tapped on a tree to let us know we had left El Sobrante proper and entered into a realm most humans will never know. The storm blew in hard, whipping the trees, tearing through the forest like a herd of elephant spirits, leaving branches akimbo. Abandoned the Black Oak Grove trail in favor of the more sheltered Upper Sea Foam trail, which led us to the Lake View Lookout, where the wind promptly blew my hat off and threatened to crush my taker's umbrella, but we endured, nay, even dove off the west side of the slope into the fierce cold wind, down Lower Seafoam trail. She pointed out cracks in the soil indicating major earth movement; I raised my eyebrows while feeling for the creep of the hill, got a little giddy, passed by the dripping bench. It got steep, the storm blowing in arrived in force, dropped giant drops on the steep trail in quantity, traction got low, my hat became porous, navigation got tricky. With the miracle of Goddess we made it down without falling, stopping every now and then just to listen to the sounds of the storm whipped woods at night. Words cannot describe, but these tears of gratitude must mean something. I feel good, blessed, like I have stepped into the light after a month in the dark, those foggy trail visions will circle my mind until the electricity fades from my eyes.

These two wonderful trips, in addition to the 11 bands, party at the gym, day hike, and birthday lunch more or less top off my birthday celebrating month, and yes, I have no shame, might even see Hank III tonight...

BE HERE NOW

love love @ 40

mmmmm...40-years today. feels unreal, and I still love my skateboard. ready to lope across the ridges, down into the greenest glens, wildly aware

Tidbits, Trains, and Cycling

"I'm ain't nothing but a dirty dog, a briny hound, a dirty dog." --Jimmie Revard's Oklahoma Playboys

Cycling loves me so much that reciprocating comes preternatural. Had a way sweet ride along the Richmond shoreline Saturday - Point Isabelle to Ferry Point then back through the tunnel by Point Richmond, through what the wife & I used to call "Illegal Activities Land", back to Point Isabelle. To top it off our wonderfully unhurried trio threw in some impromptu adventure mountain biking to attend a King Cake party at the Albany Landfill, where I of course got Frog (the saviour) in my slice of cake, and so will be hosting a party this Friday in Oakland (buzz me for details, or comment on this post). Little sore, super stoked, "like a couple of kids, flipping our lids".

Been wondering what gets us through the nights not fun. Each of us with our own set of tools - meditation, liquor, television, books with yellowed pages, hot baths, the wild wonders of ancient and modern medicine, + a wide variety of excercise routines. More to the point is what might get me through this dark & stormy now. Sleep, bicycling, better things. No Selping! (not Sleeping + Not Helping)

My favorite part in André Gide's "The Counterfeiters" was when they dared each other to lie between the tracks as a train passed over. Then that one guy (my hero) did it. He passed out from fear as the train passed over him, then woke up feeling transformed, not to mention with an awful ringing in his ears. I'm a firm believer in donning one's stunner shades, ear plugs, helmet, gloves, and going dumb. Push your luck!

"I'm going down to the railroad, lay my head on the track. When that train come along I'm going to jerk it back." --from Dirty Hangover Blues by W. Lee O'Daniel & His Hillbilly Boys. That line cracks me up every time. As Homer Simpson so astutely put it: "I thought I had an appetite for destruction but all I wanted was a club sandwich."