In Remembrance

Has it really been twelve years? A few moments of silence, if you please...

And, these colors don't run:

Late Night Thoughts: Why Blog? Why Write?

The Weewolfe had needed to go out. Unfortunately, it was right at what I usually consider bedtime and it turns out, she just wanted one last chance to romp in the fresh snow. No problems there, other than I came back to a house that felt too warm and couldn't sleep.

Wound-up reading some of the last posts available out there on my favorite blogs and doing a little research on handloads for .38 Special/.357.

As I perused several sites, blogs, and forums, this also got me thinking about that urge to write and the driving force to place so much time and energy into something that has a high likelihood of only being read by a few.

In the past, I've put such efforts into writing fiction [shameless self-promotion here or, for anachronists such as myself, here]. Focusing one's self into the dedication of time and thought to produce a 350-plus page book with limited readership should seem like the end-all of banging a creative head on the brick wall of futility and has certainly felt daunting at times.

So, you may ask, why go through this night-after-night, collecting thoughts and/or sharing online things that have impacted me over the course of a day—especially, when it's so easy to bank such strong expectations on only hearing the proverbial chirping of crickets?

Well, this verse from Anna Nalick's "Breathe (2 AM)" easily comes to mind:

2 AM and I'm still awake, writing a song
If I get it all down on paper, it's no longer inside of me,
Threatening the life it belongs to
And I feel like I'm naked in front of the crowd
Cause these words are my diary, screaming out loud
And I know that you'll use them, however you want to

This blog has been something I've wanted to do for a long time and finally found the overwhelming initiative to undertake after the 2012 elections. This is my chance to take all those thoughts, hopes, fears, sarcasm, and ire seething round the gray matter and bleed it off to see who may share similar thoughts or even open-up good discussions.

Although I may be more blunt and emphatic than in my everyday life, anything that I do say here I will not shirk from saying to anyone in person.

Initially, I'd hoped to focus more on general politics and sports and hunting and fishing; however, the events of December 14, 2012, and the looming backlash against gun owners has rather hijacked a lot of my focus. I am, afterall, a "Cold, Dead Fingers Second Amendmentist"—a key reason I moved away from Massachusetts and family after completing college—and, lately, this is my soapbox from which I will not go down quietly in defense of our constitutional rights. All of them.

I will not leave myself broken-souled for a lack of trying.

This is but one of many avenues down which I can strive to be seen, be heard, and stand firm.

This is my soapbox to get those thoughts outside of me and allow you, dear and precious reader, that opportunity to take them however you may want to.

Thanks for your ear!

Happy Solstice (Just In Case the Mayan Apocalypse Didn't Get You)!

One may not reach the dawn save by the path of the night. - Kahlil Gibran. Source: Sand and Foam (The Kahlil Gibran Pocket Library), Pages: 8

Like the seeds dreaming beneath the snow your heart dreams of spring. - Kahlil Gibran. Source: The Prophet: 26 poetic essays, Pages: 80 (On Death)

Pausing: Love x3

This post is to pause and come back to the breath; to step away and be in the moment and try to be open to something beautiful amidst such an evil day. Perhaps, the best that can be done for now is to step back and allow the magic of a song to be summoned.

Tulip introduced me to the music of Christine Kane, whom I believe she discovered through Sark's website. She's among the few musicians that I feel are actually better in live performance than studio album (I'm listening to the live version of the song below as I work on this post).

This one is among my all time favorites:

If'n you're interested, the words are as beautiful as the music (at least to these partially deaf ears, which have done their best to transcribe them here):

Let out a long sigh under a low sky, I'm coming home to you.
I'm feeling nervous. I'm always nervous. I'm always passing through.
Noise all around me sounds like graffiti in this broken land.
Where we tell you what we will sell you and we will shake your hand.
Ten-thousand times I've wondered aloud why we don't die of fear.

And, I dream, now, to wake-up all the love inside of me; times three.
And, I see how the light alone is all we need to be, yeah.

I am the big love; the magic wand of the one who hung the moon.
And, I am the camera. I am the paint brush and I'm down in the deepest gloom.
Oh, I want a kingdom. I want a ride home. I want a big, wide room.

And, I dream, now, to wake-up all the love inside of me; times three.
And, I see how the light alone is all we need to be.
Aren't we?
The wars are behind us, the marks are erased.
The danger is over, the altar's in place.
The damage is likely to leave when embraced by these tears.

Maybe we're crazy? I think we're lonely and I think we're wide awake.
What is your passion? Where is your dungeon? What was your worst mistake?
Or, will you make your days replay your dreams?
Hoh-uh-huh-hoh, in dreams...
Yeah-ee-yeah, in dreams...

At first glance it could be interpreted as coming back to a partner and engaging in a reconciliatory conversation after a long and painful separation.

Looking again, the conversation is with one's self.

In the Buddhist tradition, the path towards becoming a bodhisattva involves nurturing maitri—loving kindness—which Pema Chodron describes in her book Comfortable With Uncertainty (#5, Loving Kindness: The Essential Practice) as:

In cultivating loving kindness, we learn first to be honest, loving, and compassionate towards ourselves. Rather than nurturing self-denigration, we begin to cultivate a clear-seeing kindness.

Perhaps, the best way to leave this post off is with an encore?

My Blobsquatch of the Fall

 
...Wasn't so much a blobsquatch as an Admiralty Island brown bear (ursus arctos).

Okay, the photos came out ridiculously blurry--probably because I was transferring the camera to my left hand while trying to quickly unsnap my revolver holster.

Believe it (or not) that black blob is a 600+ pound brown bear that wandered through our camp at Admiralty Cove, in the Kootznoowoo Wilderness, just outside of Juneau. I stupidly went to try and get a photo of him and wound-up coming less than 40 feet from him. And, HE WAS NOT HAPPY WITH ME! The other thing not seen in the blur, as reported by Fishing Buddy in the After Action Report (and a lot of deserved lecturing about trying to play "Denali Tourist), is that he'd been stomping his feet at me to tell me to "back-off". He eventually backed away from me after Fishing Buddy backed me up with a loaded rifle.

 

Don't try this at home kids as a bear can cover 40 feet in an eye-blink and I was definitely stupid that day.

Something else that freaked me out is how something so big could move so quietly through the thick brush at the edge of camp.

Moments of Beauty

I was walking Weewolfe, the wonder collie, the other evening and caught myself pondering the many moments of pure beauty available to us should we just open ourselves to their possibility. I'm probably indulging an old cliche; however, it seemed a good opportunity introduce an ongoing series providing respite from much of what else I intend to post...

Moments of pure beauty: pausing to freeze a specific point amidst the hubbub, chaos, confusion, and difficult feelings of our lives and recognize the pure joy, the pure wonder and magic of our living experience. Pausing to savor and appreciate such a moment sloughs away the compounding antagonisms and we can immerse ourselves into coming back to feeling the natural breath of life. We can come back to existing within that gift of being fully present with and appreciating our lives.

For me it sometimes feels that the complexity of the given moment varies inversely to the extent of chaos in my life. My brain swirling with all the trappings of adult life--of course: the pending bills, that project at work, or the fact that the freaking squeal from the truck's brakes is back--I am stopped dead in my tracks to wonder at the perfect crystals of hoar frost encrusting a clump of winter's dead grass...

















I am dazzled by its jewelry and no longer lost to the more detracting aspects of life or sadly resigned to the coming cold and darkness of winter.

The moment can be pausing to re-appreciate the company of a companion, even though you may have recently had a spat...

[Note: don't let the dog tell you otherwise, I only rolled in that road-killed porcupine for a moment. Not enough to really get myself stinky or anything.]

As darkness continues to descend, I pause to wonder about that bend in the road and the noises just out of sight...

Appreciating the uncertainty of what lies beyond, as opposed to fearing the bear that just might be there...

Opening myself to the beauty of these moments, I can savor the quiet of the evening, the feel of light snow just beginning to fall, the cold bite to my nose and cheeks, and the crunch of frozen gravel under my shoes. I can smile and find a stillness within myself that matches that of the evening.