120124 01:47
The dream from which I am arisen is a lovely poem of love for humanity. And equally my Swan/Phoenix song; no dirge. A prayerful hymn of thanksgiving for an unlived life, abandoned talent and sense of the genius of our collective will to love. The core of life’s psyche?

The trembling tear lingering at my eye is both sorrow and joy before I join the dust surrounding me of mountains made desert. . . . When did all ground, time and space become sacred? Where and when did fear flee from me?

Oh! Of course, my last conscious thought before slumber. An unconscious prayer about which I should have been more careful not to articulate: I love discovering talent and witnessing the nascent genius there . . . oblivious of longing to become the nurture for its growth.

Having witnessed, at hospice, the total of one family, in relationship to their dying mother, I ejaculated privately to her, ‘You made beautiful babies!’ Now sensing I should learn to curb my mouth as the street signs admonish in Manhattan regarding pets. . . . But she glowed so! But then again I now think I need a bag gag permanently affixed.

I am at times rude and express my urge to merge physically with a woman. And now find it not odd that the thought expressed to a very few, in later time my request obviously denied/declined, that I’d really rather merge with her soul for a moment to run my fingers through her psyche. Perhaps that is my true longing and lust to really know her. Instead of becoming the more common double backed beast for a brief time with both the creation of life or death implicit.

In recognition of my rogue consciousness. I recall taking my children, or was it child then? To the zoo and witnessing a bear lolled back masturbating in apparent boredom.

Another instance of masturbation: a pet dog where two Jesuits had hidden, with a Protest theologian, when sought for arrest for their acts of political protest. Masturbatory acts became common coin to me at the behest of a friend and teacher in high school. God Bless Jack O’Hara wherever you are. The last time we spoke, five or so years ago, he protested my choice of photography versus painting and I fell mute, my praise and gratitude killed. How could I tell him that the work we do creates the best part of ourselves. What would I now say? For most of us the vocation we sell our lives for is paltry and unworthy of our time, or life’s essence, slavery actually.

No one and nothing is for naught. To have been witness to genius is enough to know that what we call “God” is.

I now think God is within this alchemical retort we being rendered into something new. The metaphor expands and contracts in accord with the circumstance--no situational ethics or morality implied. I am torn between extrude and excrete. The hammer and anvil infinitely more apt than “between a rock and a hard place” . . . the pain . . . the process being a sword hammered into a plowshare. We who quiver as tears about to fall into the sea of oblivion know better that it is our drop of water we give. Our choice to die and give the wonder to the children who follow. Even the children of Darfur whose mothers die of rape and aids leaving them orphans.

"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." --Anais Nin

PS At the moment I recall it is the birthday of a woman friend who shared her father’s sexual use of her beginning at age six. Ending when, at the age of twelve or so, she began to seek him out. He then abandoned her. At the time of her death from brain cancer, a daughter called in recognition that we were friends, ending her monolog with the opinion that her mother was mentally ill.

I gave no reply but share this because her mother was a wonderful person who cared deeply for others. Best of all, for me at least, she taught me in part, now nearing completion, that friendship was better; the ultimate goal of love . . . and this was after giving herself sexually to a series of “bad boys.” . . . this one excluded . . . solemnity be damned. . . . . image borrowed from Aaron Siskind

120120 23:25

A few thoughts based upon experience, in response to the proclamation that the Music Recording Industry and The Movie Industry are “Pro Free Speech.” Please read/see latest developments regarding Internet Censorship.

What follows is based upon remarks made by my father (a music publisher) and time spent transporting a Julliard teacher (Davis Schumann) to the inaugural opening of Yale’s Electronic Music Studio.

Both detailed corruption in the publication of intellectual property. Instead of the gory details: stolen copyrights, bribes, kickbacks and/or the egregious censorship enforced on the motion picture process. I will give you a thumbnail of my conversation with Mr. Schumann during our one hour trip from Stamford, CT to Yale University.

As a teacher at Julliard Schumann was enthusiastic about liberation from the recording industries strangle hold on the publication of music. In this case I refer to complex musical structures, think/hear, symphonies and large ensemble work. The potential he described became true for all arts and the quest for knowledge. The computer made it possible to write and record music synthetically. The Internet, introduced much later, made the genius of creative people instantly communicable.

An important, to me, point: Creative people generally begin with an idea and whip it into form. At which point, in order for it to be published, one had to beg, borrow or steal the attention of sponsors and orchestra directors . . . the list was seemingly endless and the cost to the artist in non creative time, was significant and difficult. Especially given the fear of rejection we all have.

I see, hear and read genius/talent everywhere I look. Yet wherever I see it I also see the lack of an audience, absence of acknowledgement and affirmation. In terms of creative democracy the Internet is it. Television once held a similar promise but become commercial to the extent that creatively was filtered through conglomerate owners or sponsors agenda’s having nothing to do with free speech. Especially when it, potentially, impinged upon profit. From my vantage point I consider commercial broadcast televised news irrelevant. Even more so since Rupert Murdock and the ‘powers that were or be’ allowed consolidation of venues to reside under one umbrella. One tyranny?

“To Serve & Protect” is a common motto for law enforcement organizations. I ask who are they serve and protect when they kill protesters, either in America or abroad. The motion picture decency board does virtually the same thing with censorship not with lethal force excluding the obscenity of violence and romance/love/attraction as the sale of products. (An afterthought: think about the film “Precious” as counterpoint to the soporific pap and swill making so much profit that the vested money makers will steal our right of access to everything other than their product.)

I see profit in truly free speech for all people. An opportunity to access an education above and beyond vocational training; learning to think and formulate participation, independently well informed. Manifest is an opportunity for diverse views and choice; informed consent, participation in the process of governance. The absence of which is becoming violently apparent.

Everything is process. The collapse and decay of what democracy promised is accelerated by what we have; a population and nation going to hell in a hand basket for the pleasure and desire of 1%. Not democracy but oligarchy and at that a political system ruled by wealth buying the votes of politicians whose sole intention is to get reelected.

This is not an argument we can boycott or walk away from, though the former is attractive and effective. We must participate in any and all measures to retain, if noting else, our right of descent. Behind the scenes legislation is being considered to accuse and confine anyone causing the establishment displeasure. Thinly disguised as subversion with the hot button issues currently in play. Is the cure not worse than the disease?

I have many questions with no specific answers. However I imagine a far greater possibility if and when we work together to take back our governance from political hacks. Why do they continue to award themselves with raises and lifetime security while stealing ours?

--Jean Giraudoux (1882 - 1944)
'The secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that you've got it made."

--Marshall McCluhan (1911 - 1980)
"Politics will eventually be replaced by imagery. The politician will be only too happy to abdicate in favor of his image, because the image will be much more powerful than he could ever be."
“There is absolutely no inevitability as long as there is a willingness to contemplate what is happening.”

120119 06:00

Random thoughts: Prayer is being a tuning fork in the apparent chaos of creation. Once struck it ripples outward and inward to the, as St. Ignatius would have it, God within and God beyond. Prayer and wisdom seem to go hand in glove. As I am and was: in childhood I had no idea of what I prayed for aside from “Now I lay me down to sleep .  . . and “The Our Father . . . “

Now chagrined I recognize and articulate a concept of expansion; ‘To grow large enough to receive the love of God’, as in God’s love for all of us, the living and the departed. Example: In childhood I seemed to be a source of anguish for my parents and in loving them more came to feel I was unworthy of life. I was drown in that.

Then came a person who later on would tell me her initial impressions of me before and intimately share her conclusions now, going on four or five years, afterwards. I am stunned. Our relationship is platonic, as in friends and I am, at times, alarmed by her insights and struggle for comprehension in several instances taking years to understand and incorporate the gist and truth of what she suggests; her resonance refracting mine.

. . . from dust we came and to dust we return

In our case planning ahead independently we choose the same: cremation, our ashes spread somewhere in the desert we love . . . this place where God is more obvious than any other. Dramatic isn't it. Yet for my part my Power of Attorney has been informed, though he is a Priest, that I would not object having my remains being placed in a dumpster.

Regarding the Bible, or any of the several books of wisdom, I do not cherry pick but attempt to integrate the entity whole and let the implications move about in tectonic fashion. How can I stand the soul quakes? I was enraged with God that my nightly prayers over the sleeping child, my beloved son, was not answered and he spared the death he met. . . . take me instead.

Random acts of kindness are also prayer. A gift freely given with no expectation of return or applause. No milk and cookies for being ‘good’.  Jesus said, “ . . . when you visited me in prison, gave me a cup of water . . . “, treat all as holy even those who assassinate or merely persecute you in veniality and cupidity. I don’t know what Christianity is. Though I am catholic & Catholic educated I can only assess my relationship to God and in that love I find wholeness & holiness in all. Latent or actual it’s there.

Beloved . . . who are you and where?

The resonance expands outward making me smaller each day. I write from a need to escape the tyranny of photography: “Be there and deal with the moment captured in a black excluding frame.” While writing I merge with infinity and find love there.

Or is it here?! As in “Be Here Now!” --Ram Dass.

I imply nothing noble, grand or holy in either the random gift of kindness or the choice of what to include or exclude in photography. Be naked in your kindness vulnerable to failure. You choose your vision/version of what life and love may become. Not even God does that for you. The spindle of grief upon which my life revolved has changed from cold steal to a shaft of light. My gratitude for this is limitless extending even to those who __________ you know who would/have stolen your shirt and life.

As for rote prayer, I do recite The Serenity Prayer, but now instead of petitioning the gift I acknowledge its receipt.

--Matsuo Basho
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Seek what they sought."

--Eric Hoffer
"Fear comes from uncertainty. When we are absolutely certain, whether of our worth or our worthlessness, we are almost impervious to fear. Thus a feeling of utter worthlessness can be a source of courage."

--Earl G. Hunt, Jr. (Bishop--United Methodist)
“Prayer is a kind of calling home every day. And there can come to you a serenity, a feeling of at-homeness in God's universe, a peace that the world can neither give nor disturb, a fresh courage, a new insight, a holy boldness that you'll never, never get any other way.”

--Rainer Maria Rilke
“Our being is continually undergoing and entering upon changes. ... We must, strictly speaking, at every moment give each other up and let each other go and not hold each other back.”

120117 02:24

Wikipedia will black out globally its English Pages in protest of SOPA & PIPA.

When I had--before theft by politicians, bankers, stock brokers incorporated--money. I gave three hundred dollars to Wikipedia as an investment in our collective future. I do not regret this gesture despite now being dependent upon the charity of others to eat. Just yesterday I discovered a recipe using pinto beans in lieu of meat for hamburgers and meatloaf. I am not ashamed to be a member of The Third World. If anything my new citizenship has proven to be a blessing whose value is immeasurable revealing the nature and origin of addiction and greed.

As an adolescent I considered automobiles manufactured in Germany has being enshrouded in the flesh of dead Jews. Like the lamp shades the Nazis were so fond of.

Now, as I dodge SUVs driven by people speaking on cellular telephones, I think of them as being cloaked in the bleeding bodies of mutilated/dead combatants coupled with the 1.5 million or more civilian Iraqis slain by the previous administration--now seeking to recapture the White House.

Given the infantile posturing and playground rhetoric witness the current “Race to The White House.” I wonder if it is not time for a change; a clean sweep. A retroactive revocation of all rights and privileges secretly codified to and for, as Mark Twain called it; “It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native criminal class except Congress.”

Historically the number of “Leaders” worth the scratch required to bury their ashes can be counted on the fingers of one hand. My protest is not limited to Howdy Doody & Uncle Bob of “Shock & Awe”fame--I did donate fifty dollars to the current resident leader of The School for Terrorism.

No my concern is for the return of the Inquisition & Dark Ages.

Surely this cannot be the will of the people; to have our right to free speech gagged and uncensored access to an education taken away exclusively for the profit of the 1%. Between the electorate and politicians the disconnect is obscene.

120118 07:46

"There is no greater crime than to stand between a man and his development; to take any law or institution and put it around him like a collar, and fasten it there, so that as he grows and enlarges, he presses against it till he suffocates and dies." --Henry Ward Beecher

First discovered quote within my morning ritual of collecting them. Then as I plowed forward I discovered that the question I ask of myself: "To speak or remain silent?" was answered clearly. I am not nearly as learned as I would have myself be and I seek wisdom not knowledge. Where East meets West seems to be the boundary between the simple joy of creation as it is and will be or to act assertively to alter the course of history.

I am not suggesting anything by way a prophecy since my sense of that activity is more in line with biblical prophets than those who predict the end of the world. Which bye-the-bye is inevitable: organic or physics. If I must define what I'm about it is advocacy and intercession for all life.

My perception and thinking is largely a product of information available, in milliseconds, via the Internet. I am able to process the contrasts between ideologies with comparable speed intuitively. Intellectually I do love even those who would assassinate me, or us as the case may be. We are using the lesser parts, plus or minus a few points of 10% our abilities. Anything that would limit, censor, inhibit, our growth is inimical to healing, redemption or the unfolding of consciousness. My sense is that the most revered in history were in essence teachers. Their intention clearly that we become the best possible person we are able to be . . . in the gem of our being, soul, self, unique and glorious. Anything less seems to be criminal. Oddly I recall at this point the phrase, "The first shall be last and the last first."

In closing I remind you that beneath the exterior of all things is an essence beyond definition. What about the future and the children? Are we educating the world that graft, greed, dominance, power and force are good. Or are we educating the world to be the future as they would have it when we leave. The former will leave the earth barren, the latter, an incandescent blaze.

120115 04:37
Imagine your life as a picture puzzle, the image of which is yet to be revealed.
Now see it coalesce into a three dimensional form in the fourth dimension, time, and you will not see, but sense, the actual presence of Creator/Creation Infinite.

Ask, and you will receive the communion of our cosmos beyond all symbols and myths--stone cold sober. Like seeing Wylie Coyote not at the canyon floor, a puff of dust, but arisen transformed into love.

“I shall tell you a great secret my friend. Do not wait for the last judgement, it takes place every day..”
"I would rather live my life as if there is a God and die to find out there isn't, than live my life as if there isn't and die to find out there is." --Albert Camus

I envy no one and no thing, but have a concern for all of us. We who have benefited by the endless education potential through/of the Internet. Here I address legislation currently before The U. S. Congress to tamper with, censor and contort-pervert for fundamentally profit driven motives our greatest educational resource since television. Regarding which, a thesis advanced by Rod Serling who said, “ . . . what we have are a bunch of dancing rabbits singing about toilet paper.” The issues are clearly drawn at www.fightforthefuture.org please attend then call, email or visit with our elected representatives and voice either your agreement or opposition.

The fortune stolen from me was derived from the efforts of my mother and her mother who took in sewing. Once, as a child, I accompanied my mother in Manhattan to a button shop where there were a number of men missing fingers. Fascinated I asked where their fingers had gone? One man told me that the Nazis had taken their fingers in an experiment. Then that he and his like fingerless friends sold buttons one-by-one from boxes of mismatched collections purchased for a penny each and sold for two cents in order that their families could eat. He explained the process was called “profit” enabling the entire process to be repeated. The purchase of buttons, sold one-by-one, and his families home and meals.

I understand and accept the nature of profit without resentment. I do, however, imply that the theft of our children’s future is impermissible. God loves all of us but we remain the only hands available to stop greed & tyranny.
“We Americans... bear the ark of liberties of the world.” --Mark Twain

120110 0552

“Genius does what it must, and talent does what it can.” --Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton

In thought, word or deed, I seek genius such as discovered in Robert Herman; the most gifted photographer witnessed in decades.

Life is not a foot race, one-against-another, but with one’s self. In that sense we compete with God. . . .The race continues beyond death--infinite.

As child and man I am aware the several gifts of my father’s reverence for genius in others: musicians and authors. But more so in his final act bankrupting me the bequest due my life long slavish quest for his love. The gift is in knowing the truth of my love for he who abandoned me, abandoning me still, a pure alloy refined in pain a grief suffered no more.

There is trauma involved. Witnessing Herman’s vision is for me comparable to impalement; final vision an ice pick thrust blindness self-inflicted. Is this not true of a beauty once seen, entered and remembered as a blinding excellence rendering all else ashen? Rumi and T. S. Elliot, Bach, Mozart and Billy Holiday. In awe I’ve died many times before and arisen anew born child.

Hyperbolic? Perhaps yet to know me, as I know myself as known by God. To see is to possess and be embossed with the other carried in this gyred womb, this cosmos, a prayer of supplication, petition and awe; unanswered questions flung like cancer cells against the starry, starry night.

The image I stole to illustrate my discovery and discernment is reminiscent of Dante’s Inferno & Comedy not fully read but illustrated in a magical subway car illuminated by divine light populated by ennui; “are we there yet?” Reprised endlessly in other Herman captures of light odd in their nearly lurid color arising from an ashen tradition of documentary Black & White.

His eyes stiletto punctuating a world dominated by slippery suppositories of political no-speak. As in the feminine eye of God is not orgasmic but catholic: embryo, child, desire and crone; binary and vital. So too with his other images: http://www.robertherman.com/#mi=2&pt=1&pi=10000&s=0&p=2&a=0&at=0

I gorge upon his vision/version of life as I do W. Eugene Smith, Eugene Richards, Minor White to name but a few upon the altar, my pantheon, now expanded by one several orders of magnitude greater.

I think my father fell short in his reverence for genius never acknowledging his own. Instead he left me with this closing thought: Bix Biterbeck would finish his night by sitting in on a club session invariably leading the resident trumpeter to slip out crushing his horn beneath the wheels of his car before departing. If I have achieved nothing, at least I have known the joy of creation regardless acclaim or reward and joined the love of The Creator and Robert albeit only in my imagining.

120110 10:00 Coda
A truism: Great work is worthy of reprise, each a surprise. An accolade for too few: Happily I reside in the same cosmos as you. For in this instance you make it anew.

120104 05:20
Slavery is a living death by triage or attrition. 

In retrospect my life was like crossing a dark room blindfolded the floor covered in billiard balls, eggs and marbles. Otherwise a carnival mirror maze reflecting the opinions of others. Now: considered projections of their dysfunctions which I then attempted to incarnate. Living for them crippled and contorted through their rage over unlived lives.

Reverting to the child who began the passage, now fully capable of avoiding philosophical or religious brands. My intention is to sell you yourself. The purchase is costly but valuable beyond any measure real or imagined.

“There is no God higher than truth.” --Mahatma Gandhi
“If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.” --Rene Descartes
“Every great advance in natural knowledge has involved the absolute rejection of authority.” --Thomas H. Huxley

What is this “truth”

You, all of you, are precious and unique truths. Beyond that there is no definitive guide line or standard other than to acknowledge and accept your self/soul. Then to abandon it for the good of all life unconditionally. If you must, find your own icons of truth and accept in the process their passion was to teach you to be you. Not a replica but wholly original.

The above is a preamble to what follows:

The Rise of the Second-String Psychopaths
By David Schwartz

June 05, 2011 "Common Dreams" --  The great writer Kurt Vonnegut titled his final book A Man without a Country. He was the man; the country was the United States of America. Vonnegut felt that his country had disappeared right under his – and the Constitution’s – feet, through what he called “the sleaziest, low-comedy Keystone Cops-style coup d’état imaginable.” He was talking about the Bush administration. Were Vonnegut still alive in the post-Bush era, he would not have felt that his country had returned.

How had our country disappeared? Vonnegut proposed that among the contributing factors was that it had been invaded – as if by the Martians – by people with a particularly frightening mental illness. People with this illness were termed psychopaths. (The term nowadays is anti-social personality disorder.) These are terms for people who are smart, personable, and engaging, but who have no consciences. They are not guided by a sense of right or wrong. They seem to be unaffected by the feelings of others, including feelings of distress caused by their actions. Straying from a decent way of treating people, or violating ethical codes causes no anxiety, the anxiety which is what causes the rest of us to moderate our more greedy impulses. If most children feel anxiety when they are pilfering the forbidden cookie jar, psychopaths feel just fine. They can devour the cookies, shatter the jar as evidence and stuff it in the trash can. When accused, they can argue with apparent sincerity that the cookie jar has been missing for at least a week. There suffer no remorse, no guilt, no shame. They are free to do anything, no matter how harmful.

Psychopaths can be very tricky to recognize. As psychiatrist Dr. Hervey Cleckly wrote in his classic The Mask of Sanity in 1941, psychopaths are not technically insane. They don’t have a psychosis, like schizophrenia. They are experts in appearing normal. They can act the role of a caring, concerned executive, even though they actually do not seem to experience such feelings. If they hurt somebody, they don’t modify their behavior.

The United States corporate and government spheres have become, Vonnegut suggested, a perfect habitat for psychopaths. What has allowed so many psychopaths to rise so high in corporations, and then government, he wrote, “is that they are so decisive. They are going to do something every fuckin’ day and they are not afraid. Unlike normal people, they are never filled with doubts, for the simple reason that they don’t give a fuck what happens next. Simply can’t. Do this! Do that! Mobilize the reserves! Privatize the public schools! Attack Iraq! Cut health care! Tap everybody’s telephone! Cut taxes on the rich!

In a country in which much of human culture has been rendered into machines for the manufacture of money, psychopaths are the ideal leaders. They are very focused. They are outcome oriented. They are frequently charming, and usually very bright and able. They can lay off thousands of people, or deny people health care, or have them waterboarded, and it does not disturb their sleep. They can be impressively confident. Psychopaths can be dynamic leaders of enterprises, but are handicapped by their lack of feelings for relationships. They may be accomplished captains of industry, or senators, or surgeons, but their families are frequently abused and miserable. Most psychotherapists have seen the wives or husband or children of such accomplished people.

Since psychopaths are usually very smart, they can be quite competent at impersonating regular human beings in positions of power. Since they don’t care how their actions affect people, they can rise to great height in enterprises dealing with power and money. They can manufacture bombs or run hospitals. Whatever the undertaking, it is all the same to them. It’s just business.

The economic system that remains after the destruction of American local cultures has created an excellent employment picture for psychopaths. But the opportunities open to them are now so vast that there is apparently now an actual labor shortage. At least that is the only explanation I can find for the rise of a cadre of psychopathic leaders who resemble the usual type in all ways but one: they’re simply not that smart. One has only to look at right-wing not-so-Christian fundamentalists to see the peculiar emergence of a second-string of psychopaths.

The US has been endowed with abundant resources, and there have always been a more than sufficient supply of psychopaths of the first intellectual grade to supply corporate suites and their subsidiary, the Congress. Why is there now a downgrade to the dumb ones, like the lowering of standards for military recruits to deal with a shortage of cannon fodder?

It is no secret that the Koch brothers and others of the super-rich seem to have undertaken a final push to consolidate control through the conversion of a marginally democratic to an essentially fascist state; extreme right-wing, authoritarian, and demagogic. This kind of government is ideal for control of a populace by the moneyed elite. To carry this out requires the employment of many ‘kept’ politicians to excite and misdirect scared and angry – and ignorant – voters. Lest the citizenry realize who stole their money and storm their castles with torches, the rapacious elite need politicians who will carry out the work of re-directing anger at teachers, or labor unions, or the poor. I can only conclude that the people who now own the country couldn’t find any first-rate psychopaths to carry out their work. Or maybe the smart ones were all occupied. So they had to go to second-stringers, people who could actually believe what they were told to say.

We are a country who has become second-best, even in the quality of our psychopaths.

David B. Schwartz, Ph.D. practices psychotherapy in Ithaca, NY. His books include Who Cares? Rediscovering Community and the forthcoming The Sidewalk Psychotherapist.

“Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul.”  --Edward Abbey

120103 03:08

“We're all just walking each other home.” --Ram Dass
“When I do good, I feel good; when I do bad, I feel bad, and that is my religion. --Abraham Lincoln
“Life is God’s novel. Let him write it.” --Isaac Bashevis Singer
When I first applied for hospice service I filled in a form defining the kind and degree of willingness to participate. I articulated a willingness to do whatever was required. Given my experience from yesterday I wonder now at my prior innocence. I am displaced from comfortable acceptance of myself--violently so.

Curiousity about what we call “God” has come to define my willingness to consider my own death, birth and all that resides in between--up close and person--without limits. Unaccountably, I’ve become aware of a phrase found in the Episcopal Prayer Book: “All sorts and conditions” and/or “sins of omission or commission.” Similar phrases occur in other branches of Christianity also using prayer books. The intention being to formulate a cycle of prayer 24/7/365 girdling the world.

Volunteers are required to “sit with” the people in distress, loneliness or anxious and about to do harm to themselves. I have been required to sit with Alzheimer patients, more men then women, not a definitive observation but experiential. Not many but enough.

The man I have in mind is someone’s father, brother, uncle, grandfather, and once was a child as I was. He had a life now swiftly nearing its end. In the abstract a we both are “children of God.” Equally worthy of respect explicit in all life. Yet when he became violent towards me I began to lose it. I was shattered and ashamed. I wanted to run away possibly never to return.

Courage is knowing you’re going to lose but moving forward, in essence giving the situation your best effort. Not verbatim nor original to me but close enough for this purpose. It is too easy to kill or do violence to another or oneself. Love is the greater part of courage.

Restraint of any kind is impermissible. Had I responded violently to his I would have been dismissed as I should have been. Shaken I walked away seeking help. Then returned to witness the women who work daily with this sort of condition and watched them deal with him in astonishment. I recall asking the youngest one to shoot me if I ever got that way. Even going so far to say that I would prefer to be burned alive than to be like, or go through, what he was.

In gratitude and empathy I write this for those who give care to their children, parents or spouses without relief 24/7/365. Think of it as prayer for them, for me and for us. I am grateful for the intimacy I have with the women and men who serve at hospice in any capacity. They are able to walk, not just the next but last mile, barefoot over broken glass. Small wonder the women I associate with are cinders regarding marriage or sexual intimacy. This seems a near universal conclusion whether by divorce or death.

I now consider consciousness as being like a needle or stylus upon infinity. We sew ourselves together with gold or hemp for better or worse; we are wed to life.

My esteem for those whose courage I wish I could emulate is limitless. I recall a man with whom I had developed a friendship. A stroke had paralyzed one side of his body. At the request of a nurse that he take his medication he replied; “You take it!”
She, “It’s not my turn yet.”

Morbid humor?

I don’t think so because each moment is precious to me. At each parting, in the ordinary of life, we never know if we’ll ever see one another again. With this kind of consciousness it is impossible to dismiss anyone as unworthy of love or life.

Might is not right--it is only power & force.

120101 20:55
Interstices, coincidental conjunctions and collisions . . .

Haven’t done laundry in six months. I was verging on day-of-the year underwear and mining mountains of dirty clothes; comparative reekyness considerations aside. After all what is stink water (men’s cologne) for? . . . and then began the cycle of turning them inside out, front to back and upside down.

So there I stood, pre-dawn looming and using a sticky roller to get Annie’s fur off the sheets; well, actually everything. I have a Queen Sized bed purchased in expectation of a liaison that I begged off at the dinner & wine stage. My father’s last erection was @ age 72 so I guess I’m on my last lap and running hard, not towards but away. I’m calling The Salvation Army or Good Will tomorrow to ask that they cart it away and I’ll return to my monks bed.

My last potential bed mate just informed me that she’d taken a boarder, wants to have a confab at lunch. Said her kids conferred and concurred. Oh well, she was the only candidate I’d give up my wolfish way for 24/7/365. So that’s what? A fourteen hour spread. I am not into New Years Resolutions, at least I never considered it one but being iconoclastic I ask even of God; is this your will or an accident?

Guess I’d rather have women as friends. Then they’d be like grand kids you can send them home. Interestingly women I talk to seem to feel the same way.

“Men wonder when and where, woman wonder why?” --Billy Joel 
. . . at least I think so but cannot confirm attribution.

I can’t keep it all straight what I write for me or for publication. Of late I’m attempting to write myself out and not into a corner. I have a staggering memory and have largely healed the agony/pain of it. . . .But as isolated as I am I remain conscious of being mentored by others of both genders and fabulously varying ages; so I'm here for you.

So much of what I do, or did, was/is like dropping your heart into a well and not hearing a splash. Such talent as I may have had was never developed but I make a great audience. In that regard I’ve had brief but intense encounters with people whose work I admire. The best, possibly the first, was sitting beside Joseph Albers and showing him some of my cut paper collages--we said “Music!” simultaneously--pink & orange it was. God how I adore genius but perhaps wisdom more since I weep at Buddha’s quotes. Jesus too but he is so buried in should’s & ought's that it is difficult to find the person beneath all the hyperbole. 

Regarding the product of my imaginings and captures: I’ve abandoned, or destroyed, most of it. Living as I do in an “Elderly” community at the time of my death the maintenance crew will simply dump what’s left. Don’t look back. Don’t look forward. Look at now and within yourself; there’s really nothing to fear.

"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." --Maya Angelou

PS No. I did not take the photograph but I admire it and wish I'd at least been there
. . . like I wish I'd taken Gene Smith's Tomeko at her Bath.

120101 05:31
"Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it." --Rumi

I have no permission to post what follows from The Journal of Sacred Works:

"Top Five Regrets of The Dying
Posted December 1, 2011 By T Kelly

"For many years I worked in palliative care. My patients were those who had gone home to die…I was with them for the last three to twelve weeks of their lives. 

When questioned about any regrets they had…common themes surfaced again and again. Here are the most common five:

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

This was the most common regret of all. When people realize that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not honored even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made.

…From the moment that you lose your health, it is too late. Health brings a freedom very few realize, until they no longer have it.

2. I wish I didn’t work so hard.

This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their children’s youth and their partner’s companionship. Women also spoke of this regret. But as most were from an older generation, many of the female patients had not been breadwinners. All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence.

By simplifying your lifestyle and making conscious choices along the way, it is possible to not need the income that you think you do. And by creating more space in your life, you become happier and more open to new opportunities….

3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.

Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others. As a result, they settled for a mediocre existence and never became who they were truly capable of becoming. Many developed illnesses relating to the bitterness and resentment they carried as a result.

…When you change the way you are by speaking honestly, in the end it raises the relationship to a whole new and healthier level. Either that or it releases the unhealthy relationship from your life. Either way, you win.

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

Often they would not truly realize the full benefits of old friends until their dying weeks and it was not always possible to track them down. Many had become so caught up in their own lives that they had let golden friendships slip... There were many deep regrets about not giving friendships the time and effort that they deserved. Everyone misses their friends when they are dying.

When you are faced with your approaching death, the physical details of life fall away…All that remains in the final weeks is love and relationships.

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

This is a surprisingly common one. Many did not realize until the end that happiness is a choice. They had stayed stuck in old patterns…Fear of change had them pretending to others, and to themselves, that they were content when deep within, they longed to laugh and have silliness in their life again.

When you are on your deathbed, what others think of you is a long way from your mind. How wonderful to be able to let go and smile again, long before you are dying."



There are many paths with one goal: Love
Let us go forward and make Love possible for all --xoj