Summers last songbird

The lilting last phrases of the summer songbirds, are only an echo now in the depth of winter's graceless embrace. These cold nights, spent shivering in bed dreaming of the summer sun serve as the prelude to the eager blossoms of spring.
The buds bursting forth from the grey twigs, long held by the frigid hands of winter in her icy grasp. Sheltering here, amid these blankets....I know that there are places where the summer never ends, places of eternal springtime, and lands where winter never comes with her shadows and iceflows. I long for those places, with verdant fields full of mist in the early morning that the Sun will burn off by mid-morning, places with jewelled flowers in the early morning and vibrant yellows by midday.

If I pause, just for a moment, the echo of the songbird returns to my mind...that last robin bedding down for the winter.

The interior life.

Thoughts occupy so much of our lives. Whether they are of someone or something, we spend so much time on the interior life. What will we do about ______? I hope I didn't offend _______. Why did _______ say that to me? I hope that ________ really means what they are saying.
This dialogue with our inner selves is very important to us. It grounds us, it helps us make up our minds, it keeps us sane, and lends wisdom to our most menial of confrontations that we face in our living.

I've been in a real mess lately with my outer life, the interior life is good, but all of the events which surround that interior, well.....they've not been the best lately. But, everything in life has it's purpose. We may not see it, but each of us are part of some greater whole, each of us are connected to the 'Great Switchboard' for lack of a better description of it. Everyone on this planet is connected to the people who come into our lives by invisible threads. We may move through reality(the physical world) but those invisible threads are always there, whether they be mere thoughts or some high form of energy, they connect us to the people who matter in our lives every moment of our interior lives.

The generalized life

The human experience is at times a hard road. We face trials in our lives which make the rest of it worth the living, I guess it's true what they say that the 'sweet just ain't as sweet without the bitter,' something courtesy of Vanilla Sky. And, even though there's some grain of truth to that, it's still a hard row to hoe sometimes. We struggle with material, situations, and our own petty fears and desires. There has to be more beyond this veil, our consciousness has to be capable of transcending the day to day. But how? Are we supposed to work and reach our 'enlightened states' in our 'off hours'? Surely there's more to this humdrum existence then, find a career, find a mate, settle down, reproduce, have a few years of 'how was your day, mine was okay, how was yours?'
I'm a happy fella, but yeah..just like everyone else...I do get in those blue moods. Stifled creativity, boredom, stagnation...something needs to be shook up, and I think it's me.

The Growing

Another days passage has faded to memory
These sullen moments find us....wanting more of living...more of the hours of joyousness....and triumphs life offers...but we end only in solitary sleep...

I spent much of the day with my son. Whether I was watching him in his first basketball game and observing his wild unfocused energy, or I was taking him into the woods with me to see his destructiveness of appreciation for nature....I find that the waking life has it's merits most when it's shared. The solitary world is nice, for the comforts it offers you, the hours spent reading, listening to music, writing, walking....whatever it may be which moves you. But, the moments of shared experience is what we crave as humankind. The human animal is a social animal. Perhaps, not so much as some animals...but there is a high degree of socialization which we require for our survival in this life.

In witnessing early attempts at socialization..in some ways it's on it most basic levels...baser communication, brutality, affection, and mutual identification. I watched my son today with his teammates, and I find him to be unfocused. Perhaps it is the age (he's only 5) or perhaps it is another element which is lacking from his world. The unity of a home where mother and father are united in daily communication, presenting a solid foundational form of interpretation for the world around him, scripts from which to act out his desires from, and the discipline for response to stimulus. The other children, some of them flowed with grace through the play, seemingly more knowledgeable then my own child, seeming to see more the outcome of their actions, and the necessity for what they should do. While, my son was ever-present, though unfocused.

Where does this 'focus' in our lives come from? It follows us throughout living, and we find it in different areas of our living. Some of us are focused on ideas, while others are focused on objects, acts, or some other esoteric concepts.

Patterns

I took this today on another visit to the John Muir Trail which runs alongside the Hiwassee River here in Tennessee. The main reason it jumped out at me was the pattern which seems to exist in it. I've been in a constant search for understanding of the whats, whys, and hows of the natural world for many years. I'm not anywhere near the understanding of it, but its always a joy to see some glimmer of something which makes some sense. I dont think it's a perfect pattern by any means, but there's definitely some pattern at work here, it's not just in plantlife which there's pattern...but the most basic blocks of life have pattern in them.

Everything seems to have reason, everything seems to have rhyme.

I'm guilty too

Dreaming again of those far away places shrouded in mists, high above the treeline where there's nothing but the wind and rocks of the mountain tops.
It's a vision that I've had for a long time, just to escape into the wilderness and live like a wildman. Closer to the earth and the elements, not depending on anyone but myself for sustenance, only taking that from the earth that I had to to survive. But, it's pretty much just one of those dreams we toy with in this era. Something we escape to for a few days or maybe a weeks worth of hiking, but to live that way now? You'll be branded as a nutjob, or a psycho! Why do you want to give up all this modern convenience? Why do you want to eschew television, Big Macs, Craft-Matic Adjustable beds, Cheetos, Saltine Crackers, and sliced bread to go live in a tent and eat berries and fish?
The modern world is nice, but it's soulless. Sure, there's a lot of caring people in the world who love each other and reach out to one another, but how far below the surface does all that go? Last night I watched a program on Nightline about the aid that is pledged in the wake of a natural disaster as well as the coverage that those disasters receive. I was a bit saddened to hear that some of the aid which is 'pledged' to be sent by nations and leaders, doesn't actually make it after all. It's just a superficial thing, for the newsmedia by some of the world leaders. The same with the coverage of disasters by the media, after so much of it the public becomes desensitized to it. They turn the channels and tune out any further mention of human suffering in the world, until the next time. I think that if people could just live closer to the earth, develop more of a harmony with the world around them then all of the superficiality which is a result of the ball and chain of television in our day to day lives would vanish.

Where I'd rather be 

So many times in life...

It's so often that we think to ourselves...I wish I were somewhere else. We've created bumperstickers to commemorate this idea....'I'd rather be fishing, hiking, reading, having sex...etc etc etc ad infinitum. But what are we really saying to ourselves and the world around us when we say, I'd rather be somewhere else?
Is the present moment such a burden that we want to leave it to be somewhere else? Is the state of our lives such a hassle that we dream of these other places? Life's a journey, we have to get through the present to get to the future. So, there's really no point in wishing you were anywhere other then where you are right now, the future will take you where you are supposed to go......whether you like it or not.

I've spent a lot of time wishing that I were in other places...whether it was above or below the equator. Whether it was 20 years earlier or 20 year into the future. We can wish for many things....but it's all for naught when you really get down to brass tacks. You live in the present moment, you'll die in the present moment, you might as well enjoy that moment. So just try your best to be happy in that moment...it's really all I have to say for now.