04.03.20
Well, you get a shock once in awhile. That sprain of induced rationality about yourself and the world around you. Characters are instantly revealed for those with eyes and the powers that be power on-power forward...as if Power itself has a finite capacity which it doles to those willing or forced to dance with It.
Having successfully wandered through many a Swiss hamlet this past year and had some of the best fresh air-n-food combos around, I returned to weigh the contrasts right at the onset of an epidemic of mass-hysteria which birthed itself like any virus would in the most forgiving of hot-spots, notably the sacred perimeter directly in front of the Television that dominates most homes both here and abroad.
Now was not the time to question Pastuer's Germ Theory models and weigh in on his death-bed confessions. Nor was it appropriate to question any of the esteemed sources of dominant information regardless of how many times they'd been caught red-handed lying to millions of humans at once.
Such is life. Such is the serf, who plugs in and automatically prostrates themselves (not out of humility, but out of plain conditioning instead). "How DARE you disagree with all of US!"
The economy tanked. People freaked. Governments with zero relevant experience pretended they understood contagion theory after running game-theory and oh, how the porn-sites crashed and how Netflix' stock soared and lo and behold, very little changed in terms of which demographic shared what at which level of relevance. "There Will be Fear."
So, I kept hiking. (Insert social-distancing joke). I like people one on one but in groups, unless adequately consumed with a productive focal point, they're often dangerous, conniving, and predictable. Trees: Now trees make sense in any number. Watching how animals go about their business without much to-do; I admire this instinctual level of operation. In times like these I wonder what good human consciousness and self-awareness has done us. Then I hear music. Then I wonder if I am that which "appreciates" and by this heart-rending, tear-jerking empathy with Creation itself, serving as a conduit-a resonating principle of sorts that says "Yes, I'm here even in the midst of this and thank you all the same."
I came over a small set of boulders the other day and chanced upon two enormous Elk. A male with a great bowed set of antlers and his lady-friend just standing together under the ponderosa. We caught each other's eyes and just watched each other for about five minutes without moving and then I left them to their lives and took off southward to avoid bothering them.
In the air creatures are soaring and ducking and playing and landing in an afternoon sun that glows across our plateau and turns the brittle grasses golden as they wave before a few snow-melt ponds, each teeming with new life that finds refuge and incubation and habitat wherever it can. Life continues in the first available place and happily moves on when the seasons beckon. There are no complaints. No grudges. No petitions. No desperate phone-calls to secure last-month's rent. No agendas. No lies. No questions. "We are here to be what we are." So, I appreciate that the same way I appreciate when a human speaks like a human without pretense, without inferring through assumptions.
Up there in the woods by the south side of the volcanic boulders with the breeze falling through the canyon next to a few cabins, I leave those human sentiments. I haven't really cared in a long time. Why now? I only wait for the Great Spirit to deem me worthy of the next challenge. These days it doesn't matter which form that takes. If I am to become anything, it's to become more like these animals...consistently in One Moment Called Life. Music will never betray what I meant. Neither will words. Neither will anything I've ever said or done transfer across broken bridges and severed lines and I suppose I prefer it that way, ultimately. You've got to have a large piece of The Real You in full operation in times like these. Note: It's always Times Like These.
I face the Sun and walk toward it now, let it fall on my face and jacket and warm my core and let my eyes focus low so the late Sun turns the protein strands in my eyelashes into myriad colors. One of those afternoons.
I don't have to write. I don't have to share; anything and everything waiting to be misinterpreted by who-knows-who when and wherever. When I got off the trail I couldn't share anything. Everything came in 3-minute digestible sound-bytes until people got distracted or interrupted. So many of the very best things in life belong to you and you alone. I know a musician who doesn't release his favorite songs. "Those aren't for other people. They're for me." What a concept...and here we are sharing ourselves to death. Sharing has its own viral nature doesn't it? Maybe I should just stop. Maybe my world belongs to me and two or three other people. I can't be you and you can't be me and that's the true beauty of it.
What if you held a secret so incredible, so personal and subjective that you wouldn't even dare risk lighting it in a way that might go misinterpreted? Then, we look at our own lives; incredible that they even happen...but the idea of apparating here to begin with only to wane by the degrees to which you take on those innumerable other definitions?
No, thank you.
Having successfully wandered through many a Swiss hamlet this past year and had some of the best fresh air-n-food combos around, I returned to weigh the contrasts right at the onset of an epidemic of mass-hysteria which birthed itself like any virus would in the most forgiving of hot-spots, notably the sacred perimeter directly in front of the Television that dominates most homes both here and abroad.
Now was not the time to question Pastuer's Germ Theory models and weigh in on his death-bed confessions. Nor was it appropriate to question any of the esteemed sources of dominant information regardless of how many times they'd been caught red-handed lying to millions of humans at once.
Such is life. Such is the serf, who plugs in and automatically prostrates themselves (not out of humility, but out of plain conditioning instead). "How DARE you disagree with all of US!"
The economy tanked. People freaked. Governments with zero relevant experience pretended they understood contagion theory after running game-theory and oh, how the porn-sites crashed and how Netflix' stock soared and lo and behold, very little changed in terms of which demographic shared what at which level of relevance. "There Will be Fear."
So, I kept hiking. (Insert social-distancing joke). I like people one on one but in groups, unless adequately consumed with a productive focal point, they're often dangerous, conniving, and predictable. Trees: Now trees make sense in any number. Watching how animals go about their business without much to-do; I admire this instinctual level of operation. In times like these I wonder what good human consciousness and self-awareness has done us. Then I hear music. Then I wonder if I am that which "appreciates" and by this heart-rending, tear-jerking empathy with Creation itself, serving as a conduit-a resonating principle of sorts that says "Yes, I'm here even in the midst of this and thank you all the same."
I came over a small set of boulders the other day and chanced upon two enormous Elk. A male with a great bowed set of antlers and his lady-friend just standing together under the ponderosa. We caught each other's eyes and just watched each other for about five minutes without moving and then I left them to their lives and took off southward to avoid bothering them.
In the air creatures are soaring and ducking and playing and landing in an afternoon sun that glows across our plateau and turns the brittle grasses golden as they wave before a few snow-melt ponds, each teeming with new life that finds refuge and incubation and habitat wherever it can. Life continues in the first available place and happily moves on when the seasons beckon. There are no complaints. No grudges. No petitions. No desperate phone-calls to secure last-month's rent. No agendas. No lies. No questions. "We are here to be what we are." So, I appreciate that the same way I appreciate when a human speaks like a human without pretense, without inferring through assumptions.
Up there in the woods by the south side of the volcanic boulders with the breeze falling through the canyon next to a few cabins, I leave those human sentiments. I haven't really cared in a long time. Why now? I only wait for the Great Spirit to deem me worthy of the next challenge. These days it doesn't matter which form that takes. If I am to become anything, it's to become more like these animals...consistently in One Moment Called Life. Music will never betray what I meant. Neither will words. Neither will anything I've ever said or done transfer across broken bridges and severed lines and I suppose I prefer it that way, ultimately. You've got to have a large piece of The Real You in full operation in times like these. Note: It's always Times Like These.
I face the Sun and walk toward it now, let it fall on my face and jacket and warm my core and let my eyes focus low so the late Sun turns the protein strands in my eyelashes into myriad colors. One of those afternoons.
I don't have to write. I don't have to share; anything and everything waiting to be misinterpreted by who-knows-who when and wherever. When I got off the trail I couldn't share anything. Everything came in 3-minute digestible sound-bytes until people got distracted or interrupted. So many of the very best things in life belong to you and you alone. I know a musician who doesn't release his favorite songs. "Those aren't for other people. They're for me." What a concept...and here we are sharing ourselves to death. Sharing has its own viral nature doesn't it? Maybe I should just stop. Maybe my world belongs to me and two or three other people. I can't be you and you can't be me and that's the true beauty of it.
What if you held a secret so incredible, so personal and subjective that you wouldn't even dare risk lighting it in a way that might go misinterpreted? Then, we look at our own lives; incredible that they even happen...but the idea of apparating here to begin with only to wane by the degrees to which you take on those innumerable other definitions?
No, thank you.
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