Like Lightning

Too long not chasing this bright pulse
Too long avoiding the rain
Ride this storm out
Ride it out
You and me
Connected in a flowing ever changing web
Of molecules and experiences
Coincidences that never stop
A deep unknowing
A vague understanding
We feel it out
We swim it through
Captivated by what we must do
We chase then hide
Curling up, sleeping it away
And suddenly we feel the kick start
Of our beating heart
And hope it isn’t too late
To seize this breathing wonder
Before all our fireflies drift away
Wondering if it’ll ever be okay
Wondering if it’ll all be alright
Wondering if I’m awake enough
To embrace the space
Between the earth and sky
And strike a little light in the world tonight.

Quiet Song

I want to live again without a screen
I want to write in a notebook
Instead of a phone
I want to curl up with a book
Not with social media
I want to look out a window
Not a screen
I want my attention steady, unfolding
Flowing and deep
Not flat, broken, and thin
As thin as this screen
I want my attention, my focus
As deep as the horizon
Nature, animals, flickering sunlight
The silence in the morning
A silence that makes you feel it
That makes you feel the distant fading hills
The silence that makes you hear it
How broadly life stretches beyond you
You feel part of it and then
Overwhelmed
With loneliness
Because it’s been so long and you feel so far removed
And you can never get close enough
And everything
The thoughts, people, stress, business, entertainment and distraction
It’s all gone
And all you have is this moment
That fills you up
And you love it so much
That you miss it
Because you know you can never have what you truly love
And you feel every ounce that you can feel
Is never enough
And you feel this constant yearning to return to truth and existing
A state of mind
A state of reverence
A state of awareness
That we are mostly blind to see
We see so little
Of the connecting strings between the masses of dots
Their impact on the whole, on the web of reality
Life, death, beauty, love, wind, light, water, seasons, trees, ancient traditions, temples
The weight of history
The pressure and pulse of the present
The pull and tug of the future
Constantly and subtly trying to shift its weight
Feeling life’s movement through time
A dance
But also a quiet song
That weeps with love
A lonely sweet kindness

Take Me

Take me to another place
Another moon, another dream
Another circle in space
Share your world with me
Take me on a journey
Show me different flavors
Of milk and honey
Let me hear a brand new song
One that paints the ceilings and lawns
I want to hear all your melodies
Not just the one on repeat
Or your top 40
I want to hear your story
The rollercoaster riding
Along your epic soundtrack
Your highs and lows
Dancing around the crack
The mesmerizing snowflakes
And puzzle pieces
The patterns that you recognize
The ones that only you can see
I want you to show me
The colors behind your eyes
The vibrations beneath your skin
The emotions you silently sing
Take me there
Show me everything

Seeing Happiness’ Reflection

People have the responsibility of harboring and nurturing their own emotions. One emotion that deserves special attention is happiness. Happiness is a delicate creature that longs for an extra effort from its caregiver.  Positive emotions are a lot gentler than negative emotions and don’t assert as much of a dramatic impression on us as the negative ones. It is a garden that isn’t hidden, but is often perceived to be hidden when it’s taken for granted. It’s hard to realize how happy we truly are until we are unable to dodge the bullets of life. There’s a seed of every kind of emotion inside of us. We just need to choose the right seeds to foster the gardens we hope to find. This fostering is what myths seem to do. They make people feel safe in the unexplainable and aware of the human experience.

Life finds meaning through its own fragility. People feel alone when they see everything that’s familiar and dear to them crumble beneath their feet. When speaking about the experience of a broken heart, Kimberly C. Patton says, “Even if a broken heart does not lie in your past or present, it awaits you in your future, some place, at some time when you will almost certainly be unprepared.” Suffering is inevitable; however, there is a certain value suffering brings to our lives. Every detail that is caught by the five senses has some bit of transcendent magic that we would never noticed if we were constantly “happy.” The world becomes more intimate and personal with you by reaffirming how important your relationship with it is. We see the wonder in what appears to be the normal routine of everyday life.  This experience of being reborn with new life only happens when we take a break from what is daily and mundane to us. It is understandable that the bittersweet disposition of the human condition feels unfair, but it’s the way nature works. Seeing the image of death in a more optimistic light, Reverend Betsee Parker explains, “Because that’s the nature of cycles on the earth. It’s not that death is occurring in the fields [but] that life is rejuvenating and revivifying.” Initially, we feel alone when a horrible event happens, but then we feel a certain comforting bond and connection we have never known before with everything and everyone around us. Nature, air, inanimate things seem to become alive and reflect a childlike joy. The idea that all types of existences are in this transitory dream together and that you are not alone sprouts from the recovering worldview.

People can try to embrace this feeling of rebirth through out their whole lives and revere it as the reason for suffering, though controlling emotions is almost impossible at times. The one thing, however, that humans can control most of the time is their minds. The mind has great power, which can serve as its weakness or its strength. If thoughts and our intellectual selves are able to be under control, then some sort of reassurance and comfort can be found. Reverend Betsee Parker says, “I believe that there is active forgetting which occurs out of necessity in an overly traumatized mind, and that the mind knows very well how to care for itself; it does whatever it has to do to preserve itself.” Religion and myths provide an intellectual steering wheel for the soul. It helps with the active forgetting and remembering and modulates emotions through narrative. Tragedy and suffering is a key element that inspires religion. It gives humanity answers, but it also can make people end up feeling disillusioned when they realize tragedy isn’t anything they could ever expect.

During the tragedy of 9/11, people doubted their faith. They lost love ones and felt abandoned by a higher power they thought could be depended on. They were angry at a God who created such a miserable world with merciless suffering and forget all the moments when they weren’t sad. It is natural to feel this way, but there is a point where one has to take initiative on his or her own healing process. When we are sad, all we want is to be happy again, but what we didn’t realize before is that the happiness we seek is found in our day to day lives. We realize our attachment to the things we grew to be at home with and when things change, we are lost. Though, without the changes we wouldn’t realize how much we actually cared and we wouldn’t know what happiness really means to us because of its translucency. No matter how happy and healthy we are through out the majority of our lives, we tend to overlook it with the overbearing feeling of sadness. The openness to shift perspectives can help our minds grow to unforeseen heights and to see that the spaces between our dark times, like the pauses in music, are what truly make up our purpose of existence.

Beautiful Days

Beautiful days will fade

They are temporary like everything else

Nobody can escape mortality

Don’t you see the reasons why you’re afraid?

of missing all that you know?

All the comfort you ever knew

You’re home in this world

It’s so familiar to you

If you have to leave, I hope you get a chance to say goodbye

to all the things that made you feel alive,

To all the things you never knew you loved so much

And to feel safe in the unexplainable

breathe in deep, open your eyes wide

and feel so lucky for all the things

that pass into your life

And if you don’t find a purpose or a place in this world

you can always be a friend

That’s all anyone needs,

except for a beautiful day

once in a while.

Within

Reaching to the sky
Distance running dry
Keep my fingers crossed
Let me get lost
I want to dive into the moon
I want to sing a heartfelt tune
Leave me to my imagination
Exploring the commotion
A searching in the night
Across the Earth in a plane trip flight
Moving in through the oceans
Letting go of the solutions
A novelty deeply felt
A richness that’s soon to melt
Driven by the awakening
Bare, alive
Free

Change is happening
Feeling it
Processing it
Moving through the world with it
Charged by it
Burned

A match has struck
Fire is lit
Yearning for the lesson
Learning from questioning
Endless, fast and rapid
It can happen
Anything is possible now
Courage to discover more
What this life is for
Feeling everything
Why nots spilling out the door
Heartshaped sprinkles
Tossed freely
Onto dreams, soft and creamy
Where is the beauty and mystery?
I’m driven like a bug to them
A secret desire to be burned by the light
An instinct destined to let something die
Stretching to other existences
Stretching my strength and trust
Stretching to discover myself through
The world I had to be burned to see
Chasing lives and experience

And the fire that’s within me

Beyond the Horizon

 
I want to feel
Close to existence
Outside me, outside cities
And suburbs and streets,
Outside humanity,
Something closer to the movement of the light,
The sun moving across the sky,
The sight of a view further than what I can see,
Something bigger,
Something deeper,
Something that opens my mind,
To see the world, the universe,
To see beyond the horizon
That keeps us tucked away,
Where we scurry around,
To and fro below,
Distant and distracted,
Hidden in the narrow,
Shadowed by the vast window
Above our small scope.
I want to feel what this life is for.
What is it that I share
With the sky and sun?
What does it feel like to live
Like a mountain?
To understand like a redwood?
To live in a nest of senses
Taking in more than
My mind could comprehend,
Forgetting everything below
In those hurried, crowded, clouded whispers
Below the window pane.
What does it mean to be part of it all
And to really feel it,
When I’m an ant caught in the dust
Learning how to open the world beyond the tunnel
To come up for air and see
Beyond the horizon