communing

Dome of
Ocean waves overhead
(Swimming through
Layer and layer of
Fluffy whispy cottony poufs
And a ceiling of
A giant's quilted
Quicker picker upper.
Blue all around
Interrupted only by
Golden rays
Reaching to us,
No barriers to distract
To detract
From the radiant warmth.
Enticing cloud ceiling
Becoming a carpet of
Sand dunes,
Rippling against us
With the direction of wind.
Flying through to the sun,
Past time
Ever onward,
Quickly
Into the future)
And we wave back.

turn, turn, turn

Today's white sky seems to lessen the contrast
Between the naked trees and
(The oranges and yellows still clinging to branches, and
The orangey-browns and yellow-y browns that
Gave into the wind and now
Suffer the consequences, and rest on)
The fading vibrancy of green grass.

Without obvious sunlight,
The entire spectrum of the outside world
Fades into shades of browns and whites,
And with the pale backdrop of sky presiding over all,
It feels more like winter than it has yet this season.
Single rays of golden light
Poke through the packed ceiling,
And for a few moments,
The orange leaves regain a bit of their glory, and the
Bare trees seem to stand a little taller in a regal way.
But without that sun,
The feeling changes.
Hibernation mode sets in, and
I want to wrap myself in some warm fabric while
Pouring a gentle stream of steaming hot
Elixir
Through my body,
Bringing color into my lips and cheeks,
And pushing the black and white into the farthest
Depths of my mind.

what is it about age?

In just a few weeks, that once-a-year day will pop on the calendar to remind me that another 365 day cycle has passed and that I should now identify as being of a different age. My intellectual brain registers this fact just fine, but the rest of me, not afraid of growing older, has a difficult time categorizing myself in a different age bracket. Why is it that when I'm sitting at a dinner table, having a great conversation with a man twice my age, feeling like the two of us are meeting on common ground and discussing pertinent subjects to us both (us both belonging to the same adult world thoughts of jobs and money and housing), why is it that I look across the table at the fifteen-year-old across the way and feel as though he's my peer? I feel like I'm an ageless soul residing in some body that still feels like a teenager body. I feel like i'm seen as a teenager (though I'm not), and I feel like I act like a teenager (though I don't). So I'm sitting there, looking out of eye sockets in an unfamiliar body, feeling not like people aren't seeing me or understanding me...feeling not like I'm screaming and no one is listening...just feeling strange. It's strange to be human. Now it strikes me that perhaps I was experiencing a reminder that we are spirits having a human experience in this lifetime, though not in a bad way. It's interesting, for sure, and certainly gave me reason to pause...

Actually, maybe this is more of the case that I don't want to grow up; I don't want to have to identify with the "adult world." Oh god, I don't want to be one of those old, old people who still think they're hip teenagers! Well, not that I've ever in my life considered myself "hip" or "a teenager," but still... Yikes.

then again...

When journalling, I tend to feel as though everything I write must be monumental, even if only in the earthy, poetic sense, and I want this to be a forum for thought -- random, ridiculous thoughts, included. The sky is always listening to the big and the small, and here's some of the small:

So I recently developed a liking for coffee. After years of detesting the bitter brown watery mess, I realized that, like wine, dark chocolate, beer, cheese, and a number of other foods and drinks, there are certain ingestibles that take a while to like, and only once you've tried enough of them to realize what you like and what you don't like do you begin to understand the subtlety of flavor, the depth of expression that tiny sips and bites of such things can contain.

Coffee is my most recent undertaking. I decided that I actually like coffee if it's GOOD coffee, and by "good," I mean that I don't need to add all sorts of sugar and cream to make it drinkable. I also decided that to truly appreciate coffee, I need to understand it by being able to make it. After grossness dripped down from my coffee pot during my first 5 tries, I invested in a french press, read as much as I could online about how others used french presses, bought some coffee beans, and had a go. And what happened? An entire world of difference happened, that's for sure. My first cup, which was thick -- I hadn't yet mastered the coffee grounds to water ratio -- and had bits of bean towards the bottom of the cup, actually had FLAVOR! Flavor that had a surprising amount of depth and texture! amazing. Since then, I've been playing with water temperature, amount of coffee, amount of water, steeping time, etc. and I just wanted to write to say that I just made a cup of coffee that I'm really proud of. fresh grounds in the bottom of the press, about a teaspoon of brown sugar (could have done without this) and a half teaspoon of cocoa. Now that was some good stuff.

I love drinking this because I can't drink it fast. Implied in the taste and warmth of coffee is the way that it makes me take a sip at a time, letting it slide down my throat, down down down 'till I can feel it in my belly. It helps me to slow down, to breathe. Amazing how food and drink can work such magic.

Maybe this blog will turn into an epic ode to that which nourishes my body, mind, and soul.



mmm

take me apart

These days,
the autumn sky is a
particular kind of
bright blue against
flaming oranges and yellows
of the setting sun trees,
and it reaches forever,
illimitably upwards,
beyond the scope of my
imagination until I wonder
if actually this ceiling
was painted by an ethereal
michaelangelo once upon a time, and
like the leaves whose lives end
in a glorious burst of color,
perhaps the sky
too becomes
more brilliant
with each passing, dying day.
"There's always the sky,"
sings Dar in my ear, "let it hear what you're saying --
for all that you are saying."
Yes, indeed.
How many times
have i turned
to no one in particular
to express an
ineffable something,
only to discover
that the sky was actually listening,
glistening in whatever
hazy blue, cloudy white, graying storm, diamond-studded, blackish blue, magnificent depth mood it was in
in that particular season
at that particular time?
And how many times
have I stretched my neck
upward and backward
to breathe it all in
and, unconsciously, taken
a life-breath that has
restored my confidence in myself, the world, and all of life?

There's always the sky,
and I want to
let it hear
what I'm saying,
for all that I'm saying.

So here I go.
Tune in for the
sporatic random ramblings
of
a not-quite-poet,
not-quite-writer,
not-quite-dreamer,
not-quite-philosopher,
lover of the world,
who aspires to be
everything and nothing,
and wants to let it show.