(from journal)
No.
No I don't want industrial civilization
the price is too high.
No. I don't want this. Why has this been happening my whole life?
My heart is broken.
How do I keep a broken heart open?
How do I be a witness to devastation
and hold hope in my heart?
How do I move with grace when there is so much to do and say--so much hidden from view?
And I don't have the words.
And we are saturated by images.
BOOM!
explosion. Boston.
BOOM!
explosion. Syria.
BOOM!
explosion
every
day
Afganistan
Pakistan
Palestine
Texas
[Japan]
I just remembered this dream I had, senior year of high school. I was an atomic bomb and I blew up the high school.
I was a bomb.
I was a bomb.
I kept having those dreams.
I was an arsonist.
terrorist.
I was a bomb.
I was so angry.
I am so angry. I am so sad.
My heart is so broken.
I am not broken.
Do I have more empathy for other animals than I do humans? I have so much anger at humanity for harming other life with selfish motives. Entitlement. Consumption.
What is terrorism?
Obama says it is a deliberate attack on innocent civilians. Our president is a terrorist. So was our last one, and many (all?) before that. We are all a part of it anyway.
Can animals be civilians? In any case, I think Mr. President's definition is too small.
Terrorism: behavior that knowingly causes terror in the hearts, minds, or souls of any being.
Deforestation. War. "Inevitable" industrial disasters like the plant explosions and the oils spills.
These are terrorism.
I am terrified.
I am living in this time. 13 oil spills in 30 days.
2 explosions (just in the US) in 2 days.
Animals, plants, landforms, atmosphere, being desecrated, destroyed, harmed every day. Out of greed.
If we are truly creative, intelligent, empathetic creatures, how do we accept this as the status quo? How have we not envisioned and created an alternative? What are we not further on the way to that reality? Why is that not our number-one focus?
Why did I read 300 racist, sexist, mean-spirited comments and posts online today? How is it that this is how people are spending their time?
All this destruction is happening upon our hearts.
I feel sorrowful.
I feel grief.
----------------
I feel anger.
I feel
like exploding
sometimes
like some people
do.
I know my anger is a gift,
and my sorrow.
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
sun and rain
(from journal)
I stood in the sun and watched the deep grey clouds approach
the wind rushed through that stand of trees but not this one
I love the currents of motion that we can only see by hearing and can only hear by how it moves
another.
The sound of waves washing through the branches
And then the misty rains come with crisp air
filling me with the sacred connection of life, breath, air, water,
earth fills every crack of skin on my hands.
A rush of wave through my body as the sun slips
behind the deep grey--the color of comfortable sadness.
It holds me.
Straddling light and dark. Juxtaposition.
This is where the beauty of this world lies.
This is where I find the deepest love
and truth
and love.
I held in my hand, today,
a baby snake,
the size of a large worm.
I found him coiled up sweetly under a bed of pine needles.
I thought, at first, it was a millipede or some bug, or even a worm.
But as I picked it up it uncoiled and coiled again
and slithered across my hand. A snake.
He looked at my thumb as though he was looking in my eyes, with curious fear
or hope.
I didn't hold him long--this tiny beautiful
black-grey and yellow-orange snake.
I never knew a snake so small could exist.
His perfection, beauty, loneliness and contentment
almost brought me to tears.
And then the rain.
I love this dear world.
I stood in the sun and watched the deep grey clouds approach
the wind rushed through that stand of trees but not this one
I love the currents of motion that we can only see by hearing and can only hear by how it moves
another.
The sound of waves washing through the branches
And then the misty rains come with crisp air
filling me with the sacred connection of life, breath, air, water,
earth fills every crack of skin on my hands.
A rush of wave through my body as the sun slips
behind the deep grey--the color of comfortable sadness.
It holds me.
Straddling light and dark. Juxtaposition.
This is where the beauty of this world lies.
This is where I find the deepest love
and truth
and love.
I held in my hand, today,
a baby snake,
the size of a large worm.
I found him coiled up sweetly under a bed of pine needles.
I thought, at first, it was a millipede or some bug, or even a worm.
But as I picked it up it uncoiled and coiled again
and slithered across my hand. A snake.
He looked at my thumb as though he was looking in my eyes, with curious fear
or hope.
I didn't hold him long--this tiny beautiful
black-grey and yellow-orange snake.
I never knew a snake so small could exist.
His perfection, beauty, loneliness and contentment
almost brought me to tears.
And then the rain.
I love this dear world.
Monday, April 15, 2013
both
(from journal)
I don't want to be ignorant. I want to fill the world with truth.
I don't want to be cynical. I want to fill the world with love.
I don't want to be ignorant. I want to fill the world with truth.
I don't want to be cynical. I want to fill the world with love.
Sunday, April 7, 2013
Finding Beauty in a Broken World [Each Day]
(from journal)
The past few days I am practically brought to tears by nearly every living creature I encounter--a miniature dragon insect on Cam's ceiling; a buzzing fly who I release into the outdoors; my cat in my arms like a baby (and there is sadness there, as he is confined from wildness); the beautiful blond child at the PDC workdays; the tiny bird with hummingbird wings at the window feeder the Stellar's jay at the top of the tree at the corner of Cam's window, swaying in the strong winds and rains of the long, hard afternoon (a grounding, a guardian); a baby squirrel at the window, eating the seeds fallen on the ground; the bees in the movie tonight who I now feel such reverence for; the crows circling, diving, riding the winds; the frogs chirping in the pond out back this night, as I walk around the house. The thought of the creatures pulls at my heart--just the thought of my shared existence with them at this time in life, in time--just the thought of my communion with them as inhabitants of this world. Do they hold me in any such reverence? Do they hold me?
Flashes:
wanting...longing to be a small, soft animal that someone holds and loves so sweetly; that is not so impacted by gravity; that does not feel so much weight from the world.
a picture of a child sleeping against a wild mountain ox of some sort, resting together in the harmony of an alpine world; relaxing into their shared existence and the privilege of each other's company.
This softness and pure love and co-compassion contrasted with something like industrialized animal farming is enough to break my heart many times over each day. The violence and force inflicted upon beings with heart and soul practically destroys me. I feel the pain of it inside me. I feel it. I feel the clear-cutting of life on my heart. Barren patches where joy, vitality, and complexity have been stripped.
I want them back.
Each loss is another gash and I am spilling blood and love all over every day.
I am not hopeless, nor defeated. I am not destroyed.
I am alive. Preparing. Ready.
I am built for this time, for this world.
I can find the beauty and piece it back together into something new.
I feel the collapse in my chest. I feel the pain. I feel the harshness and the suppression. I live it. It is part of my world. I will stand in it and in another. I will marry them until beauty overcomes. Beauty is always present. I don't know if I believe that. The possibility for beauty... finding beauty... no... yes...
healing.
Well, it exists in the pain. Isn't that my duty as an artist (well, a writer)? To find that beauty? Find the beauty in the broken world. In these creatures whom persist in the world even as it crumbles, or whom hold together the world my species is attempting to erode? I have such reverence and love. It fills me to the brim and I burst. The pain and love become one, and they fill me, and I burst with the anguish of loving something more than can ever be expressed.
"Finding beauty in a broken world is creating beauty in the world we find." --Terry Tempest Williams
Yes, but I don't even need to create it. It is there, in the eyes, wings, and wonder of all creatures, all beings. I only must bear reverence and love for them and all the burdens that follow with such love. And yes, I will try to create beauty from the filth of hatred, and try to understand how hatred can breed such awfulness when it is so clearly driven by desire, and love. I will try to direct my own desire, my own love into creation and not deterioration.
Yes:
I love a broken world
a whole broken world
a whole world broken
a world whole in its brokenness
but perhaps I can only see that because as a person with a poetic heart, that is what I want to see. But I think I can also feel it. As I explore this pain, I at least feel a fullness which is a golden thread of hope that connects me to a deep [and distant?] faith. And in that...
"Finding beauty in a broken world becomes more than the art of assemblage. It is the work of daring contemplation that inspires action." --TTW
The past few days I am practically brought to tears by nearly every living creature I encounter--a miniature dragon insect on Cam's ceiling; a buzzing fly who I release into the outdoors; my cat in my arms like a baby (and there is sadness there, as he is confined from wildness); the beautiful blond child at the PDC workdays; the tiny bird with hummingbird wings at the window feeder the Stellar's jay at the top of the tree at the corner of Cam's window, swaying in the strong winds and rains of the long, hard afternoon (a grounding, a guardian); a baby squirrel at the window, eating the seeds fallen on the ground; the bees in the movie tonight who I now feel such reverence for; the crows circling, diving, riding the winds; the frogs chirping in the pond out back this night, as I walk around the house. The thought of the creatures pulls at my heart--just the thought of my shared existence with them at this time in life, in time--just the thought of my communion with them as inhabitants of this world. Do they hold me in any such reverence? Do they hold me?
Flashes:
wanting...longing to be a small, soft animal that someone holds and loves so sweetly; that is not so impacted by gravity; that does not feel so much weight from the world.
a picture of a child sleeping against a wild mountain ox of some sort, resting together in the harmony of an alpine world; relaxing into their shared existence and the privilege of each other's company.
This softness and pure love and co-compassion contrasted with something like industrialized animal farming is enough to break my heart many times over each day. The violence and force inflicted upon beings with heart and soul practically destroys me. I feel the pain of it inside me. I feel it. I feel the clear-cutting of life on my heart. Barren patches where joy, vitality, and complexity have been stripped.
I want them back.
Each loss is another gash and I am spilling blood and love all over every day.
I am not hopeless, nor defeated. I am not destroyed.
I am alive. Preparing. Ready.
I am built for this time, for this world.
I can find the beauty and piece it back together into something new.
I feel the collapse in my chest. I feel the pain. I feel the harshness and the suppression. I live it. It is part of my world. I will stand in it and in another. I will marry them until beauty overcomes. Beauty is always present. I don't know if I believe that. The possibility for beauty... finding beauty... no... yes...
healing.
Well, it exists in the pain. Isn't that my duty as an artist (well, a writer)? To find that beauty? Find the beauty in the broken world. In these creatures whom persist in the world even as it crumbles, or whom hold together the world my species is attempting to erode? I have such reverence and love. It fills me to the brim and I burst. The pain and love become one, and they fill me, and I burst with the anguish of loving something more than can ever be expressed.
"Finding beauty in a broken world is creating beauty in the world we find." --Terry Tempest Williams
Yes, but I don't even need to create it. It is there, in the eyes, wings, and wonder of all creatures, all beings. I only must bear reverence and love for them and all the burdens that follow with such love. And yes, I will try to create beauty from the filth of hatred, and try to understand how hatred can breed such awfulness when it is so clearly driven by desire, and love. I will try to direct my own desire, my own love into creation and not deterioration.
Yes:
I love a broken world
a whole broken world
a whole world broken
a world whole in its brokenness
but perhaps I can only see that because as a person with a poetic heart, that is what I want to see. But I think I can also feel it. As I explore this pain, I at least feel a fullness which is a golden thread of hope that connects me to a deep [and distant?] faith. And in that...
"Finding beauty in a broken world becomes more than the art of assemblage. It is the work of daring contemplation that inspires action." --TTW
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