closer

"That time
I thought I could not
go any closer to grief
without dying

I went closer,
and I did not die.
Surely God
had his hand in this,

as well as friends.
Still, I was bent,
and my laughter,
as the poet said,

was nowhere to be found.
Then said my friend Daniel,
(brave even among lions),
"It's not the weight you carry

but how you carry it -
books, bricks, grief -
it's all in the way
you embrace it, balance it, carry it

when you cannot, and would not,
put it down."
So I went practicing.
Have you noticed?

Have you heard
the laughter
that comes, now and again,
out of my startled mouth?

How I linger
to admire, admire, admire
the things of this world
that are kind, and maybe

also troubled -
roses in the wind,
the sea geese on the steep waves,
a love
to which there is no reply?"

- Mary Oliver

Rilke's wisdom for today

"we must hold to what is difficult"

and 

"try to love the questions themselves"

here's a question:

Where is the line between witness and participant? Is there a line? Boundaries, for me right now, are so blurred. I'm feeling either crazy or enlightened, and I don't know if I believe in enlightenment in the "ascension to a higher plane" sense. 

Well, I wanted cathartic and here I am. 

the whole wave of the world is crashing into me and I am saturated in unfallen tears for bearing witness to the immensity of beauty and pain, and beauty in pain, and pain in beauty of life. Of living. Of hardship in its reality. 

phew.

And then all I can think is

"damnit Alex, you are just way too serious all the time."

can I change?

can I hold a bridge with my life between levity and weighted reality?

can I walk between them freely, and without guilt?

can I do so in an age with so much chaos and suffering and pain?

is that my duty?

or shall I think of it as something less grave than a duty?

an honor? a joy?

 a joy to know the extremes of life and look across the chasm between with reverence? 

even that seems serious... 

phew...

conscience and

"What can your conscience live with? What can your soul live with?"

I can tell you that my conscience cannot live with the destruction being inflicted on this planet in the name of growth, profit, greed, ignorance, corporation, industry, convenience, civilization, or any other empty justification for ripping the lifeblood out of this planet, this being, our home, the earth. I can tell you that my soul is scarred with the same clear-cuts that the forests bear because I am of the forests, I am the forests. Chunks of my heart have been scraped out of my chest as the surface of the earth is scraped to death. It regrows, but it is tired, and my mind is tired, and my eyes are tired, and I am tired of trying to make change and being ignored, belittled, and laughed at for giving a shit. I am tired of hearing the constant engines of sanitation of landscapes deafening me of the peace and cohesion of wildness. I am tired of looking at the eyesores we create, of feeling the disjointed sprawl of urbanization disorient my feeling of belonging, of imagining every day the beings that are murdered and the species that are driven extinct. I am tired. My soul is tired of being beaten down, locked up, demonized and even criminalized for caring enough to fight for what I believe, for what I love, for what my soul knows is right. I am tired. But my conscience can't live with such atrocity. So I will fight.

boom

(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.

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