Thanksgiving

Its good to be thankful, it keeps things in perspective. Truth be told I love Thanksgiving. Yet somehow I always end up thinking about what some people say about Thanksgiving: A day celebrating the colonist's imperialistic conquering of the helpless natives of the Americas. What a depressing way of looking at things, and I don't think it has any relevance on the holiday. Every year building up to this time, I hear it again and think... How sad. I don't know how much about the first holiday is just Americana Folklore, and how much of it really happened, but I like to think that the first Thanksgiving was a happy day. There is no one denying that we did some fairly nefarious things to the Native American, but that wouldn't be for some time. I like to think there really was this wonderful sitting down of two peoples to enjoy the bounty of the lands. Does it really matter? No one really could say what happened all those years ago. I'm sure its been romanticized, no question there. But its strange that on the one day we have set aside to actively be thankful, some people choose to focus on some of the darker pages in history. I don't even think I am an optimist. But I would rather think about happy things when I have a choice, and I think we all get that choice every day.
We can be happy and thankful, without feeling guilty. Is that where this comes from? Are people just feeling guilty because we really do have so much? But when I stop and think about all the things that have really made me happy, and that I am thankful for, none of them are material. I think about love and kindness. I think about friends and family. I think about the simple joys of life. These are all things that are limitless, and me having them does not mean someone is missing them.
I just want to feel happy, I think we all do. Yet I am surrounded by things that say I shouldn't be. I think of the institutions that are built on guilt and despair. Some, it could be argued, do some good. Some, I would argue, do some bad. Its almost to easy to take shots at the church, well here goes anyway. The first step spreading most religion is first spreading the idea that you need saving/fixing. That at some fundamental level, there is something wrong with you. The second step is "But its okay, because we can fix that." It would make me very happy to see a religion or church that started with the idea that everything really is great, and if you don't feel that way, we can help you see that. I think I would go to that church when I was feeling down... And I gave up on church long ago. Relief charities are the next thing to come to mind. You have to guilt people into giving, and helping those who need it most. You start by showing sad and dieing people, then you ask for a credit card number. Some charities do great things for the betterment of mankind. Its just where the focus is that bothers me. Why can't we start by showing how happy people are when relief does arrive? Show people being helped, healed and fed, then ask for a credit card number. I would give to that charity, and I would feel better about it too.

Jump

There is a place I know, where a sheer drop descends into white mist. Mist so pure, so fair it hurts the eyes. It dances and twists on currents of air. Shapes build silently into phantom silhouettes. They dance and coil endlessly, elusive. What secrets are obscured at the bottom? Does it go on and on forever and ever? Is there an end?
I've sat long at the top, musing and gazing, watching the boiling fog. Absorbed and rapt by its magnificence, I longing to embrace the winds. Countless times I have approached that razors edge, and closed my eyes. I imagined I was falling, as the wind whipped up over the lip and around me. I would breath in the breeze and smile. Yet, my feet still on solid ground. A half effort. Its cold and barren atop my cliff. I refuse the chill. The time has come.
Again I draw near the edge, again I take my place on the brink. I close my eyes, and turn away. I plant my feet just over the edge and wait. I wait for a gust, a breath. Its so easy. I can feel it welling up in me, and around me. I reach out and draw the gust close, I embrace the winds. Its such a simple thing, just lean back and push. Like I phantom's murmur I am away from my perch. The gust becomes a gale, the breeze a tempest. I can feel it clawing at me, tearing through me. All of my fear is ripped away before the storm. All of my brooding drops away like so many stones, to heavy to be born on the winds. I am left to tumble like a feather, unchained and unhindered.
I fall and fall, but I am at peace. Will you catch me?

Mirror world

There is a mirror world. Its coherence with this world shifts and changes with the wind. Sometimes its out of focus, and nothing more then a dancing ghost of the surface world. On some chill and serene nights however, it becomes almost like a plane of glass. It is never still, it is always changing, it is a thing alive. Its never a perfect reflection of the surface world, and I am grateful that its so.

It is the inherent difference from the surface world that makes it special. Light become brilliant and vague, at the same time. Bands of it dance far and wide from the source. Shadow becomes a void, strips of nothingness. Objects shimmer and distort, only to return then do it again. And it is this very property that makes it magical. Why is the mirror world more beautiful then the surface world it reflects? It is very much the same, and yet just slightly different. Different enough, maybe to remind me to actually look and see. To not simply let my eye pass over things, and see what it expected to see, but to really look. Because it is the first time and the last time and the only time I will see that part of the world just that way. Because the winds will take it, and change it, and it will be gone forever. And the next time I look it will be new again.

And when I fly out onto the mirror world, riding my own reflection like a magic carpet, I am lost to the dance. I become part of it, my passing disturbs the world, and changes it. And I can go to far off places, and look down at the stars shining up at me. All it takes is a change of perspective and I see them again. Really see them. What if we could learn to see the surface world like this? Every day, every moment, really seeing things for the first time?

The Hidden Ra

Its strange how different things are in this day and age. There are fundamental assumptions we make everyday about the world around us, and beyond, which were completely hidden from the ancients. In no great way do these effect our lives on their own. But in mass, as the giant of modern knowledge, I think they alter our perspectives. Everyone hides from the cold specter of great understanding.
The reality is overwhelming. It is too large, too huge, and way too shocking for out minds to encapsulate, analyze and label. So we just don’t see it most of the time. But now and again I try to really understand our place in the universe… I try and I fail. It basically can not be truly understood, but sometimes I feel like I get closer to the truth. Not much closer, maybe a step or two in a journey that would take a lifetime and beyond.
It’s a humbling step. I think about how small I feel compared to the world, and how small the world feels compared to the solar system, and how small the solar system is compared with endless space. I think of galaxies and try not to see them as a picture on a wall, or a pretty poster, but as what they truly are. I feel so incredibly small.
How much easier it is to think the way we used to. To think of stars as gods dancing across the heavens, looking down on us. To think of stars as a thousand frozen dreams, forever winking quiet warmth. To think of stars as a shell of lights just out of reach, marking the end of all creation. To think of stars as a road of souls, slowly making their way to the underworld and everlasting peace. We now know all these things to be far fetched at best, but they are so much more effortless to understand then the truth. And every fiction is so much more reassuring and comforting then the monumentally uncaring reality.
…How untrue are these thoughts really? Everything I know about stars fits just fine into a standard definition of God. Stars are so large and powerful that they are beyond our thoughts. In the unfathomable and hellish nightmare of that power, the heavy elements were created out of simple hydrogen and helium. There was once a star who worked for billions and billions of years to create us. Such time as has not passed sense the formation of the world. And then when it was done, and the building blocks were ready, it burst and sent its work unto creation. Sacrificing its self for its creation. All that was floated for billions of years more. Slowly fitting its self back together… And from the ashes of that sacrifice, the ground we stand on was created. And from that sacrifice was born a new sun. The son of the creator of all things.
And that sun works now, every day it churns and shines, granting us life. It is the fuel of nearly all living things. We rely on it for everything. And it is also creating too, the work of creation is never finished. One day, many, many years from now, the son will join the father in a monumental Armageddon, and another great sacrifice. And the world will be consumed and remade, its fragments mixed with the elements being forged this very second. And in time beyond time, the worlds will reformed.
It all reminds me of a big black book I read once...

Stars and Insecurities

When the night is at its darkest, stars blaze all the brighter. When I sit outside and watch stars take the sky, I can just see them consuming the blue. Taking the light into themselves, a swirling vortex of hope. A promise of light, a promise of life. In this way, the daylight is always with us. It’s a gentle reminder that all will be well. Do stars fight over the light? Do they struggle to take as much as they can hold, do they yearn to shine the brightest? I know that some are stronger then others, some shine more brilliantly. Some stars try and burst with light, begging to be seen. Some starts try and consume every drop of blue, and keep it for them selves. But now and then, I see one that is just quietly radiant. I know of a star that sits low on the horizon, that twinkles slowly and softly. And every night, the sun sets right behind it. Its filled with the golden rays of sunset, and quietly dominates the night. Sometimes, it’s the only star I can see.

When its soft golden rays fill the sky, and even the moon dims and bows, the cold seems to melts away. The night no longer feels so dark. Yet even as I am comforted, I worry about the morning. Will it steal away my star? When the suns harsh grip takes back what’s his, and he hides away the magic of the night, will it still be there? At dusk I watch for it, as the sun relinquishes majesty. Waiting for its return. When the last rays of the sun crest the horizon, I hold my breath and wait. The world stands still..

..My heart stops with it..

..And a moment stretches into an eternity..

And then all of a sudden its there, bursting with a warm glow. And everything snaps back to normal, and reality comes crashing in around me. The wind touches the leaves in the trees, and the waters ripples continue their slow plod. The world is a magical place again. And already, I think of the morning light.

On Greatness

The world was once a mysterious place. There was a time, not that long ago, where legends walked the earth. A time where magic happened every day, just out of sight. When it was thought that the Holy Grail was real, a hidden and guarded secret. All one had to do was look hard enough and you could find immortality. At least as a legend in your own right. The man who did such a great deed would forever be remembered in song and story. Can you imagine such a world? Think of the people who set out to find such things, to explore unknown places, to find greatness. But the sad truth is most never found much, never achieved glory. What does it say about humanity? It comforts me to think about people braving imposable odds on not but a wish, a dream. People who set out into the blackest part of the map, faced real peril, for a chance at something greater. People who risked all, and lost, for nothing but hope… And then others followed in their footsteps, knowing the dangers, risking all again.

How small my gambles appear, how diminutive my dangers, how insignificant my troubles. All I risk is pain, how does that compare to life? All I could lose is dreams, and if I lose, my old life still awaits me. How easy life feels all of a sudden. And what do I hope for? The same things as the great ones who have passed before me. I dream of love and serenity, peace and joy, freedom and fulfillment. These are common dreams to humanity, and I dream them nightly. I think of the pioneers who settled the west. How they burned their bridges when they choose to trust in hope. I think how they wagered all for the same things as I, for hope. And there was no going back for them… Do or die.

Even the great treasure seekers were not so different. Because, you see, I don’t think they really wished for glory, fame and riches. These are not dreams in their own right, they are just one outer shell of true happiness. One of many. These are concepts that overlay a basic ideal: an easy life, a fulfilled life. But something does feel different now…

Has the modern world changed something fundamental inside us all? I wish I could say that it hasn’t, but I am starting to wonder… Have we lost touch with hope? There are still great doers, great dreamers, but has the average man lost something? I can think back to so many times where I lost because I never played. And why? Because I wouldn’t ante up. You still have to wager to win… that hasn’t changed, and I hope it never will. But how I greave for what could have been, if fear hand not paralyzed my actions. Is our attachment to the current state of affairs far greater now then our aspirations for what could be? For what will be? Are we existing from day to day, amassing and acquiring, our greatest hope simply not to lose what we already have?

There was a time when I lived this way, not that long ago. But how ineffectual… All structures are unstable, all forms dissolve and change. Chaos rules the world, but that’s not a cynical thing to say. Order is an illusion in our minds, its just a mental concept we attach to things. How strange it is to fight disorder. Its not a fight you can ever win, because it’s a fight with your own perceptions. Its amazing how I would rather cling to a supposed sure thing then risk greatness. Only because of a questionable outcome, will the new state of being be worse then the current one? Maybe… But how did I let that be the end of the conversation? How could I not ask myself, will the new state of being be better then the current one? How could I not let that be the balance for every silly anxiety that had me?

Things are different now. I wish I could say “no fear anymore”… But that would be a lie. Its easy to see these things and know these things, but in the moment of truth… do I still listen to that old voice? Its so seductive, so safe and easy simply to give in. Its been said that bravery is doing something even if your afraid. To disregard that twinge inside and push forward. People of old did it, in the face of great hardship. Surly they were afraid. How could I fail to do the same? And in the face of so little opposition. I’m almost ashamed of my past... But its not the end of the story. I can strive to better myself. Strive for greatness.

Sunset Noon

Somewhere, a war as ancient as mankind is underway. Its another skirmish in the endless battle of man verses nature. The troops are assembled, and weapons brought to bare. For you see, somewhere California is burning. The scar from this primeval battlefield rises up to the heavens and blots out the sun. It came drifting over the hills, from miles and miles away, driven by a cold and hungry wind. Smoke and ash falls from the sky like a great perversion of rain, speaking of only death. Sunset at noon. Its so disorienting. The shadows are short and tucked, the midday's heat still beats down from the obscured sun. But the colors are all wrong. Its orange and red, a mockery of the end of days.
There is this smell of wood smoke that hangs in the air. I know its a herald of destruction but all I can think of is quite nights around a campfire. Of happy times where I was safe and contented, in the peace of nature. And yet I know, right now people are losing their homes to this war. There will be casualties. Is that wrong?