Volume VIII: Circumcise This

The preternatural visionary experience leaves many stones unturned, but what it reveals to us is unforgettable.   It is through a continual and hopefully lifelong excursion into the realms of the universal mind that we learn to see that which exists on another plane; that which cannot easily be explained by contemporary human science.  Only those who know, understand, and those who argue that it simply cannot be!  ... Do not know.  What is seen is not necessarily imagined and what is taught is not always true.  We mirror those whom we admire while regretfully allowing our own life to slip past us, smirking and showing us two heaven-bound fingers as it barrels toward freedom.  We slice and shoot up our children in the name of the status quo.  The collective We has a lot to glean from the conscious mind.  Unfortunately, it's always too busy flipping channels or going to the bank.

There is room for the mundane but it must occupy only a fraction of our lives.  We should laugh at its anal-retentive mediocrity.  We should show compassion for our own lack of spirit.  The whole earth is comprised of spirit (nature, life, magic, or whatever you would like to call it) as is the universe.  There is nothing more to worry about than mind itself.

Sounds simple...

Yet a life led this way, in the ironically titled "developed world," is met with scorn and avoidance.  The look, smell, sound, and taste of freedom is too rich for those whose psychic experiences ended when they were 4 years old.  Remember liberation?  Being unafraid?  Rolling down a hill on wheels or climbing a tree, daydreaming, laying in the grass envisioning characters in the sky?  Those experiences are not fallacy.  They are truth.  Those who forget and moreover, neglect to accept freedom as truth are no longer whole.  Evil exists only in those who disconnect from their natural state, one of compassion and gratitude.  To posit that freedom results in bad behaviour reveals a lack of sound mind.  True freedom is inherent, but tragically, it is easily unlearned.

Over the years I've spoken to many friends from a smattering of places in Haiti, Peru, Taiwan, Japan, the Czech republic, Iran, Russia, Bangladesh, New Zealand, local slums, reservations, and countless other places, "developed" or not.  Growing up in densely populated, over-financed North America, we experience the benefits of the melding population (yes, I meant to say "melding.")  We meet people from all over the world, making the earth seem small.  If a kid from Somalia can converse appreciatively with my perspective on Regent Park, then the "undeveloped world" cannot be so far away from our understanding as we like to believe.  Watching soldiers shoot neighbours in the head in front of your quivering family in the desert is horrific, though speaking as a humanitarian, not too far a cry from living in an urban slum and witnessing multiple murders down there.  The difference lies in whether or not these crimes go unnoticed, and how often they occur.

Poverty only exists without land and water.  War is a one-way ticket to hell.

The gunshots I heard as a child were met with the following sober parental response:  "Calm down. DON'T RUN."  The woman I saw across the street being strangled by her husband started wailing, then I knew she was still okay.  The police eventually showed up, and she survived a while longer.  People run screaming down city streets chasing each other with cleavers.  Kids with whom I went to high school stabbed each other on school grounds.  More still died of so-called preventable diseases.  Men murder perfect strangers on buses and eat them, or mail their body parts to elementary schools.  If actions this violent occur in every developed nation, without regard for its government and connected police and social services, then we are told they're human nature.  In countries where oil and natural resources are plentiful, the same actions are deemed necessary for monetary gain by the instigators of war.

We love money.  Cherishing it over the value of natural human kindness and peace, we lose our happiness.  We become hollow.  Met with the utmost adversity, most people will gasp and toil and do whatever it takes to survive.  Certainly, some will fight and kill, but most will simply strive and starve.

A life without adversity leaves too much room in the imagination for evil.  

Volume VIII: Smack (Of Insincerity)

That cliche about imitation and flattery is true enough - if you find solace in seeing those who look up to you merely ape your every move.  There is a strange beauty in finding out that you share crucial qualities with another human; this romance is unrelenting and cannot be forced into existence.  It requires years of singular thought and psychically shared experiences, and typically only occurs between people who are subconsciously working toward a common goal.  Despite its rare exquisiteness this compatibility has been bastardized by generations of souls who insist on duplicating what they see and hear before them.

This is a foolhardy way to ensure that you will never be happy.

Rarely do these people look within themselves for answers or ideas, for when they peer within, the mundane horror that awaits them repels them back into the ease of a photocopied reality.  A digitally rendered subsistence that serves as a pale substitute of the original, enlivened human form. These folks simply select somebody to imitate, then roll with that for as long as it serves them.  There is at least one obvious problem with this.  It smacks of insincerity.  What's the good in pretending to know, feel, hear, or see the world through somebody else's lens?  To learn, surely, there is potential.  But the imitators - who, unsurprisingly are often young - do not climb so far out on a limb truly to experience the world the way their idols have done before them:  alone.  Independent.  No scapegoats, safety nets, government grants or institutions around to foster the herd mentality.

Over the course of three decades of insistent hounding by thoughtless imitators, I've learned a lot and I'm ready to share.  If this doesn't sound relatable to you then this isn't intended for you to read.

Of course, I speak most expertly from the roles of performer, musician, and writer.  These are my gifts and my collective curse (that which I did not choose with the aid of a guidance counsellor).  This life chose me.  It plucked me out of a scholarly, profoundly lonely adolescence like a typical
Hollywood alien abduction sequence.  I've worked dozens of jobs, each more challenging than the one before, solely to fund my burgeoning presence as a poet and a singer.  The shaman in me is the drummer, the spiritual warrior.  I could never have chosen these experiences, so from my perspective I see little merit in those who force themselves to be someone they are not.

It would be humbly fulfilling to see those who are inspired by me (or others around them) embark on a unique journey sparked by their own deeply internalized memories.  Instead, I watch them copy my hairstyle and smile kindly as they seek approval.   I encourage them to take a much closer look at themselves.  Those of us who constantly strive to develop our strength as individuals are consistently let down by the imitators who attempt to replicate our appearances, names, ideologies, works of art, and most laughably, our experiences.  Few feelings rival the intense gut-rot of realizing you've been used for selfish gain, only to be thrown away, or stored for later use.  Instead of marvelling in unison at our similarities, we silently exploit or find ourselves polluted by misconduct.

Absolutely no one is completely original once they've taken their first breath.  I do believe, though, that we are all unique enough to discover within ourselves at least one thing we're convinced is unlike any other.  Whether or not this is correct is immaterial.  It is this conscious commitment to re-birth that keeps the world spinning.

It's endlessly burdensome to try and be original.  It is quite likely the hardest thing you will ever achieve in this life, and that's exactly what turns off so many people.  Young people, particularly in this newly impotent digital social climate, feel entitled to co-opt whatever identity suits their current fancy.  Evidently, their already abundant insecurities are only brought further forth into the light by their insistent emulation.  They wait and watch from behind an imaginary curtain to see how those cooler, tougher, older, and more powerful than themselves live their lives.  Then they make themselves cardboard cut-outs of their mentors.  No good teacher is as fulfilled by his students' robotic recitations as their stunning individual intellectual transformations.

An artist, in her youth, floats identity-less in a sea of tempting images, sounds, and ideas, but refuses to adopt any one "look" or behaviour that is not deeply and sincerely her own.  In my youth, I didn't rush out and try to duplicate every cool thing I saw.  I revelled in each luscious detail and let the majesty of another human life propel me deeper into unknown realms of solitary discovery.  Humble, I suffered alone through my awkwardness.  No outfit, tattoo, performance aesthetic, stage name, diet, or attitude is convincing to an artist unless the person behind the facade has had the experiences to back it up.  No one is innocent of emulation or idol worship.  Many of us know, however, that this is not the eye of the soul, but rather a mirror held up backside toward our face, reflecting an idealized two-dimensional image back at its unwitting owner.  Meanwhile, the imitator stares perpetually at his own blank slate.

Women are intense and powerful beings.  We all know this.  Unfortunately, their ancient knowledge is too often buried by contemporary insecurity.  Women often ask me how I eat in an effort to improve their own appearances.  They're initially intrigued and quickly disappointed by the simplicity of my response.  I eat to live.  I eat what is simple, ethical, cheap, healthy, and readily available.  My appearance and my diet have no conscious relation to one another.  I do not "work out" for the sake of it but expel thousands of genetic demons through the intuitive creation of tribal rhythms.  No workout video would ever suffice.  Seven to ten years of vigorous, heart-wrenching and mind-altering self-directed training is not at all appealing the self-indulgent few who simply starve themselves to try and "look more like you."

Many of us have met somebody who meets us, takes an instant liking to us (whether or not the feeling is mutual), then shows up the next day dressed like us, or unexpectedly takes up one of our hobbies.  Often the look and the act are short-lived, but the resonance of these lapses in character might last a lifetime.

Exploration into challenging new frontiers is the sincerest form of flattery.  Everything else is just distraction from the truth.  My mentors teach me that life can always be more difficult.   They tell me to enjoy the sanctity of every breath.  They show me that my own decades of suffering through traumatic experiences like accidents, illness, and proximity to violence and death are not unique.  Only the love that I create out of my inherent and ancient connection to truth presents something to the world worth showing.

Take a piece here or there, and it'll taste good until you realize that you've been eating someone else's pie.  Might your own not taste even sweeter?

Admittedly some good does eventually come of all the replication:  it is the stark implication that we should have just found our own way.  A minimal level of emotional security paves the realization that no one can be duplicated, no matter what science predicts, insists, or intends.  There is simply no use in trying!  How many people do you know who "used to be vegetarian" because they wanted to impress a girl, or "used to smoke pot" because their old roommates did?  Or those who "used to march in protests" to get closer to an unattainable crush, or "used to be in a rock band" because it made them feel cooler than the lawyer or marketing executive they would inevitably become?  What about the "friends" who refuse to support your life's work because it might put a dent in their already inscrutable reputation?  There's no love in that kind of behaviour.  I have always supported the passionate endeavours of friends, acquaintances, and strangers - because I am confident in the good in myself.

If you make a permanent life change to meet a quota of short-sighted flights of fancy, those of us who don't live life solely for our own enjoyment will see right through your temporary guise.  Usually, those who allow themselves to replicate aspects of my outward persona are embarrassed by the results.  They feel the shame of a small child with her hand in the cookie jar, and I never hear from them again.   I do rest assured that one day they will have learned this vital lesson:

THIS LIFE IS YOURS ALONE.
THIS WORLD ISN'T YOURS,
BUT YOU CAN CHOOSE TO BE A PART OF IT
BY BEING YOURSELF.

Volume VII: Nobody's Daughter

Forgive and forget is not such a bad way to live, though the forgetting part is damn near

impossible at times. I forgave a lot of bad people for many unpleasant things, but I

won't soon erase them from my mind entirely. In moments of clarity and pure comprehension,

I will see the memories pass by me. Letting them pass without interruption is the key.

Fortunately, not only are there as many good thoughts as bad - there are more! So I get

to enjoy a bit of happiness whenever they drift past. Sure, meditation is difficult

in congested urban dwellings but I'm willing to keep at it as long as I continue to see

results. That's the crucial point so many would-be ascetics propose: "Where's the payoff?"

Of course, individual results will always, always vary widely, but individuals who choose

to allow their minds to open wide - those who forego to ego altogether and peer into other

dimensions - will notice blatantly universal effects. So that's how this all works.

You either live for yourself, for your family and close friends and neighbours and coworkers,

or you live for the universe. The cosmos. The biggest picture. Some people seem

successfully to accomplish both, though I imagine it requires diligence and a depth of

character most of us have seen but once in our lives...if that. The strength it takes to

be concerned with the minutae of modern living, with the epic distraction of human

interaction, in itself is impressive. Set on top of that the willingess to devote great

thoughtful energy to to wellness of an entire cosmos (every universe) and you have one

ready and able individual whose presence in your life is not something to be taken for

granted. Such people, I imagine, lose a lot of energy through their daily

audience with the conciousness of the masses. They are left drained. squeezed dry.

And then you, being all too human, ask them for more. You wonder why they don't have

the energy to mount a short flight of stairs - let alone look you in the eyes. You

ask them if anything is wrong, and they tell you, "No, I'm just doing my thing."

You (the pronoun that represents all of humanity) tell them what you would like them

to do repeatedly. You would like them to be normal. You'd prefer if they smiled

and watched TV. You desperately just want to relate. You wish they'd just act like

you imagined they would; like they used to. You never got a chance to get to know them

before they all but disappeared into another world.

Perhaps there are some compromises to be made. Maybe the quiet soul-searching types

could open up a bit of their soul and teach more of those around them what it is

they are getting up to inside. And by the same rote, the fun-loving distracting types

might settle down, let go of the idly commercial chatter and show everybody that they,

too, can be pensive and wish to be enlightened. That's a tall task for both parties

and I wouldn't expect to see a cure in relations immediately - but, who knows?

Humans have a wonderful capacity to surprise one another. So long as everyone keeps

it on the good side of their brain, I can foresee a whole lot of laughter and

magnificence.

Volume VII: You Know That I Know

you know that i know 

that what i asked of you 

is not in the cards

in this life or any other

but none of us has been keen enough 

to say as much

as the words sneaked out of my mouth and ink

i saw them as truth

as i always do

and you saw them as an opportunity 

just like so many others

and you passed it on by

leaving those letters hanging on a wire

letting those ideas dissolve into the ether

where the molecules are now polarized

stored in the presence of air

ethers form explosive peroxides

here now i stand and watch them go off

while you sit and stew in alkaline water

the shrapnel may be invisible to the eye

but i can feel it in my skin

and here we are again

right back over 

where we began
 i am anew
and you are still you
skin is still skin
our feet wrapped in sin.

Volume VII: Miss Demeanor

Never before in all my days have I shed so many tears upon leaving a place.   The magic, the entities, the sloping sky.  Months before I had realized that I am meant to live and rest by the sea.  Perhaps by one particular sea.  Perhaps in one particular place.  And then, abiding by a larger wave of motion, I left.  The air was fresh and moist and musical.  Everything was always wet, slick with atmosphere, slipping into the cove one inch at a time.  An extra sense became something beyond extra-sensory.  One could see through the darkness into a very potent reflective light.  Dark became peaceful;  days became light.  The heaviness of spirit that I had experienced for three decades dissolved into a somewhat resigned happiness.   'Twas not resigned in a negative sense; rather, it was the acceptance of an inevitable truth. 

Volume VI: Wayside

i climbed up the south-east side of the hill and the moon was full and bright.  i felt calm, a oneness with the full moon and the metallic clouds and the softly singing night birds as i realized that everyone to whom i had reached out a hand had flown away faster than those very same birds upon hearing a rustling in the bushes.  everyone but the one in hand, the bugs in the air and on my skin, the late-summer wind.  they all ran.  i opened up my home and my heart to them all and they scrambled away as quickly as they could for fear of never living it down.  meanwhile, miles away, there are hundreds of people who love me and shy away in very much the same manner, if only temporarily.  it seems those who have something to lose are the first to go; those who proclaim to have nothing are willing to see this thing through; to take a chance on me.  the original man with nothing to lose still lives and loves that way.  he now has a whole lot to lose but he's not gonna lose any of it because he doesn't let his fear outweigh his passion for adventurous spiritual awakening.  it's not a harmful thing, the spirit; rather, it is the very core of what we feel each day.  give it any name you want and it's still there, convincing you to run or rest or jump off the rocks into the sea, never to breathe again.  i will not ask again, i will not try again, i will not go against, i will not knock on doors i've touched before.  it's easy to tell oneself these things and to believe them. it's difficult to see them through without determination, my middle name.  i have made many mistakes but i am not regretful for most of them.  i do not  like hurting people and helping them is just so much more difficult.  it's a life's work.

if you feel that hurt in your heart and you know you're going against your own deepest will then it's time to turn around.

sit first, and listen to your thoughts without judgement, then slowly stand up, continue to breathe deeply, and take a few steps in the right direction.

i sat on a stone near the sky and remembered my dream.  everyone who's passed me by and continued playing their own game reminds me of the bear on that island.  he's out having fun, splashing around and drawing a crowd.  i'm watching him from a mile away, behind glass, lovingly confined with my own art and life.  he's happy on his own.  one of my sole regrets is that i interrupted his play.  we exist in different dimensions.  i crawl effortlessly between the two but nobody ever crawls back through with me.

except the one in hand, the bugs in the air, the late-summer wind.
they break through.
they are not afraid.

Volume VI: He

he heals and cooks and strums and wails 

and cleans and strokes and leans and licks 

and rolls and taps and drives and feeds 

and sings and mounts and glides and swims 

and rides and climbs and picks and plucks 

and loves and lives and soars and gives

Volume VI: To Everyone Who's Been A Friend

to everyone who's been a friend

i will love you till the end

to anyone who's left in space

nobody can take your place

to all and every smiling face

and tapping toes who keep the pace

to those who love

and live between

the earth is ours

she is our queen

Volume VI: Music Is Love

ideas flow like water.  

they get stopped up sometimes but when they're running it's hard to catch them all no matter how big a bucket you might have.  

two cats on wood planks with their paws crossed.  two birds on wires with their songs sung.  

the pursuit of connection and achievement.   

ideas flood the basement, trickle into the bedrooms, and stain the hardwood floors.  

ideas are love.  communication is art is music is love.  

all extensions of art are the extremities of love.  

addiction to love cannot be cured like tobacco. 

pass the proverbial pipe and fire.

watch the moisture peeling paint and diverting attention from the truth:

the truth is, they don't want me here any more than they want to be here.

"i'll only ask once more if this is what you want.

i'm trying to accept these terms but i don't think that we've learned."

Volume VI: They Come Out When They're Dead

Volume V: You Don't Know My Mind

how many times is too many to be full of sorrowful perpetual anger that cannot be managed with classes you refuse to go to, or pills you'll never take?  traditional folks might argue that no amount of angst is enough (to compare with their own); that the driving force behind the wheel is testing you on paper and in practice.  working for the man, you are, you look for love in the night and during the day you do what you can, and no more.

you knock very hard on the door and i say that there ain't nobody here but me, so you might as well come on in!  you'd better enjoy the view for a while because i will surely be cast afloat again soon, continuing my journey toward a higher elevation.  smaller than a grain of pollen, yellower than a gold rush, i dissolve as soon as i land.

help me stay in the air, if you please.  

Volume V: Memory Lost

Volume V: Taste of Eden

Dead weight dead girl in a hairnet cleaning toilet garbage can waste man while you wait man while you get another man a date with the end And she sees you in the mirror while she scrubs away bobbing up and back down again like a rubber duck In the water she sees your reflection behind her then she flushes it away Again she states her sins and they look like bargains to you but you want to wait and see if they get any cheaper Wherever she goes man she's gonna get canned and wonder when she'll see you again Will it ever again be in a garbage can?

Volume V: Magnanimity

The inexorability of you and your following determines the distance between you and your itinerary. 

 Take a look back and tell me what you see.  

Are you anywhere near where you thought you would be?  Take three steps back before you go forward two.  See those little petals there on the concrete?  Watch them blow away, further, into the gutters.  Watch their beauty dissolve, but not their mystery, which grows.  

It's a tough joint to be wrenched between the intellectual and the mundane, and then to look beyond worldliness.  To end strife, preventing anything unsatisfactory from disturbing your place in the void.  Beyond it all.  Auspicious practice leads to successful imprisonment and subsequent escape.   

Before you could feel it.  Now, you can taste it.

Volume IV: Sequestration

Eating seaweed and hummus, wearing a sweatshirt with horses on it, looking into the abyss and finding comfort in its depths, breathing ever so barely, moist with exhaustion and ocean air, hungry, pained, looking out the window toward and away from inspiration, wondering what to eat but not wanting to get up, realizing it's time to bathe, noticing that it's time to breathe, pondering future projections, eyeing two guitars and a ukulele, trying not to think about work, trying desperately not to try, smelling food and the summer air, watching the grey, refusing to be held down, memorizing anachronistic procedures, meeting The Ones, teething on still and moving images, hungrier all the time, blue and red and black all over, preparing to sell every thing, looking for fresh fruit, imagining zebra skin, envisioning vibrant mandalas, needing a drink.

Volume IV: Nobody Knows

Villain or victim, people have always taken me far too seriously.  If you think I might be joking, I probably am.  I long for and simultaneously bemoan the days when the internet was nubile, when our classmates and future lovers were but silent icons on a screen, pixels making an appearance only to stick around for further analysis.  My renderings and writings have extended far into the technological realm and remained firmly grounded in the reality of ink and paper.   I have a clear preference for one over the other, though you wouldn't know it considering how much time I spend on each side of the brain.

Letters that go unread or unnoticed might be doubly sad as a cheque that flies into a sewer grate before its hungry owner's weary eyes.  We've all seen those eyes before, in the mirror or otherwise. As someone who was entrenched in political studies for many years (a youthful pastime of sorts), I see the politician in every one of us.  Some of us are naturals.  The expansiveness of the human psyche allows for copious distractions and interactions, but there seems to be a natural limit to this madness.  A turnaround starts once we are overwhelmed with infinite technological possibilities:  "I could message anyone in the world right now, or I could walk up the stairs and talk to my roommate."  The mundane option keeps you grounded, and the higher flight takes you wherever it may go.

I've seen entryways to hell and to heavenly wilderness mazes that go on and on without any turns.   I can just imagine what others have seen.  In the earlier days of this global community, I .took advantage of the roommate option:  if you're close by and you like each other, why waste your time pining after souls all over the earth?  There is immense comfort in our humanity, and our love of other land souls.  Spirit through technology is not something that many people have mastered.  I know that our enlightened elders might see virtue in us being connected, but see harm in our lack of humanness as we go about our days pinned to screens instead of squealing children.  We let our fingers do the talking as we remain eerily silent.  Writers have been doing this for centuries, but we used to have to read things aloud occasionally, for dramatic effect.

The voice has been loved and lost.  

Everyone I talk to cherishes a good singer and a good conversationalist equally.  All of those passionate letters that get no response see their original meaning severed in two as time passes.  No reciprocity for such a commitment of words means no continued connection, and every time, we start anew.  I`ve always despised my writing just a little bit more than I love it.  I`ve spilled my heart onto so many people I couldn`t begin to count.  Each one of them deserved what they saw and felt, and most, in turn, have shown me what I deserve.  My friends and family have all written to me at one time or another.  This is my first language.  Many people, I'm sure, are afraid to commit their hearts to words on paper or a screen, for they will see in those letters and pixels their whole being laid out like a puzzle in pieces, and then of course, they`ll want to put it all back together. It can be done.  It can be painful, like finding a lost art.  It can lead to a significant - though not disproportionate - amount of rejection.
We reach out for it, pull back a red velvet curtain, and divine the sensuality that lies in etymology.  Or risk losing our words between our teeth.

  

Volume IV: The Return

I have so many jobs I sometimes forget which one pays...The ones that pain aren't so often the same.  I'm married, and he sits in the other room writing, and his music comes from a deep, spiritual place that I once misunderstood.  I champion the underdogs because I am one of them.  Channelling all of your being into a creative force means entering into a race with It.  Tell yourself you have a long way to go if you want a shot at being the best in the universe.

We pulled into the alley and had that "Is this the place?" conversation that lasts only seconds but feels like a waste of time.  When I climbed up out of the car, black and low-slung, I saw a black and white cat a few feet away and reached out to it.  Contrary to my current rural placement I was in a city, where cats fight not only nature for their lives, and it bit me.  Not a bad bite but it made me smile nonetheless.  Contrariness has made itself a theme in this life, and so many others, but you only want to contradict yourself for so long before you lose your glasses and have to start all over again.

The folk scene that had embraced us years before was warm and abounded with life's happiness.  They didn't need our help.  The punks and the higher-ups were similarly independent, and I found myself on a mission to find those in need.  The message has often been unclear but the messenger has always been apparent.  Take the rhythm of his and the message of hers and mix them up in a great mortar with the message of his and the rhythm of mine.  Each drop of water into the remains lubricates the communication, making it mobile.  Perhaps many of those in need are invisible to me, but I see them every now and again - they are the well-adjusted, intelligent, music-loving humans with love in their eyes and the whole world in their minds.  I am a muse, and that is as wondrous as it is terrifying, just as I chose the path without knowing the destination.

There are some lovely sights along the way - a rocking horse bobbing in the bed of a truck; a mystical sunset blanketing the cries of coyotes; cars pushing past us toward certain death on the highway seconds later; so many dead bodies and belongings of the deceased.  Karmic laws, or vibrations if you prefer, map out interactions as they are occurring, keeping you abreast of your own progress if you're willing to look.  

My favourite director walked into the cafe in Ontario where I spent my days behind the counter as a barista, one who pulls espresso shots and shoots the shit with all sorts of caffeine-addicted folk.   It is just as romantic as it sounds, and you end up cleaning toilets more often than you do making latte art and handing it to your idol.  The man who waltzed in with him was someone I loathed without merit, I felt annoyed by his presence and his demeanour until that day, when I realized - he is just unique.  He puts himself in unusual situations to be with artists, a lifestyle to which I could relate.  They were scouting locations for the anti-sequel to a favourite film of my youth, but I didn't know it.  I was too wrapped up in my recently completed second album, which seems to have been about telepathy and ecological warfare.  I was reading Thompson and Kerouac like we all do, but taking it in like no one else ever does.

He was coming through the doorway and I stared at his hat, at the crooked framed picture of old New Berlin on the wall, and his boots.  He smiled at me as his cohort introduced us - none was necessary - and I smiled and looked around for someone to share in my delight but my coworker friends were occupied or otherwise unaware of the momentous nature of this meeting.  Later, his companion, knowing about my band, asked me if I knew the rock starlet who would co-star in the film they were shooting.  I said I didn't, but I related to her, and we'd crossed paths.  He looked at me the way TV and movie producers always do.  I didn't have the words to express the impact that this occasion had on me for many years, and in fact, I'm surprised to find that I still don't.  Perhaps one day I will articulate further the joy I felt hosting my hero for a brief stay.  I didn't ask for anything, just gave him my word and my handiwork.  I hope he enjoyed that god damned coffee!

I found this path not knowing where it ends, and I shall not stray. 

Volume III: "Unity"

The palpable momentum toward singularity has been swirling about the upper reaches of my mind.  The silicon and the mercury.  A full spectrum of integrated circuits, resting up for the big send-off, busted up from being tossed onto a pile of debris dripping with scalding liquid metal.  That pressurized headache that everyone always seems to be experiencing, the wincing and and tooth-gnashing.  The ceaseless efforts to put mind into machine.  The universal sensation of being threaded about the head of a pin.

The moon.

As the meteorites come down, we fall back into old habits.   We take our bagged upsets and childhood tragedies and leave them at the curb, only to cock our heads and compare our accumulated anxiety levels with our neighbours when pick-up day never arrives.  I stopped eating animals over 15 years ago, yet I didn't feel accomplished or free until very recently.  Actions, activities, habits, whatever you call them do not usurp spiritual belief and incantation.  Thought taken without emotion becomes a sturdy median.  Ideas - and emotionless absences thereof - have abounded in those fifteen years of targeted peace, research, and heartache.  In my youth, wanted to take on humanity from a soapbox, but as I have matured mentally and my musculature has evolved and I cradle senses that I did not recognize as a child, I find I enjoy supporting others' platforms.  I wanted to take on the conspiratorial non-humans face-to-face, backing my overwrought emotions with stacks of proof.  But wanting so badly, I became ill, and I have had to rest.  My body thrives, my spirit vibrates, and my mind persuades me more each day.  It compels me along a dusty red path, unblinking eyes and reptilian scales along the way, and impresses upon me my own true nature.  Old habits die.  They are reborn.

We are told that molten lead burns human flesh and the putrid belies the beautiful.  We recycle the by-products of death the way others do glass, a product of technological times.   A quiet child, I wanted to talk to spirits, to sing to and for and about them.   Yet it was not until I came closer to death that I have been able to do so.  I honour the death I witness and try to take in all of it as often as I can, tip-toes surprisingly agile on a roof's ledge.  I know I might slip but I will not.  Years gone into darkness.  I look up and look down.  Through sheer lack of will any of us could end or begin, stop eating flesh or start wearing hides, reaching into each other's eyes and devouring the light as we go.

The shadowy bustling spirits and eyes and whispers and pokes and messages bellowed from the city and the sea.  The angle of the cosmos and everything askew, we are imperfectly aligned. We drift down to our places and dig in our toes when it feels right, either to plant ourselves there forever or to re-visit that spot in time like a lost love.  Not a moment to waste.   

Tick tock. 

Volume III: "Push Became Pull"

Living here on the East coast for the first time in our lives is phenomenal.  I am still unable to put it into many words - ironic when you examine my previous writings.  I suppose some things simply cannot be articulated.  I encourage any and every person who longs to live by the sea to get up out of your chair and do it.  It doesn't have to be an expensive or a reclusive endeavour.  To be one with the sea is a human feat rarely surpassed with sincerity.    If you crave it and you can make it happen for yourself or for another...then what are you waiting for?

As we made our way through Quebec a few weeks ago I felt some old and painful feelings, the dreary grey blanket of methane that hovers above the highway for a day's drive was symbolic as both the symptom and the cause.  We made our way into Ontario and things cleared up, the sky was bluer than I remembered and we saw and ate and hugged and loved and felt at home but vaguely out of place.   As we drove into Toronto, I felt the bubbling anticipation that used to knock me down but this time it fueled me.  It lifted me up.   The skyline from my videos and dreams looked so surreal as to solidify its mythological status in my mind.   "This place isn't real, but nothing is.  This is my home."   As we drove into the city all of my anxiety dissolved.  My concrete expression broke off and fell onto my feet.

The first person we noticed in the city that day was Julie, walking down Spadina singing to herself and grinning big.   A few hours later I got out and was hunting for a bathroom in Kensington and the air was absolutely delicious.  Hundreds of symbiotic breathing bodies and the smoke of incense and imported humour.   It was raining in February.  Nobody stared at anybody else.  My shoes echoed against so many stalls and my hair would remain soaked in wet fragrant fire for days.   We shot a couple of videos with Exclaim!, a national treasure whether or not anybody will admit it; I have always loved what they do.  Later that evening we manned the door at our show and the love we felt was so palpable that I couldn't take off my jacket all night.  I kept hugging myself and walking around blocks and blocks sucking in the air knowing it would sustain me.  Nothing felt the same.  The pollution is less acrid in the winter and our vitamin regimen, careful eating, Neti-cleansing and mental focus let me breathe deeply and crave the smoke of the city long after we left.  We saw Ryan C and Tim that night and were reeled back into years-old memories and saw each other anew, Andy and Nathan and Rebekah and Jennifer and so many others.  It was hard to count heart beats that night.

***


I am no longer cynical or competitive.  Those efforts are exhausting, and a waste of cosmic time.  That which is meant to be will be, and not for reasons of fate.  There is little use longing for those people or scenarios or events whose existence depends solely upon your own mind.  People will come into your life when they are ready and have the effect that they - and you - choose.  When you meet, you will know you have always known.  When you love, you will know you have always loved.  I'm confident, these days, that my influence is real and my purpose is clear.  I exist to help people; to help a universe of beings find their way.  I don't take this lightly or heavily because, once again, I don't have the surplus energy required to do so.  Rather,  I live each day as its own and know that my understanding of my purpose has come to a fruition that will last either a few months or a few lifetimes.

I mention "little use" in these longings because it would be unfair not to acknowledge the influence that grasping or longing often has on artistic outputs. Without going into specifics, I can think of hundreds of notable albums that would not have been realized were it not for intense and unhealthy feelings of want.  Living in destitution usually coincides with the creation of these artistic works - certainly not just musical ones - and their appearance in this world is more of a release than an inception.  An end rather than a beginning.  A message in a bottle and the river on which it floats; the hand that scoops it out; the eyes and the mind and the soul.  I find myself with neither the time nor energy to do anything but heal, yet I cannot dismiss the push and pull I feel around me without effort.  Mental stamina takes work acquire and maintain unless you were fortunate enough to be brought into light with this training.   Closer to the sky, I can feel the ripple of my actions and watch it continue to flow out into the smooth gold light and become one again with everything.  The moon is perched at a different angle.  The first thirty years of one's life are often spent looking at a farther away sky, at fewer stars, a smoky haze before the sun and the unholy glow of perpetual distraction.   The next thirty must only be spent continuing one's work in their own rightful mind, gently manning a web of compassion without destruction.

The beginning is always the end.   

Volume III: "Seven Year Hitch"

Forecasts lie and fortune tellers don't, for a fortune foretold is not a fortune at all, but rather, a risk.  Tell them what they want to hear when they want to hear it and the water is calm; clear sailing.  Tell them the truth and risk losing them forever or returning them to their original and rightful place in your heart, if it existed at all.

We left one town because it felt too small, another because it felt even smaller, and another because it all just felt too close.  The dead mice and the cemetery down the street, the cold fingers in the basement, the guy in the living room with his rusty old cash register and beer bottles. The old man on the street, watching, waiting for the right moment to make me his own.  The windows nailed shut.  The bath tub.  It all came pressing downward, inward, painfully squeezing out whatever life was leftover from the first quarter-century.  Trouble comes when everything gets jumbled up, day and night, right and wrong.  Living and dead.

A magnificent by-product of past violence, beauty blooms without any of us noticing.  I look into a mirror and I see who I am and who I was and what I will be - all one and the same. The immense weight of the life I have both chosen and been summoned for distills my being into something greater, purer.  Truth comes only out of light and darkness is the antidote.  To have been shrouded in darkness for a lifetime is never to breath, never to feel the sun on your skin and put your face in it.   Never to drink the water like an animal, or live without fear.  Take a proverbial fucking breather.  Suck the air into our body and taste it, succumb to the healthy sensations that life has always offered.  Take the gift that appears without warrant for it is the most touching gesture of all:  if you love me enough to think of me when I'm not around, then your love is a gift.  Choose to accept this gift and life will continue to unfold, exponentially faster, until you reach its peak.  Transformation is viable for all of us.  We simply need to put our minds to work by putting them to rest.