~b~l~i~z~z~a~r~d

Uncovered Lives

You and your faded blue

Me and my hidden rooms

Will you come closer still

You and your painful past

Me and my brokenness

Will you come closer still

Oh, my dear

Will you stay near

And hold me until I fall asleep

Uncertain tides

Will we arrive

Is there a shelter for our fear

Is it true that your eyes

Change as the sun will rise

Does that mean you do too

If I gaze into you

As the gray turns to blue

Then will I see your truth

Can we just try

To trust while blind

And dive into waters dark and full

Uncovered lives

Will we survive

Can we tender with our wounds

The Man and His Gun (lyrics)

The man and his gun
kills by law or by hate

takes breath from the world
in his wake.

The man and his gun,
with a severed soul
he sees the other
not as one

Just one finger drawn
but who will fall down?

everyone, everyone around

everyone, everyone around.

Can we return
to when it all began?

and stead learn how to cry
and how to drum, and how to paint, and how to sing and how to dance
and how to hold eachother in our arms.

The man who bows down
to violence and hate
makes others fall down from his pain

One person's anger
becomes another's ill-fate

One shot calls more men forth, more men forth
and they stop the world
with one click
and we're gone.

But there are other ways to sound loud, to sound loud
why can't we scream out our pain
and we'll hold it
and we'll hold it
and sing it away

There are other ways to sound loud, to sound loud
why can't we scream out our pain
and we'll hold it
and we'll hold it
and sing it away


The man and his gun...


The man and his eyes full of pain


look at me, put it down, put it down, put it down

look at me, put it down, put it down, put it down

look at me, put it down, put it down, put it down

look at me, put it down, put it down, put it down

old essay from my geology class in 2002

     I stare at nature's chaos: piles of tephra-ash, dust, rocks--indiscriminate sorting that mounds into Bishop Tuff.  Long Valley is lined with enigmas that wonder and baffle eyes: misplaced trees lying at the top of White-Wing Mountain---intrusive dikes that follow a non-conforming direction---sloping pediments that lean towards their birthplace---preservering beuts that outlast their eroded mates--unconsolidated talices lacking any cohesive form or idea.
     Could this mass of confusion have a plan? Examining the type of rock--sedimentary, metaphoric, igneous, we can then estimate an age: Does its wrinkles allow for new colors to leap through? Does it hold its place in time as it forms the base for future pieces to join?
Then we scrapple for a source--volcanic? phreatic? fissure? fault? earthquake? collapse? Did it cave in or spring out? As Connie said: "we can listen around us for clues to the cause." The rustling spring carries us to a plausible steaming answer. The basaltic scraps glue together to form a magnetic picture, and the ruins of age-old spaceships lead to our smiling, fuzzy, green martians.
We can follow the lines in a fault, rewinding their journey with our eyes. The placement of a tephra treasure buries the truth in its dust.
     I gaze at the Bishop Tuff and imagine its intricate path--the smaller pieces on the bottom were dropped by an ash fall--the first to arrive in its nest. The larger pieces followed along--too heavy to be swept up by rapid winds. Yes-there is some underlying logic that can be studied and grasped.  Geologists observe and interpret, feel and speculate, and discover a brain hidden amongst the dizzy spell of nature. Just a taste of logic to which we can relate because the intention of the rock is the same intention of which we are a part.  Looking towards the mountains we can start to understand by noting the presence of an interbedded instruction.  Yes there really is a recipe and algorithm to basins and ranges. Stretching--raising--eroding---sinking ---I can follow the pattern! But are nature's conundrums reducible to mathematical formulas? Is this hinted order completely solvable? If we claim to hold the answer than are we really appreciating the mystery? Yes, I study and scrapulate all the nooks and crannies and sort through different interpretations to settle on---a most probable cause that most likely is......
--sigh --
I breathe and let go my attempts to know more than it, resting in a moment of awe.

This wise old rock can teach me if I admit its greatness and seek comfort by knowing that it knows ...even if I never will.

bits of bits of old journals

I'd rather be in the center of myself
than
the center of all others' eyes.

Sometimes I forget
the external world
has little to do
with the divine.


___________________________________________________________________________



is life only meaningful when shared?
is my time alone of less value?
are my great (but quiet) ideas
less great
when kept to myself?
Are my questions still questions
if never asked
and never answered?

________________________________________________

Sherry Turkle:
"Loneliness is failed solitude.
To experience solitude you must be able to summon yourself by yourself;
otherwise you will only know how to be lonely."

"We may want to live less thickly
and wait for more infrequent but meaningful face to face encounters."