Self Portrait

Today is the end of one year and the beginning of a new one. In keeping with beginning anew i decided today i would display a bit about myself.

i wish i could find the old black and white photo i took in college. We had been given an assignment in photography class to create a self portrait. Completely daunted by the task i went into convulsions...a self portrait...i can't do a self portrait, i thought. i never liked displaying anything about myself and here the professor wanted a picture of ME.

i tried everything. Setting the camera up on a tripod, setting the timer and posing in various positions, in various dress. Trying to be unique and different....HA! i tried taking pictures through things, framing myself in bizarre get ups, even putting shaving cream on my face and shooting the picture through the mirror. It wasn't me. None of the pictures were me. The due date was getting closer and i was getting more anxious. i even thought i wouldn't submit anything because nothing i had done to that point was me.

Then one night while lying on the bed, studying for a test and still agonizing over this assignment i looked down at my foot and had an epiphany. i ran for the camera, lay back down on the bed and started shooting pictures of my foot.

My professor loved it and i passed the class.

And this is why i wish i still had that picture. i searched and searched the upper closets. i got the ladder, went through boxes making myself sick with the dust. Finally i realized i would just have to describe the picture and you will have to visualize it.

One foot, covered in a black sock. The big toe and the second toe stick out of a hole in the sock.

At the time that was me in a nutshell. You couldn't pigeonhole me. You still can't.

Today, it is beautiful where i live. The ocean and the sky are crystal clear and i have taken a new picture of my foot. It's the same foot i photographed in college but now it is free.

If you look closely you will see all its flaws. On the pinky toe a blister is in the last stages of healing, that is my vanity showing for trying to wear shoes that looked good but were a bit too tight. On the next toe in you will see a scrape i got on some coral, its healing as well, but is my competitive side kicking in when i wanted to swim faster over the reef than my buddy. On the next toe in you will notice a less than perfect paint job which is me aiming for perfection and missing the mark.

On the big toe some discoloration that is finally growing out hides under the peeling nail polish. This is where i try to keep parts of me under wraps but it gets peeled away by life's realities.

And then, there is that second toe, the crooked one, lovingly leaning in to the big toe. That's me too, disabled sometimes but trying to keep loving.

i have always thought my feet are beautiful. i love my feet....they take me everywhere and this is who i am.

This is me and all my imperfections. i learned a long time ago that striving to be perfect will make you miserable.

So this new year when you are trying to give up all the things you love to make your self perfect why don't you try instead to just love yourself the way you are.

Happy New Year

wood guns with no bullets are fine

i have a different approach to belief and human interaction.

i believe we are AllOne.

The AllOne has created nothing.
The AllOne judges nothing.
The AllOne has always been and will always be.
There is no beginning or ending for the AllOne.

AllOne is everything we can conceive of and beyond everything we can conceive of.
AllOne is the light so often spoken of through the ages by prophets and holy men.
AllOne is what we left when we were born and
AllOne is where we return when our life is over.

AllOne is not a religion.

Mankind has been told over and over not to judge.

He has been advised by "GOD" that judging others cannot be done in this world. That "GOD" will judge all upon each individuals death.

So here is another belief that holds just as much meaning as any other this time of year when we are all contemplating the birth of a man that called on us to pay attention to all of humanity.

The ALLOne does not judge, anything, ever.

If there is any judging that must occur it has to happen while alive and be accounted for while alive.

We are Master's of ourselves but we have a universal responsibility for we are human beings first and foremost which makes us all the same.

We have to learn how to judge others that will take weapons into their hands to bring about change.

We have to learn how to teach all mankind that the use of weapons is abhorrent.

We have to learn how to teach all mankind that as long as we accept the use of weapons as part of the human condition we have tacitly approved of other human beings being destroyed and are just as guilty as the original killer.

We have to learn how to teach all mankind to make pariahs of anyone using violence to achieve their goals.

We have to teach mankind that viewing the ability to use one's strength to overpower another is no longer acceptable.

The responsibility to prevent violence belongs to every human being breathing air on planet earth.

If anyone shirks that responsibility he fails at becoming a part of AllOne.

Some religions to date have accorded violence a place in their dogma.

No longer will violence have a place holder, for every religion has failed. They have all failed to conquer violence.

We have been made to accept this curse of violence upon mankind because of our failure to judge.

We have to use our judgment and judge those harshly that would consider using violence to solve a problem or reach a goal.

Every human being in the world has to come out and judge harshly any other human being that even tries to rationalize violence as a means to an end.

We have to deal with the real world as it is, and dealing with it means recognizing a new direction is necessary to create a world that billions of people can live on together.

For violence begets more violence.

But conflict doesn't have to beget violence.

The holidays can be stressful for many....Peace to all.

Aeolian Tones....the sound made when wind strikes a wire

i read an article recently about a man engaged in learning to heal through reading a persons luminosity. He had been told that you could understand what illness would afflict a person just by learning to read the auras coming off their bodies. He had studied in Peru with many shamans and had recounted an experience concerning his interaction with a rain forest.

While studying with a local shaman who after instructing him in aspects of nature told the student to enter the rain forest. Prior to entering the forest the shaman cautioned the man to stop and listen. The shaman made him focus on the cacophony coming out of the forest and had the man tune into it for a good long while.

You would think upon entering that the man would be bombarded with the noise he had been instructed to focus on. Instead all the man noticed upon entering was the silence. The rain forest went silent as soon as he stepped into it. The rain forest had gone so quiet he could hear nothing.

The shaman told him the forest knew he had left the Garden of Eden and that when he found it he would be able to hear. It took the man ten years to finally enter the rain forest without it going quiet.

If you spend a lot of time interacting with nature you might understand immediately what the man had to let go of to finally enter that rain forest and hear.

Upon learning of this story i was struck by the use of the term "Garden of Eden".

Could it be the same "Garden of Eden" that Adam and Eve were thrown out of?

i was going to say more about this tale but i think each of us can meditate on something in it without further elucidation.

________________________
A New Font

There is a new font that was developed by a young Dutch man wanting to reduce the amount of ink on paper. He decided that there must be a way to create a font that used less ink when printed out but was still readable and pleasant to the eye. He managed to succeed and has called it Ecofont which can be downloaded here.
http://www.ecofont.eu/ecofont_en.html

albedo

So how much light do you reflect?

For a long time my intent has been to write about nature. i wanted to consolidate collecting bird data over the months into a poem with permanence. Instead of actually writing the poem a list of words developed in my journal this week.

convert
modify
transform
deviate
shift
ripen into through rebellion
change

i opened the Thesaurus to page 147 on one of those fluky i'll just open the book times.
VII jumps out at the top of the page followed by the word Change.

Hmm thinks i. i have been inundated with C's everywhere. Since the century plants curvy stalk first appeared in August i have believed the C to stand for change.

But what change?

It was a little too eerie having my list end with the word change then going to the Thesaurus and randomly opening the book to the word change but it is something i'm getting used to.

The other night i was on line reading some essay when the word albedo appeared. i wasn't sure of the exact definition so i looked it up on line, then went to bed almost immediately. i tucked myself under the covers and picked up my book. i opened the book at my bookmark and the first sentence i read used the word albedo to describe the white veins that run around the outside of a peeled orange.

Too weird thinks i at the time. Two albedo's coming one right after the other. Some would call that coincidence but it happens too frequently in my life to continue ignoring it. i pay attention to these "coincidence's" now and try to act upon them.

For days i have been thinking about the word albedo and how i could use it here. In many ways "albedo" and the word "change" go together.

Albedo is the ability of an object to reflect light from the sun. The darker an object is the lower its albedo. Black has an albedo of 0 while white has an albedo of 1, in between the two extremes lies a whole range of reflective objects. White sand, white clouds and snow reflect more than dark forests or dark ground.

In astronomy one type of albedo is called the V band or the geometric albedo (measuring brightness when illumination comes from directly behind the observer).


Many times, after we have discovered facts that were apparent in the past but over looked or ignored, we use that past information to change our perspective. Often we don't understand how our values are modified or really think we have changed much but we do recognize a shift when it occurs.

Its really easy to understand how using light in terms of change has followed mankind through out religious and recorded history. Everywhere light is used to represent change.

We are all observers, deflectors and receivers of light. So could it be that the illumination we see coming from behind us helps us change what lies ahead of us? Since we are also receivers and deflectors of reflected light do those that decide to change as a result of different information become the new Speakers of the 21st Century? The world is constantly changing and this next century could just be the catalyst that puts war away and allows conflict to flare without violence.

i'm using my albedo to encourage all humanity to consider the benefits that would accrue if we committed ourselves daily to understand that conflict is inevitable but violence is not.

We all have the ability to use our albedo's for change, how much light are you reflecting today?

beach art and poetry

Readers may remember the century plant that i've been so obsessed with. i wrote a poem about it back in August and now the poem has become part of the plants reality. The century plant is breeding. It is dropping little plantlets all over and i've been picking them up and planting them along the road. i'm wondering if the progeny from this plant will also curve in the same spectacular way the mothership did.

the plant of the century

Asymetrical
wandering curve blew
my territorial reserve

sun abandoned and
overthrew the reflection
of a faded view

in this century of mine
a stalk eclipsed
and hid my mind

snakes and dragons and
curlicues, C's and S's
and pictures too

all of these can
now be found at the
plant of the century's breeding ground.

Gardening is not my forte as a result this poem was written after a day in the yard.

a day in the garden

stinging nettle
pulling weeds
trimming bushes
planting seeds
cleaning up
the bougainvillea
wiping down
the blood
i leave here.

With the market meltdown i needed a quick guide to understanding what was happening. i consulted with a family member took notes and this poem is the result of that conversation.

a field guide to fluff

derivatives,
structured investments
linked to
other securities
or
commodities.

vehicles
of paper
endowed
with inestimable
value.

fueling our economy with fluff.

These next two i wrote yesterday. The pictures on the beach are from yesterday too.

a question

sneezing waves
and their droplets
mingling in the air.

curious friends
and their questions
heard in the distance.

Are you meditating?

No, I'm searching.


the Oystercatchers

life happened instead of
drifting away
on an indirect course.

for the time being
wandering the beach
days aren't canceled.

they didn't come,
i searched
and they refused to appear

but all manner of other things happened instead.