Category: Short Stories (Page 34 of 46)

I Have Tried, Failed, and for this I am Sorry

January 13, 2014 / Tom

I need to speak your language. I need to speak in a way that you will understand. I need to remember your language, the first language I was taught, in order to talk to you so that you will hear me.

For this I am sorry.

My word will need to become fallible, and I need to take this personally. I will need to again make assumptions. In fact the only agreement I have made with myself that will remain intact is that I will try my best. I will try my best to see things as you see them, not as I see them. I will try my best to assume what you assume, and say what you want said, in the way you want it said. I will try.

I have failed you. I have not been fixed to your satisfaction. I don’t see the story the way you want, and I don’t hear the music the way you do. I have tried, of course, to be who you want me to be. I have made a liar out of myself in order to be the version of me you wanted, you needed, you required. I pretended to bloom when my flower had not yet even formed, and I tried like hell to fly when I wasn’t even yet hatched from my own egg’s shell.

For this, I am sorry.

I have failed you. I have failed to dance the steps you have laid out before me. I have failed to hear the rhythm of the song you’ve sung to me, and I have failed to remember the chorus as you have written it. I failed to remember when the woodwinds were to enter, and when the percussion was to fade. I just could not get the song written within me to quiet down long enough to hear the song you wished me to know, to hear, to dance to, and to play. I tried, and I failed, and for this I am sorry.

I have failed you. I could not end my philosophical nature, and I could not stop asking questions. I can remember as a child, beaten and broken, asking the most fundamental question “Why?”. That question kept me sane in the most insane moments, and as the answers came I began to understand so much more than anyone could teach me. I could not stop asking the questions not because I love the question, but because I love the answer. I know you valued my silence, those moments when I had no questions and therefore had no answers. I lied to you, pretended that silence reigned and answers were not offered. I tried to be the type of noise you wanted to hear, and I failed. For this, I am sorry.

I have failed you. I tried to see the art as you saw it, and I tried to blend the colors as you wished. I tried to play with the blends of the palette you gave me, and I tried to make sense of them as they touched the canvas of our lives. I tried to hold the brush as you suggested while shading in the shadows of my life with the brushstrokes you prescribed. I did what I could to pretend the shadows were not there, that the voices that had always pushed me forward were now dormant parts of a past that had been forgiven. I worked to prove to you that nothing existed outside of the world we had created when, in fact, it all was very real in my mind. You could not see the love I brushed freely between the frame while I tried hard to remain focused on what never existed for you. For this, I am sorry.

I have failed you. I cannot see love as you do, and I cannot find the silence within me to just allow it to be. I can’t speak my truth without it becoming a lie to you, and I can’t hear your truth without being lied to. I have seen a Great Place, and have eaten of its fruit and tasted the waters from its clear streams. I have felt its silky sands between my toes and basked in the gentle breezes of its shores. It’s hard for me to remain silent in the face of such a place, let alone not share it with you, my friend, my love, my sacred self. I try, and fail for reasons unknown to the point I wonder if the effort is worth the joy it costs me. Then, you throw your stones and stamp your feet, and I wonder if the joy is worth the price as well. For this, I am sorry.

I have failed you, and in the process have been left unsure in wave after wave of doubt bound in unbridled certainty. An anger builds up within me, reminiscent of a time and place so foreign yet so much like home. I have tried to shed that vein of pulsating heat within me, and in return it has come back to whip me across my back like a withered stick, leaving blistering welts of insanity in a testament to the practice. I am but a man, after all, and I’m not sure why they desire a god in my place. Is the punishment I bear too great for me alone? I do not know, and for this, I am sorry.

I have failed you. I have dreamt of your luscious breasts and the sound of your beating heart as I press my ear close to them. I have tasted you firmly upon my mouth, and I have breathed your breath and bared my soul to you a million times in my mind, yet never uttered a word to your waiting ear. I have traced unimaginable lines among the countless bumps I have raised upon your skin, yet never pressed one finger to your supple flesh. I have felt you press into me a thousand times as my mouth kisses desire upon your waiting neck, yet I have never once held you in my arms. I wait, wondering if you can hear the subtle whispers from my soul in the light breezes that wisp upon your waiting ears, knowing that if you can you may not even recognize the voice. I feel afraid, and for that I am sorry.

I have failed you. As the winter’s morning sun glistens upon my icy window I can feel the pain coursing through my body. I beg forgiveness for some unseen sin, and ask for no more than I deserve be written in the annuls of my life. The me I know is not the me you care to see, and the me you see is not the me I care to know. Do I succumb to the pressures of being your friend, or do I simply concede to the art bestowed upon my canvas in the manner few can find beauty in? Do I choose to stay my course, or do I choose to force love to again grace my battered timbers? I want the warm glow to light my way, so why can’t I seem to see it? I am lost I suppose, and for this I am sorry.

In this struggle to be clear I have lied to you in the most honest way I can. I have poured my cup out, and claimed the emptiness as some magical place upon which I offer you a drink. I have lost my way, but I don’t care, I just want the pain to end soon, and have it serve a purpose. I want to run through the leaves stiffened by the winter’s grasp. I want to walk through the woods I love beyond my words to describe. I want to carry you high upon my back through the foggy mist of changing times. Heal me, my love, my light, my greatest friend. Feel me, all of you, and know me real beyond the idiocy of our minds conjoined in endless chatter. Here, there, everywhere we find the love we say we seek, and realize that it was there all along.

So now I fade, to focus on the truth I know exists beyond the lies we have agreed to tell each other. I will see you when we crack the surface, embrace the depths, and breath our lives anew.

Peace.

The Dance

January 5, 2014 / Tom

He sits, alone but in a crowd, strong but in various degrees of weakness. He wanders, tired but not fatigued, certain but not steady. He is a wanderer of vast proportions, a walking yin yang of clear distortions, a breathing oxymoron of blurred clarity. He is a man enriched with feminine depth, a raging beast soothed with a calming beauty, and a liar soaked in the waters of undeniable truth.

He had found, then lost, love over and over until love could never be lost again. He had walked until he nearly floated upon the ground, and had floated until the sky was no longer a symbol of how high he could go. He ate until realizing that hunger was more to his liking, and he starved until he realized that loss was only something his mind had created. He had desired wealth until all his life’s spaces were full, and then gave it all away when the space was all he wanted.

The world around him seemed to dance to a somber tune he could no longer bear to hear. He would watch them endlessly and clumsily swirl to the rhythm until he realized that they could not even hear the music. If they could, they would end the dance instead of continually falling all over themselves in a mindless, destructive routine whose only purpose was to bruise and batter them out of their slumber. They were so busy moving that they never truly danced, never truly existed, outside the music others had imprinted in them. They could hear the noise, but they could never truly hear the music, and for this their dance suffered.

He felt no superiority in his realized greatness. He knew that everyone was great, and even as they stumbled their way clumsily to music that fell on deafened ears, they and he were all such vast drops of unrealized possibility. Their suffering told them a story they would ignore and even, in some cases, become addicted to. Instead, they listened to the stories of their ancestors, often forgetting the truth they were told as they were tucked in the womb waiting patiently for the moment when two cells of possibility became one vast being of potential..

There was excitement in the boredom he would feel in their stories of miracles. He could see the stories for what they were, lies they would tell themselves in order to make the dance just a little more bearable. He once would say, “Stop talking, and start listening,” and their responses would sadden him to the point where the suffering was no longer worth the cause. The same illness that kept them from hearing the notes kept them from hearing the truth, and he wanted no parts of the sadness he felt in dealing with their noise. He had become mostly a silent observer, only speaking in those occasions when the feeling moved him to, or the question simply needed to be answered. He loved the harmony that coursed through his soul, and he liked to keep his focus there.

Soon, the Voice whispered to him. “It is time. Speak. Speak your soul in words not yet invented. Hold your mind in a chalice not yet formed, and fly through skies not yet known. Do not speak to them, or for them. Just speak your words of love and truth and let those who listen, listen and those who don’t move on. You will be hated. You will be ridiculed. You will be loved, and you will be cherished. It’s all one voice within you speaking, and you must listen to neither. You are ready, and Now is the time.”

Stars are born and universes created in those passionate moments when a man realizes his own symphony. There, in the swirling chaos of perfect order, a man finds his entire purpose, his entire Being. The confusion makes sense, as do the parts of the whole as they come together in harmonious good will. He discovered only his mind knew them as opposites, but his soul knew them as one, awesome experience.

“Go,” repeated the Voice. “It’s time.”

God I love this place!

December 13, 2013 / Tom

I walk.

I marvel at how the once soft, fluffy sands have become hard and unforgiving in the winter’s chill. I’m alone with my thoughts save the sounds of the surf crashing behind me; the sea hidden behind a shroud of darkness that allows me to focus on that music and the Universe exposed around me. I sit in the chill, gazing up at Gemini hoping to see the faint streaks of light created by the end of things likely born long before man was a dream. I give thanks in each passing blur as I am reminded of my own mortality, my own beginning, and my own end. I am reminded of the distance between the two, and I am grateful for this step in the journey of remembrance.

Through the shivers and the wet feeling of coldness upon my skin, I realize I love this place. I love the drawings I see as my mind connects the dots on Heaven’s canvas. I love the bright gaze of Jupiter staring down at me as I stare up at her. I love the orange flicker of Betelgeuse lighting my way toward the Hunter I’ve loved so much since my youth. I remember gazing up at his belt, staring at its perfect alignment and marveling at how the dots seemed so close together, yet were so far apart. I remember realizing then that what we see from where we stand can make all of the difference in how we think.

God I love this place.

I walk.

I walk through the paths others have cut through forests created long before I was born. I embrace the stiff silence that allows the wind to make music through the brittle, dead leaves on their Mother trees. I notice how both seem to hold on to what was, neither truly wanting to admit that the time of their union has passed. It’s a certainty that the winter wind will separate those who cannot seem to let go on their own, and that the tree will sleep and the leaf will fall, lightly, to return the gift it has been given.

I cross a stream. Little tufts of earth peek through slowly moving surface of crystal clear water, reflecting Heaven’s gaze. I notice how everything reflected seems the opposite of what I see, and I wonder which is the truth. Am I seeing things as they are, or am I seeing things through a reflection in my mind that is the opposite of how they are? Whichever, I continue walking, realizing that time and space can change everything, including the distance between giant stars that likely pay no attention to each other.

I allow the cold winter winds of my life to separate me from my leaves. I let go and say goodbye as they drift away toward their destiny. I know those things I think, those things I see, are mere reflections that exist only in my mind. I am a man, after all, and can enjoy a view through both tainted eyes and the crystal clear waters of Love that exist in the calm stillness I dive into. Both exist for a reason, and a purpose to which both can be known.

God I love this place.

Here I sit. I’ve done nothing on my to-do list, yet I’ve given birth to an entire universe. To whatever blesses me with these words, I am grateful. To whatever inspires me to see beyond my flesh and bones, I am grateful. To the power that takes the ingredients of a man and makes them so very special, I am grateful. To my eyes that see and my heart that feels, I am grateful. Though I am no longer who I was, I am grateful for who I am. To the music I dance to and the voices I hear whispering lightly in my ear, I am grateful. To the scars and the wounds as well as the dream I had that gave them life, I am grateful. To the love and kindness offered that has held me steady, I am grateful. I am grateful for it all.

So I sit, in peace and in stillness as the Sun shines gently through the window, its glow changing colors through my closed eyelids. I inhale its warmth that contrasts nicely through the chilled morning air, realizing both in the same moment. I realize the stretch of time that has brought me here, the limitless experiences and infinite possibilities of what “now” has to offer. The raised bumps on my skin tell a truth, a truth that says, “Yes, you are on your way.”

God how I love this place.

I Will See You Soon

November 14, 2013 / Tom

I close my eyes, and there you are; a fire in the chilly night, a cool breeze in the scorching sun. I long to hear you sing to me, but for now I simply run amok in those fields of possibility. This silence that I hear will one day allow your sweet voice to sooth the beast within my mind, and the one day your touch will bring bumps to my skin and a tidal wave of ecstasy through my soul.

For now I am left to dream. As the pink-hued wisps of memories glow in the evening sky, I dream. In the present there is pain, a certain tale of heated anger that spills over the brim of the vessel I hold within. What has been stolen from me is nothing less than an idea that I can succeed again. What has been ripped away from my clenched fists is the method by which I provide for those I love the most. The selfish peck away at the wounds I will not show, and the ghastly beast of What Was Once gleefully prances around with the very loot she has not earned but willfully has taken.

I breathe away this wave of anger, and stick my toe again in the cool waters where you are. My dreams can take me to that golden bridge on which you stand, arms open, lips curled up in a loud but silent hello. As the cool waters embrace my willing form I float like a leaf to that place, past the chaotic rapids of my memory, through the turbulent whitewater that the past is sure to churn. In the moments I feel a certain doom I know I can persevere, rise above the surface, and breathe in the very life I wish to lead. I will survive, both because my purpose has yet to be realized and because I truly want to rest in your embrace and let you know that I, too, am real.

Tell me who you are. Tell me about the river you now float upon. Tell me about the storms you have survived, the depths that you have gone, and the moment you breathed in the life you wish to live. Tell me about the first time you saw me and the tingling of your skin. Show me the pleasure that I bring, and sing to me that sweet lullaby that you were born to sing and I was born to hear.

I wait, to discover, to uncover, and to live the very breath I take. I will see you soon…

A Pure and Holy Selfishness (An Introduction)

November 13, 2013 / Tom

“Selfishness is one of the qualities apt to inspire love.” – Nathaniel Hawthorne

I wander, in this windswept world of ideas and thoughts, and wish I could escape it all. Yet, the wish is yet another idea, part of the mind, and it seems as if there is no liberation from the voices in my head.

My soul, my essence, my spirit, has apparently decided it wants to play in the land of the Great Known. Here, everything is judged, defined, and falls under certain rules we must all live by. Judgment is a part of the breath of our physical form, for even the very act of being non-judgmental is an act of judging itself. Beneath the conscious parts of ourselves lies an undercurrent of patterned behaviors, of instilled thoughts and ideas that can only be vetted by the amount of suffering they cause. It seems as if the world around me is devoted to the act of suffering to the point where even the practice of detachment is devoted to it. We suffer in the fact that we must become detached from those things that make us suffer, never realizing that it is the suffering itself that is an arrow pointing toward places of pure joy. Yes, Eve, it is possible to revisit the Garden of Eden, but first you need to wake up from your nightmare.

I am fortunate. I live in a society where, traditionally, being white and having a penis is an immediate advantage. Yet I feel distinctly disadvantaged as I observe the suffering around me. I see men forgetting who they are, struggling daily to act like their fathers and the men who taught their fathers. I see the glorious power of women being trampled on by the fear and insecurity of men taught such things by their ancestors. I see children being victimized by those who love them the most as the shackles of ideology and culture are placed upon them, and see the wonderful wings of a child’s imagination clipped as they are taught they cannot be who they want to be, and they cannot do what they find great joy in doing.

Of course I generalize here, describing the things I see pejoratively in the largest part of the whole I have lived my entire life in. My memory brings back a time when I was a conservative white male and saw the world through those eyes. My, how the victims I see now were the victimizers then. My, how those with the least were trampled under the weight of my idea that they deserved to be. I remember how the poor were unworthy of my help, and how my white, male self was being victimized by the poor simply because I was forced to help them.

Today, of course, I have evolved and see things much differently. I’ve been wealthy and have lived the life of a wealthy, white man. I’ve had a gorgeous wife, a big house, fancy cars and money to spare. Yet, like a short-necked giraffe I could not reach the sustenance I needed even as I stood on the summit of the American dream. The fruit I needed to live was on a much higher place than I could reach, so something needed to change.

So, as is the case for most of us, something much more powerful than I took over. I lost my financial wealth and was forced to downsize a life that had gotten out of control, a process that continues even now. I lost the gorgeous wife, the fancy cars, and now live in relative simplicity. The talents that helped me accumulate wealth are still there, but my focus is now on what brings me joy. I write, I think, I protest, I work and I live to love my children. My children are not an aside to my workday, my workday is an aside to them. I have discovered the love of people I would have never known in my “past life”. I’ve taken charity, I’ve received and I have learned. I’ve learned to let go. I’ve learned to tolerate. Most of all, I’ve learned to forgive and accept while always realizing that my choices are my power. There, I’ve learned much about responsibility that goes well beyond the type my ancestors taught me.

I may not die the millionaire I once sought to be, but I will die a wealthy man. I will die a liberated man no longer a slave to the story I once saw as “my truth”. Today, I see my truth in the fact that I am a perfectly fallible man, full of judgments and opinions and thoughts and ideas. I accept the fact that there are times when I will judge you harshly for your actions, but I also accept the fact that the gaps between such judgment and my forgiveness of it is narrowing quickly. Perhaps that is the role of judgment, to make us examine the gaps between the lower vibrations within us and the higher ones we seek to feel and how quickly those gaps close.

Right now I look to compassion and love for solutions that used to come in dollars and cents (no, not sense). I’m talking about real compassion and love, not the kind that says “I’m beating you with this stick because I love you,” or “starving people is compassion because it teaches them they need to fish.” Compassion, to me, is defined by what makes me smile in service of others, and love is defined by what raises those tiny little bumps on my skin. That’s all. It’s not about you as much as it is about me.

This is a new kind of selfishness that I define as a “pure and holy selfishness.” Here, my neck must lengthen not for the good of the herd, but so I can reach that fruit at the top of the tree that will keep me alive so that I may do some good for the herd. Here, my arms must widen so that I can hug you tighter. Here, I must be happy so that I can make you smile. It has to be about “me first” so that I can put YOU first. It’s a simple equation that goes something like this:

Ok, I’m just kidding. Actually, it is more like this:

I(x) = U(x)

If “x” is happy, well then I am happy and you are happy. But I have to be happy first. I can also make you upset if x= upset. See how easy that is?

I can even change your x simply by being a different x first and choosing to stay there. Yes, I now love math when it’s taught like this.

I can attest to the fact that this is not an easy road to travel. It’s rife with the pain and anguish many spend their time avoiding. I can understand the avoidance, and I know that when the Universe says it is time you will have no choice. It may not happen in this lifetime or even the next, but it will happen when your soul is ready to experience something new we profoundly call, “the truth.” One day you will wake up, swallow the red pill, and the pathway will change. Enjoy the journey, it is nothing but wonderful once the fog lifts and the sunlight warms your heart.

Peace.

Dear Tom #1

November 12, 2013 / Tom

Dear Tom,

Sometimes even the most steady people in your life falter. They hurl stones, they throw tantrums. They create a spiral stemming from a tortured place in their mind to which you can be no cure. You become the trigger, and you become the cause of something that happened long before you existed in their life.

Forgive us, my friends, for we know not what we do. There will be times when I will hold the nails to your wrists and there will be times when you will hold them to mine. Forgive. Accept. Love. It’s the way to our enlightenment.

Understand as you lay on your cross that rarely is that nail creating a new wound. Rather, it is opening an old one, and the blood that pours out has pooled there since the dawn of your suffering.

Understand as you hold the nail firm in your angry torment that neither the hammer nor the nail are new. Rather, they’ve been bequeathed to you by countless souls that have knelt there before you. You have chosen to pick them up, and press them to the wounds of another.

Forgive. Let the blood flow and the hammer fall as a great testament to your love. Love yourself enough to become aware of this moment. See its effects now so that you may find the truth, and in that truth know that you have the power to experience whatever you want, and the power to choose how you see this experience now.

Accept. Know the beauty of the moment your skin opens and the blood flows. It is there you must shine the light of your awareness. You have chosen to bleed here and now. Are you the scar’s master or are you the slave to the story it tells? Which would you prefer?

Love. As you bring the hammer down find love in that space. You are allowing a great opportunity for the light of love to shine. Yet know you can decide to be the master of the hammer you now wield, or a slave to its weight. Which would you prefer?

Know now that your actions are nothing more than opportunities. Do not look at others now. Instead, focus and see the choices you have made to get you here. Study yourself and only use the actions of others as a chance to continue that self-study. Here you will know that you can either become the master of yourself or a slave to the stories you tell. Which would you prefer?

Novel, Day One (The Wanderer)

November 3, 2013 / Tom

Here, I stand and do not falter, and sing with a voice that does not crack.

Here, I dream the perfect sunrise, the cool crisp air in yet another morning that I’ve survived to see. I sit, content in my solitude as I have a thousand morns before, staring into the desire as my heart does gift upon my face the smile this moment has created. Slowly, majestically, the pink-hued orange sky announces her arrival. As the dark-hued lines of the nighttime realm give way to the power of the light, I feel her fingers snake between my own. Suddenly, as the winged angels of Earth’s dear breast sing the praise of yet another day, her bare skin greets my own in an embrace so familiar to my dreams that it is strange in my reality.

In the natural-flowing currents of life’s dear sea we have found each other laying on the beach. There are no rules here. There are no sworn vows, no eternal promises or promises of anything eternal. We live in the moment’s vow of nothing beyond what is, and we swear to each other nothing but the promise of a lock-free and open sky in which we rest. Here the tree provides the shade without need of compensation and the lover is free to roam where the lover wants to go, without promise of return and without need of words to swear an oath for that which the human cannot provide.

Imagine a love so pure that it holds no vows, no expectation, no need promise beyond the obvious truth of the moment’s view. There are no great orations promising the valley-dweller will see the summit, no great promises that one on the summit will reach the land of milk and honey beyond the peak-filled horizon of someone else’s ideals. Here, in this land of Eden created by true love, the lovers dance to music they have written together with no promise of harmony once the music has ended. Here, in this land of plenty there are no cries for more because both beloveds find they need no more than what the moment brings.

There is great love here, yet none greater or lesser than the love of self that allows the it all to flow to others. The hands held are grasped for the sheer pleasure of the union, and the lips that touch do so for the simple taste of the lover’s tongue. There are no obligations outside of what the self desires, and there are no needs beyond those to which the heart allows.

That is in my dream, and you are there. I hear the sweet tone of the voice I have never heard before. I see the pure love in eyes I have never set upon in this dimension. Finally, I feel the skin I have felt only in my dreams or in the zillion lifetimes we have shared before. The sun rises, and the birds sing, and the new day dawns as the lover’s dance begins. Yes, my friend, my lover, my dream, my nothing, you are hear and I am there and we are everything there ever was or will be in a single moment. We are…

Here, I am my brother’s keeper, but I am not his Master. This love does not enslave, or demand, or conquer, or demean. This love frees, so as I nurture my brother to his highest place he owes me nothing. I am my lover’s keeper, but I am not her Master. This love does not require a vow, or a ring, or a demand of a faithfulness that is not natural beyond any moment my lover lives. She is free, without adorning any chains that I have placed upon her. No, she stands as a beautiful-winged butterfly free to roam the great fields of this life. If in this love we are to never dance with another so be it, but it will not be a demand we force upon each other because it never need be made. It simply is, or is not, without a cause created in our minds to chain our hearts or sever those wings that allow our souls to fly.

Can the man live within the highest form of a soul’s pure love? Can a dreamer awaken to reality not born of his mind but rather of his heart? Can the loving warrior within me withstand the onslaught of the wretched voices instilled within me from birth?

Within those questions comes a fateful prayer. Within those storms comes a need for utter stillness. As the hands of time have pried my fingers lose, one by one, from the handhold I have grasped so firmly I have no choice but to let go. The old way, their way, has created utter failure. That old way, my way, has never served me well. In the twisted remnants of an eternal stumble comes the will to never fall again. In the cluttered field of debris I have left behind comes an oath to never crash to Earth again from shackles I have placed upon my Self. There comes a time to stand upon the wall and dare to try something new to break the siege of suffering that plagues me. Perhaps it is time to write a new book, and to create a new direction not set by those who have come before me, but by me.

I’d say here that the journey begins, but that would not be true. This journey began the very moment I began to breathe. I’d say that the paradigm has begun to shift, but that too would be inaccurate. The paradigm has been shifting long before this body was conceived. Today, now, I simply bring the paradigm shift to my journey, and my journey to the paradigm shift. Here, now, I don’t try to control the wave on which I’m riding. Instead, I simply ride it while working to maintain the balance I need to reach the shore. Each stumble improves my balance. Each fall through the foamy surf gives me hope to feel the distant sands. When my body hits the bottom of the sea it is not the water that I feel, but sands that give me promise of the shore. When my body breaks the surface of the sea it is not the depth that I fear, but the air that fills my lungs that gives me hope. Each breath, each moment of survival, is a single prayer of hope that the shore is just one more ride away.

Wanderers, or those like me, are not strangers to fear. It is the sea that prevents us from drawing breath, but it is also the sea that shows us promise of the air above the surface. The ocean’s depth could cause us to drown, but it also gives birth to the wave on which we ride toward the promise of the shore. One does not live without the other, and in the desert it is the thirst that drives the wanderer onward toward the next oasis to quench a thirst only he can describe.

I look forward to the journey, and I look forward to the sharing. I look forward to the experience well outside anything I have ever known. I no longer cater to the fear that once held me firm to old beliefs, and I no longer fear the falling. I no longer listen to the Great Liar, the fears I’ve been taught and have felt since the moment I fell from my enlightened place. Now, I dream of the ascension as I mutter the only vow I will ever utter again in my life.

“There will be no promises. Ever.” Now, onward I go.

I wish…

October 29, 2013 / Tom

I wish I was more evolved, more understanding, more committed. I wish I better understood the toil, the turmoil, and the suffering. I simply wish…

I wish I knew then what I know now. I wish I could turn the hands of time to a moment when I was lost, point in a direction and say “you want to go that way!” I wish I could have brought the eternal knowledge of a million lifetimes into those moments when I knew not what I was doing and then forgive even the slightest of trespasses. I wish I could have seen the light when it was but a slight glimmer in the corner of my life, and I wish I could have then embraced those moments I can’t seem to let go of now.

I wish I would have told you more. I wish I could have shown you more. I wish that in the weakness of my darkest hours I could see the strength of the lighted path that was unfolding before me. I wish those stars I once gazed upon could have shaken me from my slumber before the end came, and I wish that I had simply been able to feel then all that I feel now. I wish I could have built on the laughs and the promises of things to come. I wish I could have known that each moment, each embrace, wasa countdown to an end my mind could not foresee.

I know it was not meant to be. I know it is as it has to be. I know that in the hidden tears of my heart the song of joy is sung loudly and with a chorus of a million seconds as they whiz by. I know that the memories and the pictures kept no longer turn my world to black even as they draw me to the wishing.well. Here, at this well, I do not draw on a want of something in the future but rather on the desire of a different past. Here the well does not quench my thirst but dries me out, leaving me wanting for something I cannot find and needing something I will never have.

I know I am not a victim, but a great procreator. I have given birth to each new path, each new step on this journey to the unknown. Here, the part of me grateful that I cannot change the past arises as a Warrior. I stand in a certain resolve not to suffer from the mist of the past, but rather be strengthened by it. It is no longer a fight to be won but a surrender to the experience of acceptance. Here I ride the wave as an active participant bent not on directing the water but rather surviving the ride toward the shore. Each tumble through the rough break strengthens my balance, each rough smash of skin and bone through the surface of the foamy abyss strengthens my stride as I swim toward the next swell. I will not stop, and I will not let the reefs or beasts of the sea keep me from my destiny.

It’s time, my friends, to rise and speak our labored truth. It’s time to dismantle the conditioning of our ancestors and to no longer seek the path already tread. It’s time we learn from our mistakes and turn them into the type of perfections that turn mere mortals into saints in the eyes of unknowing gods. It’s time to make new mistakes rather than to repeat the ancient ones, and it is time to find new cures to old ideas not in the hopes of not suffering, but rather in the real promise of becoming wise in the torment. If we must cry, let’s cry tears that create a wave taking us to new places. If we must feel pain let it drive us to new areas of comfort. If we must feel loss let us not grasp it but rather allow it to push us toward something true to hold on to.

I just long to make it all meaningful and worthwhile. I wish to honor the loss with a great discovery. I wish to find the truth in the midst of the great lie. I wish to know the wisdom in the throes of my own ignorance. I no longer wish to read your book but rather write my own. I want to redefine my experience not just from this moment on, but from the beginning. I no longer want to know the sunrise through your eyes, but rather create it from my own.

I love. I love you. I love you all. Peace.

Sometimes

October 5, 2013 / Tom

Sometimes…

Sometimes I do my best work when no one sees me at the plow. Sometimes I have my best swims when no one sees me reach the shore. Sometimes the best things I’ve ever written are the stories no one will ever read. Sometimes I’m my most grateful when I’ve never said a word.

Sometimes I just need to shut up and ride the wave. Sometimes I need to watch without comment. Sometimes my utter silence is when I am at my most profound. Sometimes I need to watch the sunrise without painting it, or writing about it, or describing its glory in words. Sometimes the greatest art is found when doing nothing at all.

No one needs tell the fire to burn, or the sun to set. No one needs to command the leaves to change their color, or to fall to the ground. No one needs to direct the tides, or teach the winds how to blow. We are all so beautiful in our own natural setting. Sometimes I just need to return there.

I wonder if the inspiration of silence I’ve experienced over the last week is a great gift of the Divinity that often overflows my chalice with words. I wonder, as I watch others flail about their oceans with words that fail to have real meaning, if silence is truly a gift I have been given. I wonder if that which I’ve often viewed as horrible consequence is actually the thrill of my life. Sometimes I just need to see it differently.

Maybe in the silence I have found the value of the sound. Maybe in the lie I have found the value of the truth. Maybe in the stark blankness of the sheets of paper that lie before me I have found the value of the gift I have been given. Maybe sometimes I need to lose in order to win the greatest prize of all.

There is much love in the things we fear the most, and there is much hope in our greatest despair. It’s there, after all, that we will find the meaning of it all. Sometimes I simply takes the courage to look.

Reflection

September 17, 2013 / Tom

We are all reflections. Of someone. Of some thing. We are a story of the mind, the mind of others and the mind within our selves.

Our minds create the glass on which we see ourselves, as well as the characters we create that dance along the mirrored pillars of our lives. We focus on the surface of the waters on which we sail, our vessels churning according to the ripples that we see, our visions distorted by the fog of our own design as we wretch helplessly in the storms we ourselves give rise to. This world, this existence, is ours, and we have given it over to the greatest demons ever made.

Ourselves.

We are the victim and the abuser, the tortured and the torturer. We are a reflection of ourselves somehow believing we are powerless to change the story. We kneel before false idols of our own creation and then wonder in bewilderment when they crush us. We worship a paper god we have created in our own image and we allow it to master us instead of the other way around. We give the power that defines us over to others, and then rebel against the very thing we have forgotten is ours.

It’s both empowering and frightening when you swallow the red pill. It’s no wonder so few of us choose to take it. We like the idea of something else being in control, of some divinity guiding our lives. We love the idea that our choice ends at following some rules set upon us by some power other than ourselves. We want to feel in control while actually not being in control, helpful while helpless, sane while practicing the very definition of insanity.

It’s hard to claim full responsibility for the story. It’s difficult to realize the power we are, the power we have, as the truth. We’ve been lulled into such a sense of security that we don’t want to give up our blankies in exchange for the real power of who we are. So, we bury ourselves deep in the fabric, hoping that the warmth we feel never ends without ever truly realizing it is our own heat we are feeling.

Yes, it’s scary. This security comes at a price. We call that price stress, suffering, and disease. At some point some of us must ask, “is that price worth it?”

I’m sick of the stress. I’m sick of the suffering. I’m sick of the disease, as ironic as that sounds. Most of all, I’m sick of the legacy I am leaving my children. Do I curse them with the same old suffering created by the same old insanity? Do I give them the lessons taught to me by my parents and my society that have never, ever, ever worked?

Or do I try to teach them something else, something pretty well untried in a society where success is measuring by things and thriving is measured in dollar signs?

I believe that the next American revolution may very well be a bloodless one where the individual recognizes his own power, reclaims it, and rebels against the shackles we have allowed others to place on us.The next “shot heard around the world” may very well be a silent one where the shooter lives minimally and the target is those things that keep us stress-free. The forward lines in the next battle may be drawn between those selling it all and those giving it all away.

“So you think that money is the root of all evil? Have you ever asked what is the root of money?” ~ Atlas Shrugged

I am taking a hard look at what is creating suffering in my life. Attachment. Adherence to a vision not mine. Worshipping false idols (or worshipping any idol for that matter). I’m diving deep beyond the glass, beneath the surface, trying to find the root of the root. I don’t want to suffer anymore and, more importantly, I want to give my children a basis for non-suffering in their own lives. So, I’ve begun dumping my tea into the harbor, and I’m preparing for the only revolution that matters, the one within me.

It all comes down what I want to see when I look in the mirror and what I want to find on my open sea. Once I have that realization it will time to unfurl the sails and let the wind take me away.

Peace.