Category: Short Stories (Page 37 of 46)

“Expect Much of Yourself (and Little of Others)” Lent #8

February 21, 2013 / Tom

So read the message out of the fortune cookie I just devoured. The result was the same as is often the case when random messages hit my eyes and I began pondering the meanings of such a message in my own life. Just as I often do, I will share my musings with the hope that you don’t hate me too much as a result.

That in itself is my expecting little of you. Yes, I can count with much sorrow the numbers of people who have stopped being my friend because of my attitudes about things. For instance, there are my former friends who are Catholic who first decided to leave my company because of my attitude about the Church (I’ll spare you the gory details in the hopes that more fruit doesn’t drop from my tree). I lost more when I decided to abandon that cult (uh oh) for a more stable and, for me, truer belief system.

I’ll admit I didn’t expect their reaction. After all, Jesus preached about tolerance and love so I expected those who followed his message to tolerate me following my own path. I expected them to smile, preach to me for a bit about how I could be “saved”, and then just consider the good things about me that they liked in the first place. After all, they couldn’t have just liked me because I ate a wafer while pretending it was a body, drank some wine while pretending it was blood, and gave my hard-earned money to an organization that is among the wealthiest in the world to support priests who actually lived better than some in their own congregation. They couldn’t suddenly dislike me because I found “God” in the woods while finding little of Her in the ornate garnishments of an overly large building they referred to as “God’s house”. Or could they?

Before you get all crazy about my tone and my choice of words, understand that I was not always this blunt in expressing my beliefs. I used to take a sensitive, tactful path toward explaining myself when asked. I would watch my words while expressing myself compassionately and lovingly only to find that the very idea that “one of them” could “reject Jesus” was enough to have me thrown out on the street. I would explain that I loved the message of Jesus. I loved the idea of living compassionately and without bias, often in poverty while washing the feet of my servants (I didn’t have any, so that part was easy). I loved giving of myself, of eating with those considered sinners within my society, and surrendering to the Universe (using the word “Universe” instead of “God” somehow instantly turns you into a hippie new-ager going straight to hell. I now wear the moniker with pride.)

Well, I no longer watch my words when discussing religion, particularly the Catholic church and generally Christianity. I usually begin to lose my cool right around the “well Muslims blow up things” that invariably falls freely from the mouths of most Christians I talk to about the history of Christianity. I whip out my “guns” (facts) and begin shooting “bullets” (the truth). Mostly, those Christians I talk to quickly don their own bullet (truth) proof vest (the Bible) until they can retreat into the world of silence and “excommunication” through the mechanism of being offended. It’s an interesting mechanism.

I then lost a whole bunch of “friends” when I decided to experience the vegan/vegetarian lifestyle. It seems that if you decide the killing of animals and the physical effects the practice of carnivorism has on your body is not for you, you suddenly become an unwelcome insect in some circles. I, frankly, had no idea my choice would have this effect. Now, I realize that most of us who decide to adopt this lifestyle can get a bit “preachy”, but understand that when you begin to experience the wonderful effects of a plant-based diet you want everyone you love to know about it. I’m a giving guy mostly and it felt like I had found some secret to feeling great. I had never felt so alive and vibrant then when I was vegan. Why would I not want to share that awesome feeling with those I care about?

That is a mistake when it comes to health. You need to shut up, and you need to simply feel great all on your own it seems. People seem to love their unhealthy lifestyles, and regardless of how much they may love you they will quickly turn if you try to take away their meat, their processed foods, and their poisonous fast food lifestyle. I have since become mostly vegetarian as I’ve recently decided to give some meats a try to see if it helps me.

The truth? Adding meats to my diet has made me a physical wreck. My joints now ache. I feel tired. I feel stuffed and I am gaining some weight. Secretly (if you don’t want to know skip to the next paragraph) every nagging ailment that had bothered me before I made the switch to vegetarianism has returned in force as if they were waiting for me to “slip up”. So, I have made a decision to go back to vegetarianism at the very least and veganism whenever possible. While I, and others, may be experts in lying to themselves, our bodies refuse to lie to us. My body tells me to stop eating the meat and return to the greens and veggies that made me feel more alive than I have in my entire life. Pain is a voice of the body telling us that something is wrong. Fatigue is telling us we are doing something that is making us tired. The only thing that I have changed is the adding of meat so I figure that has to be the reason. So, I simply cut it out and see if that is truly the reason. If my body returns back to its former feeling I know I have found an answer; my own “fountain of youth”.

This time I won’t preach unless specifically asked. I will go about my business and not say a word to anyone unless they ask. I don’t care how great I feel or how bad they feel. They are free to poison themselves as much as they want just as I am free to seek health in a way my experience has taught brings it to me.

The next destruction of some of my friendships was the gun control debate. Man, people truly love their instruments of killing. I used to be one of them, so I understand the addictive qualities of maximum firepower and the warm feeling one finds in the false sense of security. Still, I never expected to be challenged as I have. I even had one former friend tell me that we need to protect the easy access to guns despite our kids dying because knife violence would increase. Now this type of reasoning will get me out of my shell pretty easily. See, the visions of bullet-riddled kids in a classroom simply does not allow for the idea of rising knife violence to enter into my mind. I simply cannot look at the facts surrounding gun violence and forgive it because someone may use a knife instead. Perhaps it is that thing we all call “common sense” that has infected my brain. I just hope it is contagious.

As you can see, I can posses an acerbic wit at times. I can be very blunt and very “acidic” in my delivery on certain topics. I have found this tact works best for me. See, it gets my point across to those who would put on a fake smile, a fake “Jesus saves” button on their lapel while putting their fake arm around me in friendship. I can disagree with my friends without discarding them. I don’t love their opinions, or their beliefs, I love them. So discarding any one of my friends for some idea they may have (there are exceptions to this rule; priest-like people who would harm young children is one example) is ludicrous.

That is me expecting a lot of myself. I have had to learn, however, to expect little of others. Yes, I am sure that they believe they are doing the same and simply not tolerating my heresy and liberalism. I get it. Yet for every friend that disappears in the fog of differing beliefs I find one that is tolerant, truly compassionate and worthy of my trust. Still, it is the expectation that is the crippling injury here.

I have learned that the reason for my acerbic wit and blunt delivery is similar to the idea in farming of “thinning the crop”. A farmer will go through his crop and purposely knock fruit off the trees in order to increase the quality of the remaining fruit. I have no doubt that my methodology is doing the same thing. I am making room for quality fruit by getting rid of the excess. I am attracting people who think like me and, in the process, finding that great minds truly do think alike (ahem, yes that is a laugh you hear in my arrogance). Yes it is easier to feed the hungry when I am partnered with those who want to feed people in a healthy way and not those who want to argue about what red meat to give them. Yes it is easier to dance this dance when we are all listening to the same song.

Yet I rarely take the easy way out so I will continue to allow anyone who disagrees with me to argue their point. I won’t shun you (unless you act in a priestly way while harming young children, for example) and I won’t deny you. You will be my friend, and you will be in my heart. I love your perspective because even as I debate the point with you I am challenging my own views through you and learning. Even as my pig-headed and stubborn self is debating you I am challenging everything and learning in the process. Why would I not love you for all of your effort?

Finally, there is a Lent 2-7 in my drafts folder. I didn’t post them because they are about the Christopher Dorner escapade and I feared losing even more friends over my feelings there. Plus, I am in the process of combining those masterpieces into one large journalistic piece (journalism today being op-ed pieces with facts strewn in there somewhere). I will call that “Lent 2-7” when I am done just to prove that I have kept my Lenten vow. Yes, it would be the first time in my life that I truly stuck to my Lenten promise.

Give to Live (Lent Post #1)

February 14, 2013 / Tom

So I’ve made this commitment to write something every day of lent as part of my “Give Something, Don’t Sacrifice, for Lent” thought. Rather than sacrifice, say, ketchup for lent, I decided to share my ketchup with you as a way that I’ve decided to celebrate lent. Yet, I used to be Catholic, so perhaps this is one way to assuage my conditioned guilt complex while, at the same time, not give in to it completely. Actually, it truly seems to me to be just something that lets me honor the tradition of lent while doing so in my unique (but not completely different) relationship with the Universe (what some of us call “God”). Maybe the parts of me that want to attract the positive have decided that sacrifice and rejection only breeds suffering and more rejection whereas the embracing attracts the very things we are searching for. In the immortal words of Sammy Hagar in the song “Give to Live”:

If you want love you’ve got to give a little

If you want faith you just believe a little

If you want peace turn your cheek a little

Oh, you’ve got to give, you’ve got to give, you’ve got to give to live

And let’s not forget that you will always get what you ask for. So, if I want you to laugh at me, I have to be first willing to laugh at myself. If I want you to love me, I first need to love myself. The beautiful art of giving is not about rejection or sacrifice, it is first about being willing to accept it all. You can’t give what you don’t have, so you first must gain the very thing you want to give and that only happens when you are willing to ask for it, accept it and, yes, expect it. I can’t feed the hungry if I have no food, and I can’t love you deeply and passionately if I have no love within me.

So the idea of sacrificing something as a method of honoring Love, God, Universe, Being (whatever you want to call It) seems silly in my unique (but not completely different) relationship with It. I need to EMBRACE and ACCEPT things even if my non-attachment to those things means I can easily give them away. The idea is to not focus on the “sacrifice” but on the acceptance. Don’t “sacrifice” chocolate for lent, instead readily accept it but then give it away.

Therefore, I decided to not “sacrifice” writing for lent but to readily accept each and every moment of inspiration and then give it away. I know, that is not something unusual for me, but it is evidence of the beautiful dynamic between the acceptance and the sharing, of the getting and the giving, that makes the gift and the giver One. In order for the Universe to bestow Her wonderful gifts on us all we must not only be expectant of such gifts but must also be completely willing to accept them all. I must be willing to expect these moments of inspiration. I must then be willing to accept them. Then I must be willing to not have them flow to me, but through me. I can take what I need and then let the rest go to those who can use it.

Maybe that is what the season of lent should be about. Maybe it should be about not sacrificing anything but rather about practicing the letting go of attachments we have to things we don’t need. Maybe it should be about the flowing through, not to. Abundance should not stop with me, it should come to me with whatever I don’t need making its way to others who do have a need. Well, I am wondering what would happen if 4 billion people all did this type of practice. Stop sacrificing things as if having them is some kind of negative to begin with. Instead, accept those things and then give away what you don’t need. Hhhhhhmmmmmm, that sounds like an idea Jesus himself could certainly get behind. At least the Jesus I know.

Peace.

The Wanderer and His Children

February 11, 2013 / Tom

When, I ask humbly, is it time to tighten the laces on my boots and to just start walking?

When, I question the Universe around me sternly, is it time to stop catering to the maniacal creations of man and start living?

I feel it in every pore of my body and nearly every fiber of my existence. I need to walk. I need to let go of all of this stuff and just start walking. Starve if I must, freeze if I have to, die a lonely and tired death if that is what I am destined to do but do it nonetheless. I close my eyes and can see it clearly; a roughly unshaven man walking with the mountains and the pink-hued tales of sunsets as his backdrop with nothing by his side but the stories of then and the causes of now guiding him.

The more I sit idle in this apartment the more I feel sure that every note the Universe sings to me is telling me to leave. The more I sit alone in stillness the more I am sure that the echo in my mind takes me to a place I have never been before. The more I look at the wreckage of my life behind me the more I feel destined to walk the wilderness of this place both figuratively and literally. The more I look at my hands once filled with the grip of lovers the more I know I should have a walking stick in one and a book in the other. The more I miss the embrace of passion the more I am certain it only stings to open my arms. My heart is open and full even if my arms are empty. My legs are restless with the fatigue of modern life and with the weight needing things. My shoulders are raw and sore from bearing the crosses of my experience, and rather than stumble and fall under the weight of that wood I simply want to pick it up and throw it far over some cliff somewhere. I want to watch it tumble through the open air, and I want to watch it shatter into a billion splinters as it hits the craggy rocks below. I want to be done with it and die a free, liberated soul.

Yet the Universe has given me chains that bind me to this place. I look at the eyes of my loving children and I weep for the ties that bind me here. I hear the word “Daddy” and I shudder at the thought of not hearing it again save those moments when dreams remind me of who I am to them. I wonder if they could ever forgive me for leaving while, at the same time, wonder if they can ever forgive me for staying. I wonder if I am failing to teach them the most wonderful lesson of all, that we are not born to wear the chains given to us by our parents and, ostensibly, by our posterity but are rather born to be free people liberated from such need. I wonder if they would get it, if they would take flight themselves one day, and if they would love the man who simply sought to be a free man wandering among the chains that bound others to a nonexistent dream. I wonder if I need to be the teacher, or if I need to remain a slave to the ideas of what I need to be, created not by me, but by others who will teach my children that I have failed them.

In those fibers of my existence that cause me to stay I have found a tight chain binding me to this piece of ground. The mountains call. The beaches beg. The road whispers in my ear but the chains clang loudest as my babies hug me and tell me how much they love me. The sweet music of that clanging chain rings loudly in my ears, reminding me of all I have ever wanted to be while demonstrating to me that I can be it given the right set of eyes, ears and limbs to adorn me. Their love fills my heart with the nectar of the gods while their laughter fills my ears with a certain knowledge that I am here for a reason. The Universe laughs heartily at this human notion that I am a provider of something even as my mind begs to be that provider. I want to be special here. I want to be needed here. I love being “Daddy” and I love being me. Yet, I need to walk to be free.

For now I lay next to my son and play with my daughter’s hair listening to their stories and their jokes and their dreams only

Photo by Tom Grasso

imagining walking free among the trees and sleeping under the stars. I only imagine the pangs of hunger as I wait for nature to provide. I only imagine never hearing my phone ring, or getting the mail, or hearing about some human atrocity or insanity inflicted on another. I can only dream of the sounds of nature being my constant companion, and Earth under my body as I make my way to some destination only God knows.

I can only imagine meeting people whose names do not matter, whose faces are but temporary visions in a story full of those things. I can only imagine being woken up each morning by the rain, or the sun, or the birds, or the crack of thunder.

I smile wandering in my mind while enjoying the moment with those who love me dearly. I laugh at the sound of my son cracking himself up. He is his Dad’s son for sure. No one can crack himself up like I can save this wonderful boy who is laying on me telling jokes that magically appear in his head. I love his little voice, the fact that a boy so big for his age can still bring a smile to my face with the innocence of his voice. I love his big little hands as they hold mine, his fingers tightly grabbing his “favorite poopy Daddy” with all of their might. I love his stories, his insight, and the brave way he adorns his fears as if they are a cape rather than something to be ashamed of. I love how he buries his sturdy head into me when something that scares him comes on the screen, and how he tells me his goal in life is to be “an Army guy who delivers pizzas.” I love his rationale; he can be in the Army but help people who are hungry at the same time. A peaceful warrior who carries a big gun with the voice of an angel making people laugh along the way. That’s my boy.

I give a chuckle marveling at my baby girl. She was born early and a fighter with what the doctors called “an attitude.” Yes, an attitude, a medical term for a tough female who has a heart of gold and a will of tempered steel. Her laugh can make anyone laugh, and I love when I say something that hits that spot where that laugh comes from. She’s as beautiful as her mom, with an artistic ability that comes from both her parents. She is steely sensitive, often unwilling to let her heart out even as her compassion and love comes spilling out all over the place. Her smile can make me instantly feel alive, and in those rare moments when she says “Daddy, I love you” my heart melts and the Sun breaks through even the thickest clouds. I know love here in this place with these Beings, and I know the sweet music of a man imprisoned by the sheer joy of love like a bird imprisoned by the loving tug of wind beneath its wings. Sometimes the freedom isn’t in the flight, but in the ability to land wherever you so choose.

My oldest daughter isn’t here, she’s away at college being mad at me for one thing or another. She may never know how she woke me up at the moment of her birth. She may never realize how dead asleep I was in my own drunken state, and how that gigantic spark of love felt the moment my eyes saw her began an awakening process that continues to this day. She is, was, and remains a gift who doesn’t realize her greatness. Yes, I am blessed.

Those are my tethers to this world, this reality; my “happy chains”. Those are the fuel to the fire of my joy that shows itself in the smile that crests upon my face in their presence. Those are the once-dreams-now-reality manifestations of a prayer once uttered by a lonely boy in the darkness of his tortured chamber. Those are what keep me here, rooted in the human dream-state we call reality wondering why I need to live here at all. Those are the little specks of “me” that grow daily into something completely “not me”. Those are flakes of angel’s dust that will remain long after my body returns to the place it was spawned from. Those are my children, my babies, my life.

Smile now and get the joy out of you. Laugh at my condition, the one that sees me playing this insane human game because of a Divine joy I have in being with those I love. Laugh at me while I play a string-less guitar singing a song you have never heard of before. Laugh at me as I dance out of your rhythm although certainly within my own. Watch me walk, fade into the pink-hued sunset of my dreams as the laughter of my little ones follows me into the wilderness. Chuckle if you must but please, I beg of you, never offer me that sympathetic “shake of the head” in bewilderment of my actions. Never offer my children a condolence as they eye their Dad with a spy-glass that cuts through the trees and the mist and the fog and the dew leaving only a certain truth to be seen. Let them laugh at their Dad and be free unto themselves in whatever fit of laughter, anger, sadness or joy they find in their ever-present moment. Who knows, maybe one day you may strike up the courage to tighten your laces and walk into the woods even if for a little while.

As for now I will close this chapter as the dusk settles in on yet another day. I will go and check on my now-sleeping sparks of joy and settle into my own place for the evening. I will let go of my passion for walking and rest here for a little while waiting to repeat the insanity and the wondering and, yes, the wandering all over again tomorrow. I am not sure of anything except the fact that if I am graced with yet another day of breathing here I will be blessed with another day looking out at the horizon wishing I was walking there. I will wake up, shower and make breakfast for the three of us. Then I will begin yelling, screaming, begging and praying for my little ones to get ready for school. I will have to remember that they don’t necessarily care to brush their teeth or comb their hair. I will have to be aware that their school necessities are necessary not to them, but to insane adults who put such importance on such meaningless things. I will have to remember that they don’t quite yet get the vast importance of “being on time” and that they simply don’t yet know that money does not grow on trees. I will have to remember that none of my important “adult” things matter one bit to my two littlest bundles of joy. I will then realize, again, that I am jealous that they haven’t yet been bitten by the serpent of insanity that has infected most of us with a disease called “adulthood”. I will then shake my head, vow to take it easier on those who still marvel at the idea that we adults think that we are, well, right. I will also vow to be more like the boy who believes that Army men should deliver pizzas and the girl who refuses to quit at anything she does. I will also vow to call the 18-year old who doesn’t answer anything not a text and who will most likely not return my voice mail.

Then I will look out at the trees, tighten the laces of my boots, and vow again to walk one day to parts still unknown. I will hear the mighty roar of nature in my mind. I will feel the breeze rustle through my heart and the leaves fracture beneath my feet. I will dream of freedom from the dream even as I caress the chains that keep me firmly planted here. I will go to an office I can’t stand, go through the motions I have practiced most of my adult life, and wander through the mundane practice of insanity we all call “sanity”. I will do it all over and over again until, one day, I either walk free or return to the dust we call “heaven”.

My First Kiss

February 7, 2013 / Tom

My first kiss.

I’d rather not share with you the tale of my first kiss. That story of clumsy and ineffectual pecking is best saved for a time when I want to make my children laugh with hysterics in a more advanced age. No, for this purpose I want to share with you all my first kiss, that kiss that still burns in my heart and still brings me to my knees.

She had come from a distance. We had flirted with the idea of kissing for quite a while, and that idea had come to a reality in what seemed like an eternal wait for her body to meet in that place where our hearts and our souls had already arrived. We had been talking for weeks and learning about each other at the most fundamental of levels, sharing pictures and teasing innuendo as we played with the idea of actually making something of the feeling we both shared. My soul had never spoken to me before like it was speaking to me at that moment, and I had never felt the presence of another Being in me as I had her. It was a love I had never experienced in my life, and one that still flows in my veins and brings my soul to a presence undeniably Divine.

The hours since she had alerted me to her departure dragged by. It seemed like the weeks prior to her leaving were shorter than the 6 hours it took her to arrive. She had texted me at the crossing of each state line during her drive, and when the text arrived that said “New Jersey” I nearly lost my breath in anticipation. That hour and a half or so seemed to pass slower than had any other moment in my life.

Over and over again I seemed to look at the clock only to see the second-hand had moved. I cursed the time and realized that the time she would be with me would move much faster. I wondered if I could somehow capture the slowness of this moment and apply it to the moments we would share. I knew somewhere Einstein was laughing in his grave at the notion.

Oddly, I had no doubt that this was to be a special meeting. My eyes, my mind, my heart and my soul all had been opened to a wondrous new awareness in the weeks since our discussions had started. The air tasted fresher as it entered my lungs. The sky seemed brighter. The tumult that was my life seemed relatively meaningless in the face of the power of what I was feeling. It seemed all so very perfect and necessary, and shortly I would hold the hand of a lover I had never met.

Weird, huh? Yes, for me it was all so very weird. My life had not led me to such a destination before, and my heart was not accustomed to such folly. This type of relationship was not my type. I had not met someone who inspired my Entirety the way she had. What happens if she is not real? What if she never shows up?

Soon I found my mind drifting off to memories of her words, her voice, her sweet nothings and her beautiful everythings. I was feeling the embrace of her mind and the touch of her soul in the chilled spring air as I sat in stillness feeling the rush of it all force out the seeds of doubt that were springing up all around me. I felt her getting closer to me with each inhalation to the point where exhalation became nearly impossible.

Eventually there came her headlights in the darkened distance. As the two eyes of the night grew closer I could feel the gaps in my heartbeat become shorter and shorter. I sat on a curb as some port of call for her to find until those lights got closer. I stood up, barely able to stand but also unable to sit any longer. The moment had arrived.

With some direction she parked her car and got out. My body had forgotten the benefits of breathing as I walked over to greet her. My God! her beauty caused me to flutter. Her smile lit up the evening sky as if the Sun herself had come to the dance. Her eyes, those gateways that had first captured my attention and caused me to reach out to the distant horizon, would not let me go. At some point I stopped walking and began floating to the place where my entire world came together.

We hugged, and as our lips touched I had my first kiss. For the first time the world ceased to exist where we were. As our lips embraced and our tongues danced I couldn’t tell you where I was or what was around me. Except her. Her heartbeat. Her breath. Her body. Her soul. All meshed with mine in a way that told me I was exactly where I needed, and wanted, to be. We two ice cubes had further melted into our singular pool of Love.

Our breath became one in that first kiss. Our bodies sunk into each other as stars melded and suns engulfed each other. Life was born there, and memories faded. Injury was cured, scars healed, and a song that God herself sang was written in that place where our two bodies finally felt a new earth born. There, I knew my destiny. There, I needed no proof of anything.

We repeated that first kiss many, many times over the course of our time together. I call those moments the “Big Bang”, the creation of a Universe of Love that may never be repeated again in this lifetime. Eventually, like is the case with many a Universe, the mind seemed to kill what the Divine had created yet each time my heart beats I remember that first kiss and the purity that defined it.

In that regard I will always cherish that moment. It continued a process of transformation that continues even this day, and I still get the feeling of absolute and pure love in the memory. While a tear may creep its way into my eye in the thought, it is a smile that forces it to spill upon my cheek. I am grateful for feeling such love, and while the experience may never be repeated again in my life, I certainly am grateful for the opportunity I had to have it. I have been blessed.

*Love*

This Time…

February 2, 2013 / Tom

The weird part was that I thought this would be easy. I thought once realization happened the rest would come naturally. That was how it had been before, and in the 45 years I have lived in this existence it had always been a pretty easy process.

Not this time.

This time I have found a hole in my heart unfilled by realization or by diversion or by any other means yet discovered by this Wanderer. This time each known method of progress keeps taking me back to where I have started. The realization caused things to “end” (a euphemism at this point since nothing has truly “ended” within me). Diversions are supposed to lessen the impact and make moving on a smoother ride. Absence is supposed to work with time to limit the flow of memories and of desire. “Supposed to”. In this case it’s just been a rather stark “epic fail”.

This time realization set our feet in concrete to see the end become reality. Like two ships parting in the fog of night we followed our own currents to different lands. Like a Lion and Tiger we staked our claim to the prairies of our existence and marked our separate territories with words and actions. Here is where the story ends for me usually. Here is where I move on. Here is where I simply know I have had enough and untangle the web in my heart where she once caught my dreams and held them tight. Here is where the hole fills, where the beauty of the stars diverts my attention from the beauty of the moon. Here is where I forgive, forget, and find bliss elsewhere.

Not this time.

This time I sit in stillness weeping on the inside. This time the stars hold no luster for me. This time the moon has captured my heart and holds it completely. This time I feel helplessly surrendered to the soul that refuses to budge from its position. This time I feel truth in the knowledge that Love is a dynamic that cannot be explained and, to borrow a line from one of my favorite movies, “can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.”

Different from the Terminator is that Love, of course, doesn’t stop even after your body dies. In It’s truth, Love continues on even when the mind and ego have conspired against it. In this experience I have learned that the soul sees and only knows Love first and when it finds its mate it refuses to let go. Your mind cannot handle things in its frailty. Your ego refuses to allow things based on its greed. Your soul…well your soul refuses to let Love die even when the ego and the mind demand it so. I have experienced True Love for someone other than my children in this lifetime for the first time since my birth, and my soul refuses to let go.

My mind harbors no fantasies of reconciliation. My ego demands I find alternatives to edge my soul out of the discussion. Yet each act of ego and of mind serves to highlight the strength of my soul’s conviction to its own realization. At my core I am in Love, and the rest of me can’t help to be in love with that which my soul demands I know.

So, while the breeze from her lips tries to turn the page my soul holds firm to the book. I can still hear her soul, her very Being, call out to me. This isn’t a mental thing, it isn’t a psychological dependence on a fantasy. No, this is something so deep within me that it will bring a tear to my eye at the slightest moment of stillness. My mind has moved on and is as equally determined to stay there as my soul is to remain knowing this Love it has found. Imagine that, a battle between the Divine and the man that is completely absent the need for her physical presence. Imagine she does not need to be in this dynamic for me to Love her, or to need her, or to be faithful to the truth that what my soul has found can never be lost. Imagine an embrace devoid of the physical that encompasses the vastness of the Universe in its most quantum level.

So why lie about it? Why pretend that I am not in Love, not with a body that is absent in my life, but with a soul that could never leave? Men lie too often about what their soul knows as they cater to not only their egoic need for solace but also for the egoic need of others to be the One. Others may capture my body or my mind but my soul is elsewhere, begging the Universe to be heard. I wonder if that will change as I wander this place, or if time and space will find my soul’s dream realized in the presence of what it knows.

This time I will search those caves and shine light in places I once feared to tread. What an exploration this has been as I laugh and cry, dance and sit still, remember and forget all at the same time! What a realization this has been. What a journey…

Not as We (Song of Inspiration)

January 26, 2013 / Tom

Reborn and shivering
Spat out on new terrain

Unsure, unconvincing
This faint and shaky hour

He stared out at the vastness of the ocean fumbling with thoughts and emotions he simply was unsure of what to do with. He couldn’t feel the rather chilly waves embracing his feet while sending his body deeper into the forgiving earth that once held him firm and steady in a place he called “paradise”. The firmness, it seemed, was an illusion just as sure as that place of paradise was a dream. None of it existed in his present moment.

This was nothing like anything he had ever known. He wasn’t losing something he desired. He wasn’t seeing the end of some ideal he valued, or the failure to achieve some goal he strived for. No, as he stood staring blankly at a deep blue sea he realized he was losing something he truly loved. He was losing the truth of love in the undertow of his mind and there was nothing he could do to save it. Instead he allowed his eyes to follow the Love he felt as if it were the foamy trails of sea water fading out to the deep and disappearing into the soft sand that gathered all around him. A piece of him was being washed out into the abyss, never to be seen or heard from again.

This moment was not about right or wrong, about winning or losing, it was about the pureness of love being washed away in the currents of the mind. He could feel those little pieces of the remarkable experience he shared falling into the water and vanishing. He could feel the broken shards of the deepest experience of his life falling into the sea to be weathered into smooth pieces of glass that one day would be picked up, marveled at, and kept as a souvenir by someone else. A part of him just wanted to walk into that sea and find those pieces of glass and experience them whole again just one more time. Maybe now that one time would last until his body returned to the dust it was created from. Maybe they could get it right this time. Maybe…

Day one, day one, start over again

Step one, step one, I’m barely making sense

I’m faking it ’til I’m pseudo making it
From scratch, begin again, but this time I as I…
…And not as we

He shrugged off the melancholy and sat. His mind was in clear turmoil between what it said and what his heart screamed loudly beyond it. The fight was no longer out there but was now within him. The struggle wiped him out most days, yet he knew that with time the transformation would be complete. The struggle itself created a focus within and forced him to deal with the truest conflicts of his experience. The need to leave and to stay all did battle with the reality that he could do neither. All he could do was sit there, shiver, and watch the ocean take away those parts that no longer existed within him.

Even then, even now, he knew that there would always be one piece that would never be shed from him. It was like the Sun as it became the only star in the sky as the others faded away. It had warmed him in his coldest moments just as it had left him frozen in its absence. It had offered him promise of today just as it had reminded him of the darkness of yesterday. It had told him that it would never leave just as it had vanished from that paradise that he would never be able to hold on to.

Even in its absence the Sun was there creating havoc in the evening sky. Even now as he sat shivering and alone he could see the Sun reflecting on everything around him, and he knew that neither time nor distance would save him from the memories of the day even in the realities of the night. It was not, after all, truly completely dark even in the height of the evening’s darkness.

From scratch begin again

…but this time I as I

and not as we.

It was time. It was as it should be. The Sun and the Moon had decided that this is the way it should be and no man or no man’s mind could change it. He sighed loudly as if the exhalation would blow away the weight that had fallen onto his head. This time I as I and not as we. This time it’s me. This time there is no us, or we, or “together we can conquer anything” line of bullshit to fall back on. This time it was him, his naked body, and the will to find the strength that had carried him throughout his life. Yet he knew that he would never be the same. He would always…always…be different. Something would send him back to her even if only for a second within the confines of his mind. He would always see that smile in his mind. He would always hear that voice in his head. He would always walk with that little piece of what was attached to that little piece of light that reminded him. Yet he now walked not as we, but as that awesome creation of strength and fragility that he was. It both saddened him and renewed his vigor. It both depressed him and gave him great hope. It both made him cry and made him smile. It was, after all, a dichotomy just as every single aspect of life was. This time, though, he would not resist it, fight it, or pretend it didn’t exist. He would embrace it, experience it, and love it as part of who he was.

He kissed his hand gently, closing his eyes to see her one more time press her lips to his own. As tears formed in his eyes he knelt to the sea and let that kiss go into the water.

Goodbye my Lover. I shall never forget you.

The Night Ended…

January 23, 2013 / Tom

…and then the sun rose. Then he inhaled deeply and spread his wings to fly once again.

Figuratively of course, but he did fly. It’s a great feeling when your heart is finally released from the shackles that have weighed it down. Suddenly it beats stronger. Suddenly it beats louder. Suddenly you begin to feel alive again. With a smile and a growl of gratitude he peered at the light just beginning to peek over the horizon, breathed deeply the crisp, clean morning air and turned to face the world he had all but ignored in the imprisonment in which he had exiled himself to.

The Ghost had held him in a place where he failed to see his value. She had created in him beliefs that were untrue. Finally, however, it created in him the conditions for that great journey toward the figurative heavens we call healing. He began to recognize the truths of his time with the Ghost, and he began to recognize the illusions he had created during that time. He had lowered himself to a place of servitude, a place where he ignored his needs and a place where he began to be a weakened version of a once-stoic figure.

My, how the ego loves to see the stoic figure of a strong man quiver beneath its feet! A sorrowful voice echoed out within his mind…he craved the idol that was the Ghost. He craved the attention. He even craved the drama to some extent and yes, he craved the sex. He could journey there and feel peace; a strange mixture of stillness and desire wrapped in a blanket purely of his own making. Now, the voice, the idol, the blanket were all uninvited to the vast clearing that was his New Earth. Here he ruled his kingdom with a sense of purpose the Spirit herself determined irrelevant.

In some respects his time there had been a blessing. He had learned again to trust his intuition, and that the stories people tell are a mask of their own design that they must learn to deal with. Even as he wondered about the stories the Ghost told now he discovered he didn’t care. The truth has a miraculous way of rising to the top of any river regardless of how quickly or chaotically it flows. He now knew the truth and knew that the truth and the Ghost could not live in the same place. If he wanted to live the truth he had to banish the Ghost to that world where only she could reside, where only she could exert control.

The sun moved even more over the horizon. The pink and orange tinged clouds began to announce the coming of a new day and a new moment. He looked to the left and there was no one. He looked to his right – again no one. He raised his hands and looked at their emptiness. No sadness. No remorse. Nothing but a smile at the knowledge that he was free. There would be no drama this day. There would be no lies to deal with. There’d be no question in his mind of where he stood. He looked down at his feet solid on the beautiful, green Earth and he found that familiar warmth in his heart. He closed his eyes and where the Ghost once came to life all he could see now was the light of the sun coming in through his closed eyelids. He had been exorcised and where the scar existed that announced her departure there was nothing but smooth skin. He could now again hear the voices of possibility echo in his heart. He could sense the beginnings of something wonderful rumble in his Being. He was free, and he was feeling the beauty of all around him. The smile was his, and the emotion was him.

In the turmoil of “The End” he had often wondered if his soul would ever heal. As the quakes subsided and the truth was revealed he understood something even more simple than he could have ever imagined. He was healing from the very beginning. The End was the culmination of a process. It had brought him to the realizations he needed to move beyond the turmoil and to once again find a trust within him that counted more than the stories some Spirit had told him.

He could hear other spirits calling out to him and he would follow. They were the winds of his kingdom, and he meant to sail them to whatever worlds they had meant for him to see. The freedom of an eagle who would dare spread his wings to summit a mountain, or glide just above a prairie, is as exciting as it is awe-inspiring. There are no false idols in the eagle’s nest, only a sense of the wind, the air, and the sky itself. He had never felt this freedom, and he meant to experience it. There would be a “yes” in every questions of “should I?”. There’d be a sense of limitless in the vastness of his kingdom. There’d be a story in every moment and a truth in ever breath. He was truly free, and he was truly home.

Now, he just sat still in as the sun finally made its way completely above the horizon. He turned to those who truly loved him and smiled. He embraced them in his heart as he touched them with his mind. Romantic love would come as the river in his heart ran cleaner and purer with ever beat. For now he would be happy with the touch of his friends, the embrace of his partners, and the love of his soul. His new vow had become a simple one. He would just be happy and he would be free. That would be enough and anything else would be promptly uninvited to his Earth. If it didn’t make him smile it wouldn’t stand the trial.

With that the wind took him and with that the sky itself opened up to…

The Man in the Mirror

January 19, 2013 / Tom

How do I say I am sorry?

How do I take back all of the words I have said to you?

How do I touch you and make you feel like you are whole again?

How do I lead you to joy? To happiness? To the land that you were promised at birth?

How do I reach you through the glass, oh man in the mirror?

The wall I have to tear down is not made of stone. It is made of unbreakable mirrored glass. I cannot escape my own gaze as I search frantically for the gate. I cannot shut my own eyes as I watch the struggle against the insanity of my very human existence. I can only stare, compassionately and without judgement, and love the man who stares back at me with such hopelessness, such trepidation, and such humanity and show him that love is not a pool into which we dive deeply, but rather a reflection of the very essence of who we are.

Sense yourself, my friend, and know that you are loved here. Feel the caress of your own hand along the scars you have accumulated along the way. Feel the warmth of forgiveness flow across your Entirety until you become that warmth. Nurture it. Know it. Be it.

Love the parts of the man who cannot heal. Tend to those wounds and accept them as they are. Then miracles will happen as the unhealed become healed and the scars become smooth testaments to the power within you. Do not attempt to hasten the journey, but do not stand as an obstacle either. Tend to the flock within you, and the storms outside of you will cease to exist. Let go. Feel it escape the loosening grip of your wary fingers. Feel it slide through your calloused palms until nothing but air exists where once ideas stood.

Then you will be free, for all falling is free even when you hit the ground.

∞

In the End…

January 18, 2013 / Tom

In the end, it just became too much.

He kind of knew that the end was inevitable. There were just too many stories, too many challenges, too many things that did not seem real. He remained committed to an ideal that simply did not exist beyond his own mind, and in the end when his heart just could not bear the burden of the stories told by the mind, he had to go his own way.

He can’t blame her. No, he had tried to tell himself that what he saw was not real. He had tried to tell himself to believe, but in the final minute his heart gave way to the fact that the mantra no longer worked. No, this was all his fault. He could just not believe.

So, he let her go. He would miss her, and he would hurt for eternity. He would suffer. But he would grow from it all and find freedom. Even in the sadness of the moment he find an excitement in what was to come. He could feel it like an electricity flowing through his body tempered only by the desire that she could come along for the journey.

Human love seems to be an unpredictable animal within the experience of man. It bites his flesh and tears at his mind while it soothes and protects him. It ebbs and flows like a blue mechanical wave in a tiny glass box. When it flows it can be the most beautiful of experiences, and when it ebbs it can take the very life out of a man’s body. It can make him feel strong and weak at the same time. It can give him breath and strangle him. In its flow we feel invincible, but when it ebbs we search for strength from any place we dare look in the very discourse of untold weakness. We may pretend to be strong, but when the love of our life falters we all search for strength in the darkest of places. Eventually, for the weathered among us, we return to the light.

He felt weakness even in the strength. In that weakness he desperately tried to find something to hold on to. He would close his eyes and feel the warmth of her body next to his and hold on to that. Eventually that vision would fade, replaced by another sight that would challenge his heart again. He would tell himself it didn’t exist, and then he would turn to her because she was so good at convincing him it didn’t. He’d hold on to that truth until the next time. There would always be a next time.

He could never tell if she actually fought for him. He knew certainly that she fought with him, but he could never tell if she ever fought for him. He wanted to believe she had, that she hadn’t simply placed every burden of transformation squarely on him. He eventually just had to believe that those shadows he saw in their relationship would always be there, that the mysteries and the stories and the issues would continually come up. Eventually he had, had enough of it and he simply caved. He knew his own wounds well, and he could not withstand the flirtations and the issues that seemed to always come up in the middle of their story.

In the end he couldn’t expect or ask her to change it. She didn’t appear capable or willing. He was incapable of overlooking those things. He had changed quite a bit, but those wounds such behavior opened were simply too much for him to overlook. They were perfect together in every way other than the one he needed the most. His every effort went into changing that part of him, and in the end he failed and in the end he could not get up from falling yet again even as he prayed again for the voice that comforted him, the dream the sustained him, and the light he felt just by hearing her name in a crowded room.

In his fantasy she fought for him. In his dream she recognized this part of him and eliminated the shadows. She stood up, she caressed his face and told him it would be alright. In the mist of his heart she said “enough, what do I need to do for you” and then did it. In the fog of his mind she said “none of them matter, only you do. I will do whatever it takes to be with you.” That was his dream, and in his heart those words would have exploded into a warmth never seen before.

In the end she laughed at his assertion. In the end she said “goodbye”. In the end she simply walked away. No fight, just silence. In the end the silence spoke louder than any word she had ever said to him. In the end the absence of protest said more than any story she had ever told him. In the end it was simply the end. Nothing more.

So now the lights go out and the eyes close to squeeze out yet another tear. His lips allow another sigh and another sob as the silence reigns in the evening air. His mind journeys to where she is and his heart holds her one more time. She never knew these moments, and she may never discover them. He wanted to succeed here like he never wanted to succeed anywhere before in his life. He couldn’t, and in the end he failed his vision and his love. That’s his burden, and he would carry it for a lifetime. A great story was over, and in the end he cried his cries and sobbed his sobs as a testament not only to the failure, but to the great love in his heart.

In the end the love was there as it always would be. In the end he would scream her name and in the end he would see her once again. He knew it, he felt it, and it was a truth he could not escape. In the end it was truly all that he felt was real. In the end he wished there was no end at all.

I wish you could feel how I feel

And I wish I could feel how you feel

I wish I could know the truth through your eyes

And taste the taste from your lips

So that the next heartbeat, the next breath

Would be the only questions I would ever have.

∞

The Transformation (Revision 1)

January 11, 2013 / Tom

“Why haven’t you written?” asks the Voice from Within.

I am distracted I say. I wince each time my skin is touched. She is not near me, but within me. I feel her enter me with each inhalation and she does not leave me as the air escapes me. She is there, in my lungs, burning me. She is there in my heartbeat, reminding me. She is there in my blood as it spills out of my body onto the white carpet of my dreams. She speaks to me in tongues and in languages I cannot understand. My body is rebelling against my mind. Just look at my eyes. Just look at my skin. Just look at who I have become.

“Are you ok?” asks the Holy Soul of Friendship.

I lie as my mouth says I am fine. I stand strong and firm even as my body just wants to crumble to the ground. I am clean even as I want to roll around in the mud and become one with the Earth, and then fade away into Her and into that one whose name I cannot seem to say. I am so full I am starving and so starving that I cannot eat a thing. I am so tired I cannot sleep and when I do my dreams remind me of what could have been. Ah those mango trees! Bless that loving river! See the joy in the Lion done searching for his Tiger as the cool embrace of a shade tree finally protects them both from the searing sun. See the butterflies born and dancing in a field of endless flowers where I would pick a few and give them to her. See it all painted in black. See it all awash in the broken shards of a shattered window where they once gazed at each other in complete adoration.

Or did we? I cannot say for sure anymore but I can say that all that exists for me in this present moment is the forest, and the mountains, and the snow around my feet. I stand alone in the darkness of this place and see my own light shining brightly. I feel the warmth not from there but from here. This is no false sense of male bravado I say to myself as the strength builds in my legs, in my core, and in my chest. This is no bullshit act of desperation I hear my heart say as the blood returns to my manhood and the sight is restored in my soul. You are NOW motherfucker I finally say out loud to the world around me. This Wolf is about to howl, and you will hear him.

Yeah, I am fine. I’m just changing. I’m just now seeing the full moon rise above my horizon. I am getting stronger even as I fall to pieces. I am feeling warmth even as I see the breath paint white the frigid air around me. As the ice forms on my face and the shivers run up and down my body I feel the fire within me burning fiercely. I have stumbled and I have fallen and I will pick myself up. I am not beaten. I feel those primal urges building within me. I know that I am still here.

There is no song of pity or of sympathy that I want from you. I don’t need your understanding. I don’t need you to cut a pathway for me. You can walk with me if you’d like, or you can go your own way. I can carry this cross all on my own, in fact give me two and make them heavy. I can still make you scream in the light of a flickering candle or I can go my own way and leave you to your own devices. You are free to ignore me all you’d like. You are free to pretend I don’t exist. Do whatever you must because I am here, I am strong, and I am fearless. You know I am there as well, in your thoughts, in your dreams and in the ache that is nothing more than your body reminding you of where I should be. Pretend if you will, but this wolf’s howl echoes in you as freely as it echoes in the moonlit desolation of my beautiful space.

I’m done being distracted from this life by the voices of fucking insanity. I want to live damn it, and live I shall. I shake off the thin crust of ice that has formed on my body, look up at the large, white full moon and begin to sing my song. I am here motherfucker, come get me if you want. Come take me if you are woman enough to handle it. The stillness remains even as it is broken and the world begins to revolve again. Breathe you bastard, breathe.

Exhale. Sweet exhale. It gives me space for that long and sweet inhalation. You know you are on to something when both the inhalation and the exhalation both taste sweet. Now, I can smile. Now I know where I am. Now I am here, motherfucker.

A growl escapes my lips. You know that growl, and if you want to hear it you’ll have to tell me so. That growl reminds me of who I am at my best and what I have to offer. It echoes in the snowy forest where I am now, all but certain that I want to be basking in the moonlit glow of this moment accepting all that is. I am at home here. I am at peace. Only those who wish to be here are here. Only those who can hear my growl and love it bend their ears to my lips. Only those who look into my eyes and see something wonderful can turn their heads this way. Others turn away lest you go deaf and blind.

Inhale…sweet inhale. Fill my lungs with the passion my heart beats for. Let me smell the crimson rose as I walk in the sweet meadow brought to life in the springtime. Let the butterflies land on me and remind me of where they too have been. Let me lay in the soft grass and cuddle with the warmth of love as I bathe in the air that has not quite decided if it is yet winter or summer. Let me walk along that line where both cold and heat are a certain truth, where both snow and grass live together, were both the smells of life fill my nostrils and the crack of deathly ice echoes beneath my feet. Let me live in the line between Yin and Yang, between light and darkness, so that I may know this life to its fullest.