All Pursuits Worthwhile: Unspoken Words

(thank you Paula Sandtoes for the inspiration)

An Accident
A flightless bird,
Wearing the wings of an angel
Forever soaring
In a bottomless sky

What would I say to you?

I would express Gratitude and Love of course. But, what would that bring me? Peace, solace in our separate dimensional states. I think that act of expression would be more for me… to recompense for my shape shifting memory of who gave more to the other? An ego trick like a tossed coin whose slip through the cracks mystified the idea of a true winner.

What would I say to you?

Why? I would ask why did this happen? Again, who am I asking? I halted those questions, ponderings, because of their cyclical nature, or more contextually, their tendencies towards insomnia. Like the catalyst of the Rupe Goldberg that faltered three quarters of the way through. The machine that stopped in its tracks, not due to self-reflection or error, but because of the unnatural, nonsensical randomness that shook this world when you fell.

What would I say to you?

Nothing. You are listening or you are not. I will never know. You are perfect and I’ve said what I already have and I live with this. I live with your lessons, your love, your high arching spirit. I am not alone. I know it, I believe it, I do not understand it.

What would I say to me?

I would say Unspoken words are timeless. We always exist together. How lucky and special it was to form a bond, a connection I didn’t know possible, with another. Open your eyes to this world that has always existed, now exists in new depths with a larger Crayola box, a world where possibilities spill over the boundaries into itself with infinite passion, purpose and love.

I would say this:

Distance is illusory. Time is a myth. And your extended arm, leapfrogging legs and contagious childlike energy are a blink away.

You don’t know how powerful you are. You don’t know how wide your love has reached. You have changed me, me who has told her a joke, a joke that she shared with him. And that laughing smile, oh boy that smile. That smile changed their lives and united their families.

You are the happy baby, playing on the floor, oblivious to the eyes seeking their youth back. You have taught me that to find, you must seek, and to become, all you have to do is try. You have reinforced you are what you love, not what loves you. You have made mountains out of handkerchiefs and dance parties out of stars.

Stars which twinkle light years away. Stars which shine timeless light onto us breathers, us dreamers. 
Stars which breathe in the sky and sing and share jokes with their neighbors. You have become a star. You have joined the other stars. One day I will join you, and we’ll do it all over again. Until then, all I have to do is look up.

You’ve changed my life. Thank you. I will always love you.

All we have to do is look up.

All Pursuits Worthwhile: A Salute to the Evens, Odds and Ends of Time

                 life is too short not to love

 

Here is to the wonderful world, the chiming in of every sound in time to create the timeless chorus.  The barking dogs, laughing children, singing birds, fragrant orchids, new leaf buds on ohia trees, the phone call from a decade old friend, bear hug from your little brother, the stars in the sky, a roasted marshmallow onto of a Hershey’s.  They all fit into this jingle jangle jigsaw.

Here is to the Music Makers
the Dreamers of Dreams
equipped with Eyelashes
Dark hair and sunglasses
Our Destination: tomorrow
Our Purpose: today
And child and a grandpa,
A big ball of Clay
I will keep on walking
As long as my heart is still beating
And I will keep on hoping
This existence is not so fleeting

There is more than what is here
Greater than the plants and the Sun
What we grasp and what we don’t know
Is all nothing, is all one
You’ll see me loving,
You’ll catch me playing
This game has no ending,
If you know what I’m saying

 

Here is to the special group of loved ones who have shined so much light on this world they had to move onto the next.  We’ve witnessed miracles in their presence, we know they are having the time of their life whenever they see us smile. 

 

There is no end for the mortals

no space too wide for teleportals
no path too travelled for the beats
no soul too small for whitman and keats
no reason for me to explain
why not to extinguish this flame
when the colors merge in the night
and the wingless birds begin to take flight
 

Sending aloha and happy holidays and warmth and peace from a tiny rock in the middle of the sea.
So far away, yet we stare at the same moon.

Matthew

APW: Giving Thanks

Well I’ll pick a planet and you can pick a star,
We’ll plot our points together we can travel very far our path is winding,
We can’t rewind but if we move with grace and speed,
We’ll watch it all again from depths we’ve never dreamed
 

Giving thanks.  Oh man.  That’s a big one.  I can’t think of a holiday I would rather celebrate and share with others than this one.  I reflect on this fourth Thursday of November how the years have come and gone.  I am writing about this holiday, as I have before in the past, only this time I am a year older.  I have celebrated this day with Americans and confused foreigners in Australia, splitting wood competitions with Mormons on a farm in Nevada, in Hana multiple times with the best of friends, and going back further, back in New York with my family, where you require a sweatshirt during the day.

Coming to the realization that five years have elapsed since I’ve had a Thanksgiving in New York helps validate the lapse of time and the extreme changes in myself that’ve taken place in this past half of a decade.  I have embraced many different cultures, jobs, residences, lifestyles, landscapes, climates in the last five years.  I’ve met innumerable amounts of people who have profoundly impacted my life, and have undergone experiences that I did not see or want to occur in such a way. 

There will always be sadness.  There will always be happiness.  And of course, there is the ever present gratitude and the all knowing goodness that bends, flows and loves like the river Time.

On this day, I will allow, which I haven’t recently, some time for reflection.  I will hold onto each memory I have shared with the people I love, and the people I’ve lost.  I will remember them and live the best as I can, care as great as they, laugh as hard, love and smile as much.

Cycles roll on like the waves and the moon, the playing cards stuck in bicycle tires and the quarters in the juke box, playing that tune that lasts longer than we remember them.

I’ve watched others come full circle, and I’ve experienced it myself.  I’ve experienced it with relationships and I see it in the garden.  Even the asymmetrical figures contain a balance.  I’m learning to live without expectation, to push myself without reward.  It’s all very simple.  If you’re grateful for the day, you’re better off than being resentful.  We have been given so much.  Thankful that I can now open my eyes and acknowledge that, and do my best in the present to give back to the future.

If we don’t stop seeking, we won’t stop finding.

Matt

When all in the mind is a blur

When all in the mind is a blur
When the irregularities of this existence
become staples of the waking hours
When the moon is so full
That the light confuses the owls,
When there is no time to consider the priest,
The forklift operator, the sculptress, the strawberry picker...

 

Events occur that have the power to change your life faster than a tossed coin reveals heads or tails.  Sometimes they are realized on spot, though the gravity tends to set in over low and high tides, the changing of the seasons, the graying of your hair.

Such an event happened unpredictably in my life, setting off a chain of events that influenced my decisions to lead me to where I am currently.  And now, after  10 weeks of neglecting a portion of myself in order to dedicate myself fully to work (which has become hardly distinguishable from life), I look back at old posts and reflect on what I wrote April 23, 2011, just over a year and half ago. 

My conclusion on wealth is this: You are as wealthy as the world you leave for the future generations. You can measure it by the smiles around you, the blossoming spring flowers, a crying child. I'm trying to do my part by building and planting and nurturing (maybe a little too literally), but why not join me in your own way?

I’d like to add to this.  Wealth is the ability to sustain yourself.  To sustain a relationship, a home, a job, a lifestyle, an environment, a community.  To sustain these happily, creatively, without wishing for something else.  For such a simple idea, it takes a lifetime to achieve such a balance.  Or rather to sustain this balance.  Or maybe the sustaining of this balance is illusory, for you’ll always be on one side of the seesaw.  Thank history and fate to be born in the era of the ‘evolved’ consciousness.

I wonder what I'll have to add to this a year an a half later.  I wonder if i'll still be on a rock in the middle of the sea.  I didn't think I'd be here now.  I thought I would be here, somewhere else.  What a silly thought.

All Pursuits Worthwhile: Wishing for Less Instead of More

 

I am a boy pushing a matchbox car along a winding cliffside road.

I am witnessing the boy.  He is smiling.  He has not yet fallen.

I am the emptiness of the sky above the winding road.

I am the winding road for the wheels and the feet to follow.

I am the driver, head down, wheels between the guardrails.

I am the passenger who forgets to look at the plants that line the road. 

I forget to watch them grow.  I forget that everything changes.

 

I do not smell the changing of the seasons,

The rotting mangoes, the fallen rocks, the perfect day

I am the driver, head down, oblivious eyes.

I do not measure time between breaths as the world slows to a halt.

I do not think of the last time I jumped to touch a roof.

I do not hear the world over the ringing of what I thought was urgent.

I cannot hear myself over the rain.  

I cannot hear the rain over myself.

I cannot see myself as the boy.

When was the last time I sat and took a breath.

I always thought I could handle solitary prison.

I always thought a superhero was imperfect when they didn’t save the world on their first try.

And now, I am having trouble with the day ahead of me.

 

I am the boy who grew up and still wants to push the matchbox car.

I am the boy with his head out the window watching the world pass by.

I am the boy who grew up trying to shift the wind.

I am the boy today.   

Today, I am not thinking of tomorrow.

All Pursuits Worthwhile: Personal Goals

This is not a bucket list. 

This is not a to do list. 

This is part of the equation. 

It is on the axis of time

revolving around an unknown

larger in scope and theory than myself. 

 

I am in transition.  Perhaps, besides being born, or even then, I, or we, always am and will be.  All it takes is recognition, awareness.  There is the great expanse and the microscopic moment, which has infinite potential to be magnified into an incomprehensible bliss or a cryptic smile from the crescent moon.   What triggers this thought train wheeling down the track just before the brakeman chucks back his lever to halt into the station (or does he)?  Why, the answer is life of course, and her endless gusts of daily miracles.

Growing up?  Hah!  What?! Wait...  Maybe I am.  Not in age or maturity.  We are always experiencing growth, so to deny that is to underestimate your shadow’s volition.  Growing up and in down and around.  Most like Growing in.  Growing into my feet, accepting this is my body, my fingers which run through my hair twenty minutes after an ocean jaunt, warm from the sun - not yet dry.  Growing into my role here.  Trading in my tricycle for a tree to climb.  We are always inadvertently receiving and giving.

I’m lucky.  So lucky.  I get to work with plants.  Every day.  I get to watch them grow.

Goals blurted out like a two hour delayed urination in a time crunched, backseat knee cramped, car ride out of the city into the greenery.  GO!  Farm rural Spain, cruise Alaska's mountains and vastness, road trip Australia, trek Nepal, kibbutzim life in Israel, backpack Milford Sound, taste small town Italy, salivate on a tree ripened peach, Haleakala quarterly, create a community, share a Farmer’s Market, realize a gift economy, host a seed savers exchange, Truly learn compassion, see a sunrise after a night in a pub on the Irish countryside, love the way Zack loved life, people, plants.

I grew into this.  This grew into me.  I will pursue this.  Why?  All pursuits worthwhile.

All Pursuits Worthwhile: Practiced Daily Meditations

It would not be wise to update my last few months here or offer reasons why I have not drafted a post here since August.   The last two months has me thoroughly engaged in the creation and growing of a business that in part reflects my own self growth and culmination of my experiences and is also a step in helping create a more sustainable Maui, and in a larger scale where the island culture represents a model for the world,a more sustainable Earth.  I owe many thanks to many people for this opportunity.  A lot has come full circle and others aspects have bloomed out of darkness, and the potential of life continues to grow.

I have devoted a large portion of my time to the extent that I have neglected not only creative expression, but also began eating and sleeping sporadically.  I have turned recently a corner, recognizing that if I intend to continue this, I would have to change my habits towards more sustainable measures, and this directly means taking time for my self.  Not necessarily a day off, but hours off in the evening or minutes of reflection in daylight or balanced meals and viewing each 'task' as a fortunate meditation throughout the day.

As of four days ago, I have begun the practice of a daily meditation.  Here are the rules I have created for myself:

 

1)     Minimally once a day.

2)      Time is illusory.  If considering length of meditation, one’s mind becomes distracted from the moment.  Take sufficient time to regain peace and not get hung up on a conceptual future.  The future will come regardless of one's present state of mind and present actions.

3)      Consider the size of the mosquito to the man.  Accept the smallness of man to the tree, the mountain, the ocean, the distance between stars.

4)      You have a past.  Allow time to reflect on events and relationships (people, places, family).

5)      Nothing is good or bad.  It just is.  Its essence is unchanged by our perception of it.

6)      Don’t strive for perfection, you’ve attained it before you were born.

7)      The world is full of sound outside of your own creation.  Listen to the world, quiet your mind.

8)      You were given the gift of creation and imagination as a child.  Let this flow naturally from the world around you, through your body, your hands.  Let this enhance your experience on this planet.

#1 10/20 Early Afternoon

No matter how far removed you are from yourself, remember you can always begin again in nature.  It all comes back to the natural world.  The air you breathe, thank the trees.  The food you eat, thank the plants.  The vibrant soil you plant, thanks the years of decaying organic matter.  The beauty you witness, thank the sun.  The music you hear, thank the birds.  The circles you walk, thank the earth.  The miracles we experience, thank each breath and the patterns of life.

In both a literal and metaphorical sense , I write now on the side of a cliff.  I have climbed, sweated, slipped, and regained balance to get here.  I stopped nearly 15 meters from the top, on a bushy patch of California grass sitting at a lesser incline than the rest of this hill.  Just large enough to sit and place my backpack without concerning myself of it slipping down.  I am in a pine forest on Maui, where there is nothing reminiscent of a tropical landscape around me.  The smell of pines, the chill of high elevation and the loose twigs and dried cackling leaves surround my senses.

I remove myself from my present hectic life I have intentionally engaged myself in and choose to enjoy this Saturday afternoon.  The sun is gradually emerging from behind the clouds as I pen this sentence.  It took nearly two months to attempt creative expression.  The typewriter is collecting dust, the guitar strings beckon play.    This is my first of many practiced daily meditations.

It is nearly two o clock, the trees bend in the wind, a faint hum of an engine drifts by as it passes the curve on this lonely upcountry road.  The birds' hum comes more into frequency as it rings around the skies in their humble sanctuary. 

I decide I will return to this hike and see if this cliff levels out above me.  I forget that I’ve been on a steep hill.  I forget that I have climbed to this point.  I forget I have even walked to the base of this hill.  I feel safe when I don’t consider the world outside the present.  I shoulder my backpack, cap my pen and grab some roots to continue my climb.  Time to find my way back to the start.

#2  10/21 Late Evening

The moon interferes with the stars.  Its arrogance takes on a percentage of the sky.   To offer a different perspective on light, there is a lot of  history being blurred by the moon's overpowering luminscence.

The ocean I swam in and the trees I walked in will be there when I am not.  It is my choice to be present in those atmospheres.  They will always be there and I have the potential to always be there.  It is a choice and it is sad when I ignore it.

I had my hair trimmed by a friend of mine.  She cut it to the length when I first met her three years ago.  I will begin to feel lighter.  This is a positive inevitability.  All imminent events ought to be viewed as positive, for they are happening.  However, we must reconcile that we don’t have control over all that is approaching and we must accept this lack of stability with a smile.  If we controlled and knew all, there would be no anticipation about life.  And what is life when all is predestined.  There is the continuity of a 24 hours in a day, the beginning and the end.  Everything in between happens differently to us each day.   How lucky.

#3 10/22

Ulu.  Helped plant 288 Breadfruit Trees.  This in itself is a meditation.  Watering and caring for hundreds of keiki plants each day. This too is a meditation.  Hearing this quote (paraphrased) and reflecting on it, too, is a meditation.  "It's always all right in the end, and if it's not all right, it's not yet the end."

 

#4 10/23

Sat at the Farmer’s Union Meeting in Haiku and closed my eyes with a community of strangers and listened to the astrologist take us outside of our planet and envision a larger picture of the solar system.  She guided us on a trip to the atmosphere and had us consider earth’s relation and rotation around the green sun, and to relate ourselves to the earth, our dwelling, and imagine ourselves and our behavior as one in the same as our dwelling.  As the Earth glides into Fall, we too fall into its Shadow. 

As each day passes, there will be more to share.

#5 10 / 24

Drove to Hana.  Reflected on first drive to Hana.  How can you get more Hana than Hana?  The search ended so to speak, though nothing ever ends.  Drove back from Hana.  This I believe was the shortest time period between driving back over to the other side.  What a journey.  Learning the road not by mile markers, but by the plants learning in ma kai and mauka side.

#6 10 /25             

Took a lunch break today by the labyrinth which I’ve yet to walk at the Sacred Garden.  Disciplined with a mono meal 3 times a day, Kitchari cleanse.  I am refraining from writing about work here.  This being said, there is not much to report outside of that this week.   It is wonderful though, to watch the space and the plants grow.  I reflect on this before I sleep.

'If life gives you melons, you may be dyslexic.'

APW: Themed Free Verse

understand that we understand nothing
our notions of truth and what is
are temporary key signatures for the birds
forgotten coins in the crevices of car seats
our ideas exist to be mocked and toyed with
like a volunteer tomato carried over the ocean
fulfilling its purpose through its shortcomings
there is no turning the clock back
but we can walk an inch on the map
and be thankful we made it this far

in our modern masterpieces


we've become
stars in finite skies
i think how hard it is
to not fantasize
if one had a remote control
and short patience
they’d glimpse my mind
like slot machines in action
the golden street
a dog's moonlit shadow
clouds interrupting the rainbow
the beginning of the end:

a child’s first word

they’d see as i see
the underachievers lost
in the unmistaken undertow
all the sewage gushing out onto the streets
all this procedure and progress
and prolific procreation, except
more people don't always breed
sustainable positivism
there are newborn genius
and meaning in every child
but the turning of a day
shows that nothing tangibly lasts forever

when did we become blind
to the webs we’ve spun with one another
we no longer see anyone
we don’t know anyone’s name
their favorite color
or how they cry when they wake up
because their dream has died
all the potential in the world
and we find ourselves floating in a hot air balloon
drifting into the boundary of inner space

my mind has grown down rather than up
it is filled with underground fantasies
the trick is i learned too late
already confronted with childhood status
superhero rain drops and tongue depressed stimulus plans
problem of this chapter:
I’ve already started at capacity
solution: 
new amendments to my soil
require good drainage

though i'm not yet through other side of the tunnel,
i'm catching the light that filters through in a new way,
this world is built on perspectives and while mine keeps
growing with new angles as i experience different
cultures, ideas, people, i am forging in my mind
an almost tangible shape of the world, but this universe
doesn't have too much of a tangible shape either, at least
not from our human perspective, but if we dig to a deeper
elemental simpler level we can more easily ascertain
what surrounds us and our lack of control and acceptance
of that lack of control.  the postulations will never end, the
universe will never end, our last breath escaping
our bodies on this earth is not the end

there is no more room for dead languages
where do the words on the screen go
when they are edited out of existence
do they join the cowboys from centuries past

the indigenous tribes 
before the missionaries
burst through thatched roofs uninvited


or are they thwarted as outcast
like the third llama
who was banished from noah's ark

alongside the first dummy
intended to estimate
the harm of a car crash

the quiet before the gunshot
inner workings of a clock
stone plopped into a calm pond

is all of history now huddled around a fire
sharing stories
about time that matters




itall

i read it all
on the faces of card players
looking up from their one eyed jacks
hiding behind the shaded lenses
of their selves
i see it all
in pursuing eyes and gleaming teeth
the aftermath of the strike
and i hear it too
in the washing machine's music
i wear it all
on these burdened fingers
just the tip of histories failures
the weighted down generational old
traditions too outdated
for the unknown tomorrow
i feel it all
when a rainforest falls
unnaturally
i dream it all
the white rabbit tip toeing silently
rendering what is meant to happen
and our ability to change it
i slip through it all
into the white noose
next to the hanging planters
hidden in the wild flowers
right where the dead languages die
i understand it all
as a jade vine blossoms
there can be only one
of everything in the world
yet in each inherent uniqueness
we are too proud to join hands
with the weight of our pasts
it’s easier to sink into hazy depths
like strangers in a night storm
than to rise together like flour yeast and water
i sense it all
when the train's choo-choo fades
into the oblvious horizon
ignorant of the secrets its possesses
like a lady ignorant of the effect
she has on the white rabbits
i smell it too
on the fur of a wet city rat
i think it all
leads to somewhere else
i wish it all
proves me wrong
i know it all
and i know nothing
i follow it all
to the end
and chase its tail
back to the beginning

All Together Now: Portland to Fremont and the Road with its Quantum Creases

There is a sign on a bridge, hand painted onto already cut plywood, that advises you to turn your clocks 5 minutes ahead, after all, you are entering the center of the Universe.  This is the introduction to Fremont, Washington, an hours walk from the Seattle Downtown.  Our experience on these streets would give credence to the sign.  If in our present states we are always at the center, and we are engaging with others viscerally and connecting energetically,  Fremont played the part of a lovely host yesterday evening.

A potty-trained well-mannered beautiful eighteen year old parrot named Pepe, reunited cousins of 15 years whose unknown experiences to each other prove connections, spiritual brothers of 3 years brought together through fate, facebook, good fortune and spiritual brothers of 20 years understanding life at levels far beyond the surface and applying their wisdom positively to the community.  Interconnectedly sharing familial bonds and previous lives to Texas, Hawai'i, New York, North Carolina.  We're all currently living in Washington, Salt Lake City, Vancouver, and Maui. We sat outside, drank thai teas, and talked story.  How did we all get there?

Rachel and I, the cousins of this tale, drove down to Portland on Thursday with a good old fashioned map.  Stopping at the farmer's market in Olympia, we admired the craft vendors, the produce, the music, the turnout.  Each town with a market of this nature gains a better sense of community, and this one thoroughly impressed us.  Small businesses, old family businesses, co-ops, the personal feel rather than the consumeristic, cooperate vibes that flood America, trademarked this small city.    Heading south down I-5 we then stopped at Mt St. Helens and went for a walk in the 30 year old woods.  Ready for this?  18 million trees were hand planted after the eruption in 1980 which devastated the landscape with 150 mph landslides and enough lava spewed to pave a 7 lane highway, three feet deep, from Portland to New York.  Now nature blooms in the volcanic fertile soil, the wildlife and wildflowers have returned, and the trails are graced by footsteps of the awe-inspired.

Onto Portland, the city of books, beer, art, green living.  The contagious feel that nurtures artistic stimulation and creation, diversity and sustainability.  It's down to earth with an edge, and all small businesses are crossing over with the artists.  Beers served in bookstores, innovative antique shops, all places conscious of the aesthetics, challenging themselves for the sake of anti-complacency, not for the competition, but because the journey never truly ends.  And don't forget the foodtrucks.  It's hard to miss'em when there are 600 throughout the city.  From Kathmandu Cuisine to Big Ass Sandwiches.

Jazz.  The legend of the sax.  Lucky enough to watch the soul of the greats throughout the 20th century being channeled into the brass that became part of Devon Philips' Being and radiated out rhythms and meters both technical and ethereal.  Backed by a brilliant stand up bass, pianist, and drummer.  They all had their time in the sun, but you could tell they really shone in the cool moonlight.  There was a meteor shower that night.  Even the stars were impressed.

We head up from Portland back to Sea-Tac Airport to pick up Eric after grabbing a Corona-Smith Manual Typewriter from the 60s in a Portland Antique Shop and decided to go to Fremont.  We follow what looked like Seth, our old mentor, driving a mini-cooper and end up on the right road en route to the bridge.  We park and walk past the "White Rabbit" bar for the first of five times that night, eat at "Homegrown," have conversations outside with Thai Teas, walk down to the bridge with new friends, run into old friends from 4 years ago in Mukilteo and grow possibilities for the future road trip.  There was a meteor shower that night too.  Fell asleep in Redmond after a night drive over bridges listening to icelandic bands.  The nights are there to make of it what you can.  The wheel beckons eager hands.

Sustainability of the west.  There are trash cans, some.  Next to them are compost bins for food scraps, paper plates, napkins, etc.  Though some places do no have a trash bin, all they serve up is either compostable or recyclable.  The farmer's market containing local art and produce are busy.  People care.  Working our way to the humans personifying the animals, which segues into:

Become

as i lie down in the thick grass along the volcanic riverbed
water slipping and bubbling over uneven smooth rocks
the academy will gather at the grove and gaze down
at my cushioned brittle bones, a decaying body
in high spirits beckoning curious expressions
i recall the fond memory and share
the day i befriended the bird
unique was her figure, slender, majestic
focused like a hawk, long like a frigate, 
still as an owl, perched exactly as an Osprey
proudly surveying the mississippi from penultimate branches
appearing only as someone who felt at home would appear
next to her i awaited imaginary queues, and of course,
warningless we leapt into cloudy space
circling the thick prickly trunk, spiraling downward
past bug bitten leaves and squirrel bitten nuts
rhythmically flapping noiseless wings, unsure unworried
of the mystery behind the cause of the wind 
and the cause of that
all the way down the turtles back
gliding maneuvering through brush
we weren't searching 
we were midnight dancing under northern stars
through the clearing we soared 
an eagle set on the horizon
the horizontal bridge in our divided life 
of the existing visceral present
and the unforeseeable knowable omnitime
great spirit, collector and protector
of all beginningless and endless flights
we long to realize you, help us close our eyes
and become the bird

All Pursuits Worthwhile: Executive Surveying (where are we growing)

I don't know how else to say this.  This island is magical.

Life, life, life.  Just like the ocean, best not to turn your back on it.  Everyday has been so full, unpredictable.  It has all worked out, in its way, in its time.  I’ve attempted patience and acceptance with certain events while continually keeping myself open to the whims of the world.  In other events, I’ve intentionally engaged in when I felt that I could help, heal, and do good for the situation.  In turn, I’ve been showered with beautiful landscapes, sunsets and sunrises, starry nights on tiny islands, lava rock jumps, interesting business opportunities and land options, and the most amazing of all things, building and strengthening relationships with all the incredible people who were born here or found their way to calling the Sandwich Islands home. 

Mark Twain, Hunter S Thompson, Kurt Vonnegut.  Some of my favorite authors all had a relationship with these islands.  I recently found out I had a cousin who was born on Oahu almost 30 years ago.  My experiences over the last few weeks and the feeling I get when I return here are all confirming my view of this island as home.  The culture, the people, the aina, the aloha.  I feel I can do good here, and here is where I prefer to be.

I was late in my discovery of this.  Zack had known this all along.  He knew a lot more than me about himself and how to life a full life and I’m doing my best implement all this so I can live with his spirit by my side.  One of the lessons I learned from him and I want to share in this post is “executive surveying.”  It is something he did in the garden, the landscape, and in life, every single day.  It is walking around and not engaging in an activity, but rather understanding and respecting all that is around us.  It is staring at a large plant and considering its life.  It was spawned from a tiny seeds, years ago, and has matured over time through the sun, the rain, competition with other plants, and human interaction.  The more love the plant receives (good rainfall, long hours in the sun, trimming dead limbs, pruning, supporting low hanging branches, fertilizing, weeding and mulching)  the happier the plant becomes.  Then there is the consideration of the future growth and fruits and then what to do to help it along.   We harvested many hours just walking around doing some solid executive surveying.  We can consider this too with people.  How did we get here, what will make us happier, and where are we growing.  I’m trying to apply this with aspects of my life in the decision making process and it really helps some time to step back and consider how and why we are here, and what this all will lead to.

Figuring out how we got here is an amazing thing and not often not even worth attempting because of how complex it is.  Or we can observe it more simply.  We are here, and we are purposed or else we wouldn’t be here.  We are part of something much larger than us, a much bigger balance, and we are all playing our parts out.  We ought to consider too what our dream is, what we aim to achieve, and will the journey not just the destination bring about happiness.  Is our dream positive to ourselves, the community, the world.  I’ve found my home.  I’m in pursuit of my dream.  I’m doing what I can to make it work, and I’ll happily stumble along this road, always engaging, trying to make it work.   I’m going to try.

All Pursuits Worthwhile: Harvest

The emotions come and go, like all things do, like waves do.  I get sucked in with the tide and roll around in the washing machine, powerless, accepting the inevitable present to always exist.  I think I have found the equation that causes this.  There are unknown variables, but I have this much figured out.  I know which side of the equal sign I am on.  I know there are factors beyond my choosing on the other, and I know that the order that they occur in does not matter.   They happen when all points tell me you are not here, and won’t be here with me.  This is always so.  I am trying to learn to live with this in the best of ways, not just the ways that motivate me to do everything but think of you.  I am coming along - I have learned to sleep without music.

Always the mock up

The dry erase board in my mind

Lava tube space creator

Maui feels progressively more unreal in each trip.  Unreal as an expression, let us not to forget to play the Language Game.  I am coming back though in a different mindset than I’ve ever been.  Driven, purposeful, open, aware of the timely bookends of my trip.  Knowing each day, each hour, would be better spent not wasted.  I have been harvesting minimal hours of sleep, wanting to experience all time in the waking life.  Finding myself at times exhausted, but not like I am stretching myself.  The coconut trees ripe with the alkalized sweet coconut water are just a bamboo pole and a jut away.  It keeps me going, as does this.

The fruit trees that I dream of when I am not here.  

The intensity of fresh produce.

Adding Galangal (Blue ginger), Lemongrass, Cilantro

All fresh from the garden

Into a Mahi-Mahi Green Curry.

The fish two feet long and caught yesterday by friends.

Eating together, 10 of us, with food for more, how beautiful.

Making dough for bagels

Boiling them adding herbs and spices, onion and garlic,

And cooking them in a clay wood-fired oven

Warm from last night’s Pizza Show.

Dessert Apple Pie special, caramelized apples and pecans,

Cream cheese frosting

Dance parties breaking out both nights,

Conversations erupting into growth

Personally and communally

Rudolph Snerby, Al Town’s painted car,

The Salvador Dali Melting Pizzas

At the entrance to the driveway 

Picked up at the airport by an old friend and immediate new friends.  Sushi happy hour, 1.75 J-Mo polished, midnight ocean swim, Kahului hotel, Saver’s for breakfast, Hana Hwy meditation at Chicken Kitty Park, completion of two year old landscaping projects, backgammon games, Bunny ears jump,  cave pools dive in, all wonderful people and faces and trees that I dream of in the night while away.  Here I am.  It’s quite overwhelming. 

Take it all in

knowledge, emotions, intellect,

instinct, animal drive, smiles

Give it all back

Every soul

Benefits from each other’s

Powerfully

Do everything

While allowing Everything to happen

Receive it all

With extreme

Simplicity

Some of my good friend’s favorite songs that he shared with me and I want to share with you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7QSkI6My1g

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVGgGW1ZalY&feature=relmfu

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZYbEL06lEU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5j3XE20QjI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9cwz12wKD0

It has been three days.  I want to share this all with you because it is too much to take in alone.  

Aloha.

All Pursuits Wortwhile: Time

Get excited. Life is oozing out of my fingers like squeezed gak (a wondrous joyous mixture of Elmer’s glue, water, and borax). I’ve got the Dean Moriarity bug screaming YES YES YES at every drop of dew, every inscrutable street, each piece of trash being kicked by ragged shoes. All that may feel neglected should not, because I’m thinking about it. Life is large in the Pacific Northwest. The snowcapped Mountains dominate the landscape and the chill will remove the stagnancy and complacency from your idea of summer in July snoozing on the beach.

bear on the swing with the pink slippers
high priest on the high beam
rising bread in the sun
against a blank canvas
soon to be splashed with the rainbow’s soul
evolving waves of wisdom
generations of time passing like fireflies
mother time to brother time to
yesterday’s idea of eternity
thank you
thank you
each room a sanctuary
illuminating the present goal
in every eyeless corridor
you’re an artist
we’re all artists
thank you thank
you
for the endless inspiration

The road trip. 1600 miles, easy, lets drive right on thru! A got a rideshare with an African American family heading to Seattle from Minneapolis for the summer for various reasons (family, film internship). I’ve been anticipating crossing America at lengths for years now. Kerouac’s On the Road has been an inspiration in my intrepid travels since early High School. The goals and dreams of my past have manifested in unexpected ways without any order to it. Roll the dice, close the eyes, and roll’emagain. Again and again. I am trying to treat each room as a sanctuary, every minute as a gift, and whatever occurs –get excited, it’s occurring.


If it is willed
the road that always been
awaits
though explore before
(through foreign eyes
feasting on prehuman landscape)
be there
in ecstasy
like a newborn
breaching the water
towards the moonlight
after
the first midnight swim


Fast forward to the sites, smells, sounds and tastes as Seattle’s Pike Place. Like most international marketplaces in cities, where the artisans of the world congregate and share their expressions of themselves with the world. On the street, a picture will come soon, is a man singing the saddest blues song ever,‘Brocolli… again, for dinner!’ He sings it while hula hooping, and while hooping he plays harmonica and guitar, and while playing guitar he spins in a circle balancing a second guitar on his chin, and with his free hand he strikes the guitar resting on his chin a shaker up and down the bridge. Spinning, hula hooping, meditating on the SADDEST SONG EVER! This man’s ability was not lost on me, his lyrics about broccoli were poignant and his showmanship well practiced. I was eating a potatoe and cheese pyroshki at the time, walking around with fresh vegetables, and Copper River Salmon which would be baked later that night to perfection. Local arts, crafts, foods, people watching delights. My kind of place, a good cultural harvest. Afterwards, we (my cousins whom I hadn’t seen in 15 years) went to Theo Chocolate, the first North American Fair-trade and Organic chocolate makers. More artisans and wonderful smells and tastes. Ghost chile chocolate caramels, single malt scotch ganaches, chipotle spice sipping chocolate, YES YES YES!

We toured the facilities and saw the merry chocolatiers in their natural Willy Wonka like chocolate fountain dwelling. After a tour of chocolate, and a free 40 lb bag of husked cacao bean shells to use as mulch (holler at your sustainable recyclable practices), we did what any sane 21+ year old in America would do. Grab a beer in a town dubbed as “the center of the universe.” Went to Brouwer’s and got a Montana brew, Big Sky’s Ivan the Terrible Stout. An 11% 12 oz pour from the tap, one of their 60+ options, along with 300 + bottles. The scenery and space of the bar was gorgeous and I’d frequent that place if I lived within 30 miles. Drove back home to cook a dinner that satiated my belly fully. We baked the salmon with a smoked paprika, salt, pepper, garlic, oil rub and topped with lemon wedges and sliced onion. Served the fresh caught Copper River Salmon on a bed of steamed and massaged mustard greens from the garden and delicious risotto on the side. After some digestion time I made dough for tomorrow morning’s bagels, conversed and found out more about my friendly, warm, personable cousin’s lives and went to sleep. A wonderful first day in Seattle.

The next night, indescribable. So why bother going through details. Instead I’ll try and keep it simple with an image.

Imagine your life as a piece of paper.

Fold it into a tree.

Watch the inanimate bear fruit, drop seed, grow

into a new tree with new fruit.

Now take this new tree with new fruit.

Unfold it back into that piece of paper.

Have a couple beers while living in those new creases.

Be positive. About everything. It helps. Life is boundless.

rain is dripping through the shelter
into the home we're always seeking
frog drinks find their way into my head
i can't wait for the day
when dr seuss becomes reality
theres a spinning top that never stops she says

on yesterdays trail i followed you
to the endless loop i thought was made for two
we're never older than the day we die
always will we always be
grateful for idea of eternity
a rock a map a diving board, why be shy
when will i understand
that when this globe gripped by hand
starts spinning it won't ever change a thing
that won't prevent me from trying
swimming deeper, like a water dividing
bridge that connects a peasant to a king

the flag flies higher than the man

while a picture of magnificent land

can do more than memorialize the view

it can offer access to

a memory so severely true

that there is nothing left but all of us who loved you

it's all the same, they go on saying

drinking swinging singing playing

we're only as happy as we pretend to be

it could be worse, if we knew how we got here

secret handshakes between passion and fear

if theres nothing left to question how can we be free

summer storms keep on coming
the tyrant river keeps on drumming
and here we are, we are here you and me
what's next let's shoot the arrow
spin the wheel and step into the shallow
waters that that lay beneath our feet

time for us to change tomorrow
try and think of others sorrow
animals and plants swing to the same beat
share the sun don't hog the clouds
we're smaller in enormous crowds
we're larger when we fall asleep at night
into a dream of timeless bliss
where every star unlocks a wish
darkness ain't nothing without light

One day on a rockin’ chair I suspect I’ll recite my past to a young boy whose age I once was and I’ll likely never speak of it again. Rockin on the front porch, maybe fingering some wabi sabi guitar strings, knowing whatever is coming out of my mouth is gibberish, knowing it was all worth it.


Tomorrow I fly back to Maui. Tomorrow.  Aloha to all.