My perfect view...

Falling forward, back into orbit...

This year has taught me the simple craft of belief. I believe in the things I've nurtured and built. Slowly but carefully. Such as understanding, knowledge, passion, strength; the hundreds of stories I've written, the books I've read and the miles I've run. The resolution to breathe, to meditate, to not harm my mind or body even when I've felt like it.

It's that time of year when we're supposed to finish off chapters and turn over a new leaf. Yet what if you aren't done with the path you've been on for the last year? Are you just supposed to continue, as if nothing actually changed? It's just an arbitrary date anyway; who's to say when something ends, and something new begins? It seems silly to worry about a made up moment some person long dead declared to be the conclusion of one year and the birth of another, as if our attempts to divide time into meaningful chunks actually mean anything. People wait for the countdown to tell them it's okay to believe in themselves again. They end each year with failure, but hope that when the clock strikes twelve, they can begin the new year with a clean slate. They tell themselves that this is the year things will happen, never realising that things are always happening; they're just happening without them. Not for me though - I march forward towards every dream I've ever hard. Despite failure ... or perhaps, because of it.

Lost in the in-between...

When I'm furthest from myself,

feeling closer to the stars.

I've been invaded by the dark,

trying to recognise myself when I feel I've been replaced.

I can feel a kick down in my soul,

and it's pulling me back to earth to let me know - 

I am not a slave, can't be contained,

so pick me from the dark and pull me from the grave.

I can feel a kick down in my soul...

Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains. You could see them standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins wimpled softly in the flow. They smelt of moss in your hand. Polished and muscular and torsional. On their backs were vermiculite patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right again. In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery. What if one happens to be possessed of a heart that can't be trusted? What if the heart, for its own unfathomable reasons, leads one wilfully and in a cloud of unspeakable radiance away from health, domesticity, civic responsibility and strong social connections and all the blandly-held common virtues and instead straight towards a beautiful flare of ruin, self-immolation, disaster.

Feeling closer to the stars...

Pull me from the grave...

Are you willing to stoop down and consider the needs and desires of little children; to remember the weaknesses and loneliness of people who are growing old; to stop asking how much your friends love you, and to ask yourself if you love them enough; to bear in mind the things that other people have to bear on their hearts; to trim your lamp so that it will give more light and less smoke, and to carry it in front so that your shadow will fall behind you; to make a grave for your ugly thougts and a garden for your kindly feelings, with the gate open? Are you willing to do these things for a day? Then you are ready to for Christmas.

Pick me from the dark...

I'm dancing with the trees...

Now it's the perfect season,

let's go for it this time,

we're dancing with the trees and

I've waited my whole life.

Every time it comes on,

I get this sweet desire -

I bloom just for you,

just for you.

Calling my spirit...

Who fixes broken people? Is it only other broken people, ones who've already been ruined? And do we need to be fixed? It was the messiness and hurt in our pasts that drove us, and that same hurt connected us at a subnormal level, the kind of scars written so deeply in your cells that you can't even see them anymore, only recognise them in someone else. And it is our wounds that create in us a desire to reach for miracles. But that's where the real work then begins. Because the fulfilment of such miracles depends on whether we let our wounds pull us down or lift us up towards our dreams. Towards our destiny.

Fall into time...

As I'm am bombarded by a hurricane of feedback, I have come to realize that people will react to you as a result of their own mindset, rather than as a reflection of your worth. Most people use others as mirrors for their own darkness. If you have been hurt by such people, perhaps you can use these experiences to become a different kind of person - one who reflects the light within others instead of using them as echos of their own soul. Maybe your experiences of pain can lead you to being a great leader, someone who lights up the world. Your most painful struggle is ripe with opportunity. One that I can't wait to fully explore.

Rewrite your history...

I've heard fate talked of. In great tales of heroism and defeat. I've heard it whispered among those considered to have reached beyond the mundane. Yet it's not a word I use often, because I think we make our own choices. I believe that how we live our lives is our own doing, and we cannot fully hope on dreams and stars. They can show us the way, though. Perhaps even act as a waypoint towards everything we ever wanted. And the heart's voice is a strong one. Always is. Your heart's voice is your true voice. It is easy to ignore, as sometimes it says what we'd rather it did not - and it is so hard to risk the things we have. But what life are we living, if we don't live by our hearts? Not a true one. And the person living it is not the true you.

Covered up with garden dirt...

Dragonfly out in the sun...

Birds flyin' high, you know how I feel.

Sun in the sky, you know how I feel.

Breeze driftin' on by, you know how I feel.

It's a new dawn, it's a new day, it's a new life for me,

and I'm feelin' good.

At least this is a smash...

So this is for us. This is for us who sing, write, dance, act, study, run and love and this is for doing it even if no one will ever know because the beauty is in the act of doing it. Not what it can lead to. This is for the times I lose myself while writing, singing, playing and no one is around and they will never know but I will forever remember and that shines brighter than any praise or fame or glory I will ever have, and this is for you who write or play or read or sing by yourself with the light off and door closed when the world is asleep and the stars are aligned and maybe no one will ever hear it or read your words or know your thoughts but it doesn’t make it less glorious. It makes it ethereal. Mysterious. Infinite.

Time to simply listen and laugh...

I'll never meet the ground...

So here we are ... the final stretch. I can feel my body grasping for the strength to push through. What a year, for sure, and it's not nearly over yet. The countdown begins and as I sit back and ready myself for all of my choices to unfold, I cannot help but reminisce about the journey that led me here - the people I met along the way, those of you I lost ... all of it took a greater toll on me than I dare to admit, especially the losses. I know that life often forces us to say goodbye, and that each one of those goodbyes is meaningful and necessary for our growth, but I wonder still, if they could have somehow been avoided. If there was something more I could have said, could have done, could have forgiven.

I'd do it all again...

Mystery of love...

Oh, to see without my eyes,

the first time that you kissed me,

boundless by the time I cried.

I built your walls around me,

white noise, what an awful sound -

fumbling by rogue river,

feel my feet above the ground.

Hand of God, deliver me.

You only get a minute...

I am slowly coming to terms that just because I don't get what I want at the exact time that I wanted it, that doesn't really erase the fact that I got it - I was just wrong about the timeline or the execution. I consider myself lucky, but would also like to believe that my blessings have been the product of my positive choices. We can never know for sure, though; is it fate or chance? I can never decide. Yet what is certain is that the future can be bright and it can be whatever we want, as long as we're willing to let go of all the preconceived notions of how our life is supposed to look like. It's going to be okay. Or better yet, it's going to be great. Just you wait.

I'm good with that...

Trying my best, not to get hurt...

Peace is not always easy to grasp or keep close. In the process of attaining and protecting it, you may find yourself tired, weary, and uncertain on how to keep your peace safe. While being uncertain is normal, continue to commit yourself to the harmony in your mind. You are worthy of every drop of sweetness and ease that you encounter. Being tested is a part of the journey. Giving up, and letting go, is not.

I laid there with my mind running amuck, on the brink of madness. And somehow, gradually, early Monday morning, I became calm. I can't think of any other word for it. I was thinking about the beach again, and I started to feel as if I was being looked after, that everything was okay. It was strange: if there was ever a time in my life when I had the right to feel anxious, this was it. But I lost that sense of apprehension. I felt like there was a force in the room with me, not a person, but I had a sense that there was another world, another dimension, and it would be looking after me. But somehow, standing in the clear night air, under a sky that glowed like a shower of sparks, none of that stuff mattered. It slipped off me. It was like shedding your clothes before you step in the shower. I felt I was down to essentials again. In fact I felt very close to Her at that moment. I guess if you're ever going to feel close to a dearly departed, it'll be while you're looking at the heavens.

You have yet to know...

To learn to see; to accustom the eye to calmness, to patience, and to allow things to come up to it; to defer judgment, and to acquire the habit of approaching and grasping an individual case from all sides. Such a realization was imperative for his rebirth, for music burst through him, perfect notes he heard rarely. Fire and ice, wind and calm, sky and earth, water and rock all fused together. One part of him seemed as wild and turbulent as the sea, yet beneath his fiery passion, at the very core of him, he was as forceful and strong and as constant as the deepest ocean currents. His other half was calm. Calm as windless lake, yet beneath the surface smoldered a volcano of such explosive magnitude, his power could easily sweep everything from his path. Together, both of these extremes completed each other, both melodies merging together into a single, perfect harmony.

Not all love songs are about love...

Where everything is fine...

The older I get the more that I see,

my parents aren't heroes, they're just like me.

And loving is hard, it don't always work,

you just try your best not to get hurt.

I used to be mad ,but now I know -

sometimes it's better to let someone go.

Look what you've taught me...

When I looked, I knew I might never again see so much of the earth so beautiful, the beautiful being something you know added to something you see, in a whole that is different from the sum of its parts. What I saw might have been just another winter scene, although an impressive one. But what I knew was that the earth underneath was alive and that by tomorrow, certainly by the day after, it would be all green again. For I once found a phoenix charred in its own ashes. I brought it home with me, wept through the night, and then tossed it to the wind--its brittle body dispersing all about. This thing without a name and deep within me - how it truly believes that if something is meant to take flight, then it must one way or another.

It just hadn't hit me yet...

I smell snow...

I love snow for the same reason I love Christmas: It brings people together while time stands still. Cozy couples lazily meandered the streets and children trudged sleds and chased snowballs. No one seemed to be in a rush to experience anything other than the glory of the day, with each other, whenever and however it happened. 

I have not yet lost the feeling of wonder, and of delight, that this delicate motion should reside in all the things around us, revealing itself only to those who look for it. I remember, in the winter of our first experiments, just seven years ago, looking on snow with new eyes. There the snow lay around my doorstep - great heaps of protons quietly recessing in the earth's magnetic field. To see the world for a moment as something rich and strange is the private reward of many a discovery. And maybe it's wrong when we remember breakthroughs to our own being as something that occurs in discrete, extraordinary moments. Maybe falling in love, the piercing knowledge that we ourselves will someday die, and the love of snow are in reality not some sudden events; maybe they were always present. Maybe they never completely vanish, either.

The older I get, the more that I see...

Sometimes it's better to let some things go...

How did it get so late so soon?

It is growing cold. Fall is slowly turning into winter and putting footsteps in the meadow. One could say milk-colored maidens are dancing on the petals of orchids. How coldly burns our sun. One would say its rays of light are shards of snow, one imagines the sun lives upon a snow crested peak on this day. One would say he is a man who wears a gown of winter frost that blinds the eyes. Helplessness has weakened me. Wandering has wearied my legs, for I am still learning to make things nice for myself. Slowly building myself a home with things I like. Colors that calm me down, a plan to follow when things get dark, a few people I try to treat right. I don't sometimes, but it's my intent to do so. I’m learning. I'm learning to save myself. I'm trying, as I always will.

Hear my love sing...

Every night you play me something sweet,

and when I'm down, you always change the key.

I need you now, my heart has lost the beat,

and I'm counting on your love, hey melody.

We both could use a reason just to smile,

so let me be your harmony tonight -

every note you hit cuts into me.

Learned from the pain...

It's a purple threaded evening. A torn god is laying on the roof. The sky is milky. The lavender hued moon shines against hot asphalt. The thickness of the evening presses into his throat. Polaroids taped to the ceiling. Ivy pouring out of the cracks in the wall. He found his courage buried beneath molding books and forgot to lock the door behind him. The old house never forgets. He opened his mouth and a dandelion fell out. Reached behind his tongue and found sopping wet seeds. Pulled all of his teeth out just to say he could. He drowned himself in a bottle of whiskey and the orange really brought out his demise. Lay him down on a bed of ground spices. There's a song there; he know's it. Amethyst geode eyes. Cracked open. No one saw it coming. November never loved him. The moon still doesn’t understand that.

I've loved and I've lost...

Surrender is the ultimate sign of strength and the foundation for a serene life. It affirms that we are no longer willing to live in pain. It expresses a deep desire to transcend our struggles and transform our negative emotions. It commands a life beyond our egos, beyond that part of ourselves that is continually reminding us that we are separate, different and alone. Surrendering allows us to return to our true nature and move effortlessly through the cosmic dance called life. It's a powerful statement that proclaims the perfect order of the universe.

When you give in, you are saying, "even though things are not exactly how I'd like them to be, I will face my reality. I will look it directly in the eye and allow it to be here." Surrender and serenity are synonymous; you can't experience one without the other. So if it's peace you're searching for, it's close by. All you have to do is resign as the puppeteer of the universe. Choose to trust that there is a greater plan for you and that if you let go, it will be unfolded in time. Surrender is a gift that you can give yourself. It's an act of faith. It's saying that even though I can't see where this river is flowing, I trust it will take me in the right direction.

Electricity, I'm falling into you...

Now I'm see-through...

Just watch this moment, without trying to change it at all. What is happening? What do you feel? What do you see? What do you hear? Is it everything you've ever wanted or perhaps something even greater? Listen carefully and remember that sometimes it’s hard to know when to let go. It can be so personal, like the autumn leaf still hanging on the limb in the late October sky, Mother nature sends a gust of wind to nudge its stem loose. For us, we must listen for our own nudge from the inner soul. We must know and trust that when the time is right we will feel it, and instantly be made aware of that it’s okay to let it be. Whispers words of wisdom, let it be.

Lets see where this thing goes...

Who knows where this road is supposed to lead?

We got nothing but time,

as long as you're right here next to me, 

everything's gonna be alright.

If it's meant to be, it'll be, it'll be -

baby, just let it be.

Far from the shallow now...

Yes, I understand why things had to happen this way. I understand the reason for my pain. But mere understanding does not chase away the hurt. It does not call upon the sun when dark clouds have loomed over me. Let the rain come then if it must come! And let it wash away the dust that hurt my eyes, and let it show me the truth. I wonder, do these scars cover the whole of me, like the stars and the moon do the night sky? I thought that would be pretty too, and I ask you right here please to agree with me that a scar is never ugly. That is just what they want you to think. But you and I, we must make an agreement to defy them. We must see all scars as beauty. Okay? This will be our secret. Because take it from me, a scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, you survived.

Crash through the surface...

He fears himself...

It was a great mistake to have come. I should have stayed at home and wrote my stupid stories. But it was too late now. I was standing in front of the stage, with the music pounding through my body. It was as before, yet everything felt different; I should have stayed home, for I knew no longer, where I was.

One might fancy that day, the magical day, was just beginning. Like a man who had slipped off his suit and black tie to array himself in a party goes ensemble; the day changed, put off stuff, took gauze, transformed to evening, and with the same sigh of exhilaration that a man breathes, tumbling petticoats on the floor, it too shed dust, heat, color; the traffic thinned; motor cars, tinkling, darting, succeeded the lumber of vans; and here and there among the thick foliage of the squares an intense light hung. The evening seemed to say, as it paled and faded above the battlements and prominence, molded, pointed, of hotel, flat, and block of shops, he was beginning. He disappeared, but the night would have none of it, and rushed his bayonets into the sky, pinioned him, constrained him to partnership in his revelry.

The whole world knows...

I swear to you I'll be okay...

None of your knowledge, your reading, your connections will be of any use here: two legs suffice, and big eyes to see with. Walk alone, across mountains or through forests. You are nobody to the hills or the thick boughs heavy with greenery. You are no longer a role, or a status, not even an individual, but a body, a body that feels sharp stones on the paths, the caress of long grass and the freshness of the wind. When you walk, the world has neither present nor future: nothing but the cycle of mornings and evenings. Always the same thing to do all day: walk. But the walker who marvels while walking, has no past, no plans, no experience. He has within him the eternal child. While walking I am but a simple gaze.

Be that one in a million...

Mama said fulfill the prophecy,

be something greater,

go make a legacy,

manifest destiny.

Back in the days,

we wanted everything -

Mama said burn your biographies,

rewrite your history,

light up your wildest dreams.

Looking forward to the rest of my life...

If you swim effortlessly in the deep oceans, ride the waves to and from the shore, if you can breathe under water and dine on the deep treasures of the seas; mark my words, those who dwell on the rocks carrying nets will try to reel you into their catch. The last thing they want is for you to thrive in your habitat because they stand in their atmosphere where they beg and gasp for some air. If you walk on sunlight, bathe in moonlight, breathe in a golden air and exhale a Midas' touch; mark my words, those who exist in the shadows will try to pull you into the darkness with them. The last thing that they want is for you to see the wonder of your life because they can't see theirs.

I'm off the deep end...

He took the path that led others nowhere and only he saw the light at the end of the tunnel. They warned him about the monsters he would encounter, the odds that he would face. And they laughed when he got scars while fighting dragons on his way. When he came back out of the tunnel, holding his sword, bleeding and the sun shining on his face, he became the tales they wanted to be. He became the reflections of what they always wanted to see themselves through. He became the warriors they had always imagined of. He's been trying to fit everything in, trying to get to the end before it's too late, but he can see now how badly he's deceived himself. Words do not allow such things. The closer you come to the end, the more there is to say. The end is only imaginary, a destination you invent to keep yourself going, but a point comes when you realize you will never get there. You might have to stop, but that is only because you have run out of time. You stop, but that does not mean you have come to an end.

No good at giving you up...

Heaven only knows...

The autumn leaves blew over the moonlit pavement in such a way as to make the boy who was moving there seem fixed to a sliding walk, letting the motion of the wind and the leaves carry him forward. The trees overhead made a great sound of letting down their dry rain.

It was a very ordinary day, the day I realized that my becoming is my life and my home and that I don't have to do anything but trust the process, trust my story and enjoy the journey. It doesn't really matter who I've become by the finish line, the important things are the changes from this morning to when I fall asleep again, and how they happened, and who they happened with. An hour watching the stars, a coffee in the morning with someone beautiful, intelligent conversations while sharing the last cigarette - oh how I miss smoking! Taking trains to nowhere, walking hand in hand through foreign cities with someone you love. Oceans and cheesy quotes. It was all very ordinary until my identity appeared, until my body and mind became one being. The day I saw summer dissolve into autumn and learned how to turn my daily struggles into the most extraordinary moments. Moments worth writing about. For so long I let my life slip through my fingers, like water. I'm holding on to it now, and I'm not letting go.

Time should have taught me a lesson...

Kneeling at your temple, love was accidental.

Singing bruises, I was foolish,

thinking I was careful, losing every battle.

No hands, no rush,

no touch, no drug,

no blood, no love -

I'm doing it all for you.

I can't do golden rings...

Make it happen in my mind...

It's really hard to remember who you are,

when life moves so fast 

that you barely have time to breath.

I promise I won't give up on this. Even when it seems like I'm already done, already gone, I promise that I'm still somewhere in the shadows, waiting for the perfect moment to reappear. This thing that is not a blog has never been about obligation, but always an obsession. An obsession to track my thoughts, my experiences and my deepest fears. An obsession to write down every single piece, no matter how bizarre or pathetic, no matter how trivial or profound. I am here to expose my inner most truth, not for anyone else to see, but to see for myself. I may wane in consistency, and I may borrow when life offers little inspiration, but I will neither feel sorry nor apologetic. I am here because I want to be heard ... to not be so very alone, and above all, to never forget.

Gone looking for a sign...

At times I feel as if I had lived all this before and that I have already written these very words, but I know it was not I: it was another man, who kept his notebooks so that one day I could use them. I write, he wrote, that memory is fragile and the space of a single life is brief, passing so quickly that we never get a chance to see the relationship between events; we cannot gauge the consequences of our acts, and we believe in the fiction of past, present, and future, but it may also be true that everything happens simultaneously. That's why I write in my notebooks, in order to see things in their true dimension and to defy my own poor memory.

Magic in the air, there ain’t no science here...

Took an oath by blood...

The Road goes ever on and on down from the door where it began. Now far ahead the road has gone, and I must follow, if I can, pursuing it with eager feet, until it joins some larger way, where many paths and errands meet. And whither then? I cannot say.

Often, beyond the next turning, footfalls of a herd galloping across stone were heard and one's heart beat faster upon advancing a little into the subtle light: one might have said that the path had suddenly become wild, thick with grass, its dark paving-slabs engulfed by nettles, blackthorn and sloe, so that it mingled up time past rather than crossing country-side, and perhaps it was going to issue forth, in moistened down and fresh grass, into one of those glades where animals spoke to men. It was a fossilised path: the will which had cut this gash out of these solitary places so that the blood and sap would flow which was long since dead - and dead too were the circumstances which had guided this will. A whitish and indurated scar remained, gradually gnawed away by the earth like a flesh that heals itself, yet its direction was still vaguely cut into the horizon; a language and crepuscular sign rather than a way forward - a worn-out lifeline which still vegetated through the fallow land as it does on the palm of a hand. 

Rather be the hunter than the prey...

Will you hold the line?

When every one of them is giving up or giving in, 

tell me - in this house of mine?

Nothing ever comes without a consequence or cost, 

tell me - will the stars align?

Will heaven step in? Will it save us from our sin? Will it?

Because this house of mine stands strong.

My price to pay...

Tastes so sweet, looks so real...

You are mistaken, and you know nothing about me, and nothing about the sort of love of which I am capable. Every atom of your flesh is as dear to me as my own: in pain and sickness it would still be dear. Your mind is my treasure, and if it were broken, it would be my treasure still: if you raved, my arms should confine you, and not a strait waistcoat - your grasp, even in fury, would have a charm for me: if you flew at me as wildly as that woman did this morning, I should receive you in an embrace, at least as fond as it would be restrictive. I should not shrink from you with disgust as I did from her: in your quiet moments you should have no watcher and no nurse but me; and I could hang over you with untiring tenderness, though you gave me no smile in return; and never weary of gazing into your eyes, though they had no longer a ray of recognition for me.

The dreams we have, the love we share...

A multitude of emotions...

Since I knew you, I have been troubled by a remorse that I thought would never reproach me again, and have heard whispers from old voices impelling me upward, that I thought were silent for ever. I have had unformed ideas of striving afresh, beginning anew, shaking off sloth and sensuality, and fighting out the abandoned fight. A dream, all a dream, that ends in nothing, and leaves the sleeper where he lay down, but I wish you to know that you inspired it and that meeting you was a memorable day, for it made great changes in me. But it is the same with any life. Imagine one selected day struck out of it, and think how different its course would have been. Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day.

The best of times and the worst of times...

When the morning comes,

when we see what we've become,

in the cold light of day we're a flame in the wind.

Now the fire has begun,

every argument, every word I can't take back,

because with all that has happened,

I think that we all know the way that the story ends.

Faded to black...

There are times to stay put, and what you want will come to you, and there are times to go out into the world and find such a thing for yourself. For you may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.

It is hard work to control the workings of inclination and turn the bent of nature; but that it may be done, I know from experience. The universe has given us, in a measure, the power to make our own fate: and when our energies seem to demand a sustenance they cannot get - when our will strains after a path we may not follow - we need neither starve from initiation, nor stand still in despair: we have but to seek another nourishment for the mind, as strong as the forbidden fruit it longed to taste - and perhaps purer; and to hew out for the adventurous foot a road as direct and broad as the one Fortune has blocked up against us, if rougher than it.