Ode to Central Park

I'm back in Central Park.  It's a haven.  It's the breath of New York City.  The sun is warm and bright, penetrating my skin.  I'm wearing shorts, liberation of the legs.

The towering fountain with a sculpted angel on top ripples out a steady stream of fresh white waterfall noise.
A saxophone player mixes his melodies in with the fountain's.
A french-speaking group throws coins over their shoulders into the pond like they do at Trevi fountain...un-duex-trois!
An Indian couple stares confused at a group of blond american moms doing cross-fit lunges and jumps in spandex.
A Russian family is posing for a picture in front of the pond, the camera man in front of the pond, the man barks in attempts to get the toddler to smile...success.
Behind them, a woman with short white hair paddles herself in a row boat, pondering.
A black woman whose hair is many tight braids wrapped in a glorious head-sized bun resting straight above her lounges smooth by the water.

A Jewish duo.

There are two types of people in this square.  One, a steady stream of passers-by, most admire the fountain, pose for a few photos, then continue on their way.  The runners would fit into this category.  The other type is sitting around the perimeter on a perpetual stone bench, they are like me, observing.  What would happen if everyone was observing?  If we all noticed that everyone else was seeing?  All looking around at each other, an energy shift, a new connection?  What then?

The melodies of a quartet singing remind me of a group I heard last time I was here a month ago, in fact, it is that group  Such soul, the crowd applauses with gusto.
A bearded man scratches the ears of his white puppy.  An elderly Chinese couple stretches in a distinctly Chinese manner.
A french man serenades his woman with a french song while oaring the row boat.  They lean in for a kiss, his beret touching her forehead.
A pretty Londoner, Olivia, looks at her map, trying to decide what she'll see in her last two hours in New York before her flight home.
A short woman walks by very slowly, very intentionally, soaking in everything around her, completely absorbed.  Something about her energy touches me, expanding my heart and presence, raising my awareness.

Hard to see, but this guy was texting and driving.

It's spring in the park, the trees are bursting forth green leaves and pink blossoms.  The tulips, daffodils and bleeding hearts are full, waving their vibrant colors and textures in the breeze.  It's spring for the birds-chirping, and it's spring for the people-smiling, faces blooming.

I am rejuvenated once again in Central Park.  Central Park, you slice of heaven.  It doesn't seem possible that in the middle of this, many times, calloused, distracted, hustling city, there would be a fortress of life and abundance sprawling for 150 city blocks.  Central Park, you give me hope.  It's as though there were some portal at your boarder that transformed everyone who walked in.  It's as though you are an alternate universe shinning light in the darkness.

I have now outstayed everyone at this plaza.  To a new space I shall wander.

From a castle, looking over turtle pond.  (Which lives up to it's name.)

Ether

Something about this moment

when I slide under the covers 

and finally let everything go. 

Laying, completely unlaced,

embraced between gravity and bed. 

When I can drift out of my head and 

into my body, down my arms and legs, 

over the sheets, across the floor, 

up the walls, and 

out the chimney into the night sky, 

a space that more suitably facilitates my soul, 

expanding up into the heavens, 

where a million little strings of starlight
lift me up from the inside and 

hold me…

                 hanging, 

        dissipated, 

etherial.

Ether: noun

     a very rarefied and highly elastic substance formerly believed to permeate all space, including the interstices between the particles of matter, and to be the medium whose vibrations constituted light and other electromagnetic radiation.

Oatmeal Essence

Feel your heart,

let your awareness slowly
cook it like a bowl of
oatmeal. Let the smell fill the whole
house.

Tendril Effect

Stop for a moment.
Notice the tree in your mind,
infinite fingers stretched
out like veins.
Trunk giving way to branches which
spring twigs searching for total
sun.
Beneath the bark, feel the electricity
let it fly like a beehive,
to and fro,
searching for new air,
and
enjoy the trip.

Sky Meets Water

Walking in this world, looking at the life around me, I hold two realities, one in each hand.  In one, I trust that everyone is exactly where they want to be, that they are living as fully as they can, that they couldn’t be happier.  In the other I look around and I feel that so many haven’t seen the vision of what life could be.  Not that they are living the way they are out of a rejection of the best possible reality, they don’t see it yet.

Where do I stand?   Usually on one foot or the other.  One stands underwater.  In this place I feel that I don’t see what could be, I don’t feel free, and I look to the sky, searching for a way up.  The other stands in the sky, it sees clearly that there is no such thing as the opposite of freedom.  It looks down at the water and think, “my that is a beautiful lake, I think I’ll dive in and have a swim.”

While he was swimming, sky foot came across water foot.  “Isn’t this water amazing to swim in?” he asked.  But water foot just looked down and said, “I’m not free, I can’t get to the sky.”  Sky foot leaned in, “Ah, but there is no such thing as the opposite of freedom.”  Water foot replied, “yes, there is, I know because I am not free.”  “Ah,” the foot from the sky said, “but you’re making it up, you’re creating the cage, let it go, and see how refreshing the water is, then we’ll fly to the sky.”  But the foot from the water said, “if I’m making this up, then you’re making up the reality that there is nothing but freedom.”  Sky foot winked at him, “now you’re starting to catch on my friend.”

Thoughts from Toronto

Greeting from Michigan! It's a good story how I ended up here, just like everything is when you're "riding the wave of freedom" (as a long-haired vagabond once told me.) But before I get into that, I found something I wrote in Toronto a couple months ago. I was in Toronto for a month, a beautiful month that deserves many blog posts. I wrote this in the warmth of a coffee shop one day in February...

Just walking down yong street in Toronto to see someone I love. Many people walk on this street, and as I walk, I look at everyone that passes me, I begin to realize that I can understand each one in just a few moments, by understand, I also mean there is nothing that would get in the way of how deeply I love them. I look at the world around me, we all share this place and this moment, and it is so beautiful, just to be. As the energy in me dances I notice that it is reflecting back to me in those whose eyes catch mine, more and more I see smiles, alive eyes, and happiness. Like a fountain I bubble, just at that moment I think to myself, "I'm just..." And before I could finish the thought my eyes read the name of the shop I was passing, "walking on the clouds." I laughed, and said back to the universe, "I couldn't have said it better myself."

I don't understand why we compartmentalize our love for the people we already know who are waiting for us somewhere. Then, on the way to that place we shut down the eyes of our soul. We all know what warmth is behind the walls of places we know. But outside those walls, it's usually a different story. Why are there walls? Love is all around us and what a beautiful thing it is to pass it to everyone who crosses your path.

I think there is a world of energy deeper than what we call reality based on our senses. I think this is the truth, I think this is love, and I think this is where we are headed.

I don't seek money, I don't seek security, I don't seek attention, I seek becoming aware of and aligning with the energy that is already one, and is beyond what we have been taught reality is, true connection, boundrylessness, love.

Every moment of connection is a portal to another world. Every person sees the world differently, feels different things. I desire to see the world through the eyes around me. I think when two people see through the same eyes, they become one and "eyes" disappear. When I see through someone else's eyes that becomes part of my world, when all eyes become apart of your world, there is no longer a me.

Heard

Later the same day as the above post

I'm refreshed after a long walk down Yong street. At the top of some stones stairs in front of a Toronto apartment building at Yong and Wesley, I scan the intersection's pedestrians for someone who might lend me a phone to make a quick call. But my attention is drawn by the voice of someone who does not live in the same societal structures that the rest of these city dwellers. I can tell by the level and tone of his voice. My eyes find him, a black man with a black toque, a scruffy beard, and an old dirty jacket. He is standing still in the flow of people going both directions around him. I can't tell who he's shouting at because his eyes are looking slightly above the people around him, but his yelling is directed at someone. And as I listen, I gather that he tried to make contact with someone who ignored him and kept walking. "See, no one listens to me!" he directs his attention to someone approaching him. "People are too busy." His voice is impossible not to hear, but no one makes eye contact with him, they look to the ground and walk around. "Oh, you're not going to listen to me either? Fine, keep walking!" "No one even notices me," he says with a laugh.

The five steps beneath me props me up above the scene, and keeps me invisible, a perfect vantage point to observe. I am extremely interested. Here is a being who is frustrated with the reality that surrounds him. So frustrated that he is willing to risk what his image to publicly demonstrate his frustration in a way most people would call unacceptable. Normal social walls have collapsed for this being, but the rest of the world still remains inside their walls, probably feeling uncomfortable, or irritated, writing this man off as crazy. He is alienated, and that intensifies his drama.

I wonder what led this man to this point. I wonder what is going on in his mind, and what his experience of this moment is like. To my eyes it doesn't seem pleasant. He is in a flow of negative energy, and I doubt he knows there is another way. I want him to know.

I remain transfixed on this man, as he lashes out about things that I don't understand. Then his eyes glance in my direction, and he continues in his drama, but his energy is shifted because he feels someone sees him. He looks at me again, and stops for a second. Still a ways off he shouts, "Did you see that? No one listens to me, no one pays attention." I don't say anything, I just keep my gaze. Now that someone hears him he can spill out what is going on. He doesn't stop when I say nothing, the words come gushing out. I realize that the words he is putting together don't form thoughts that I can follow.

My consciousness drifts as I become aware of the scene that lays before me, his words begin to blur. I can't tell you what he is saying because I don't know if I hear it. I am in a different reality than this man, and I want to pull him into it. I decide to not say a word, and just communicate on the waves of my eye contact. As he gushes frustration, I don't recognize it, instead I give him something completely different back through my eyes. I almost feel like I'm saying back to him over and over, "Bro! I see you! You don't have to be angry, there is happiness, there is peace." Time blurs and I just wonder how this will end. Eventually he begins to slow down, he pauses every once in a while. His energy shifts and he begins speaking softly.

He looks at me, "THANK YOU, for listening," he says. "No one listens man." He looks down the street and says, "I just want to love people, I just want people to love me." I'm surprised to hear these words. "But then, when they don't listen I say @#$% you!" I speak for the first time, "that doesn't seem like love to me." "It is," he smiles, "it's called tough love." I say, "if you want love, give love." He tilts his head, thinks for a bit, then walks away. I cross the street and look over at him, he gives me a nod and a wave.

Kids

Place: Toronto

Time: Sometime in later February

I love kids. Today I've been noticing how they respond to a different type of impulse than adults. A toddler just burst into running, almost without thought, not to get anywhere...just enjoying the movement, she stops spontaneously a few seconds later, and look around with wonder. Each moment is separate, not linked up in a chain. A brown-eyed boy catches my eyes, and notices that my attention is more present than what he usually sees, but he doesn't look away from a lack of comfort like adults do, there is no reason for him to be uncomfortable, he hasn't learned about judgement yet. He stares straight, and pure. Something about this moment, like two mirrors facing each other. Something small, deep within me flutters...the honor of this moment. It makes it's way up to the edges of my lips in the form of a slight smile.

Alaska Adventure Videos

I'm drawn to wild places, I'm drawn to pure exploration, I'm drawn to the "power-vision" that solitude facilitates.  Last summer I took to Alaska, an experience that culminated with a 10 day exploration into the Gates of the Arctic National Park.  I captured some moments of the first 3 days on film before my camera stopped working.  This first video is the short trailer version, showing the action and the scenery, with an extremely relevant song, it's really all you need to see.  But I put the second video because some of you might want a deeper look into what the experience was like.  It's basically 11 minutes of what I'm thinking at various points of the journey and a few stories, pretty candid.  There are a few classic moments caught on tape.  There isn't really any overlap in the two videos.