Something Wicked This Way Comes

Been thinking a lot about ghosts lately. Right now I'm sitting here drinking a red wine called Irony, seriously. I picked it up just because of the label. Tonight I need a little less sobriety and a great deal more appreciation for the irony in this world. It's these damn ghosts that have come around again. Not content to clutter the attic or rattle chains in the basement, they have to come out to sit on my lap, look me in the eye and tell me how much they care for me as they shred my self esteem.

We are all haunted by ghosts. Not necessarily those of the deceased. In fact, the worst ghosts are the images and memories of those who are still around, who we occasionally cross paths with, who once we loved, perhaps still do. These ethereal beings remind us in some facet that we have failed, that a road we might have chosen was not taken. They relish in this, these ghosts. They look at us and moan - "what could have been, what have you missed, why didn't you do this...." in that spooky way that sends chills through you and flips your eyelids back in the small hours of the morning to stare at the ceiling waiting for the next breath and not sure if it's going to come. These ghosts, these hauntings, they feed on us. They need us for their existence and we have no seeming power to dispel them.

I know we are all haunted. It's in our eyes. Some make peace with their ghosts and keep them contained as little mice in the back of the closet. The pitter-patter of their feet is audible but the door remains shut and so they scamper about scratching and are only really noticeable at particularly quiet times. Generally these kind of people don't like quiescent moments so they're always rushing about, always busy just so they're never curious about the sounds coming from the closet. This is not really being honest about your apparitions and believe me, they tend to grow in that closet because they know you haven't forgotten them. At some point when the door does burst open, well then you've got a parade on your hands and you're reaching for the medicine cabinet.

Others keep their ghosts close at hand - dinner companions and pillow partners. They are never far from these supernatural barnacles. They feed their ghosts syrupy concoctions of regret and concern, dumplings of remorse, a main course of flagellation and end with a desert of self denial. Their ghosts are fat and sassy. A collection of malodorous spirits marching up and down the corridors of our lives, imperious in their demands, snapping with disdain at behaviors that don't support their gaseous hides.

We come to rely on our ghosts. They're always there, they're never unfaithful in their demands - they always just want more. More time in our thoughts, more focus of our emotions, more space in our future. But they don't want to give us anything in return - they can't, they're ghosts. They don't exist except in our minds. They offer us nothing but take from us all that they can.

I don't know why we give them this power. Lord knows I would like to sit down with my ghosts and have that conversation but these are intangible drifts of thought. If I could gather them and face them in the light of day I'm sure they would disperse, contrite at what they are doing. No, their power comes from the fact that we don't face them, we flee from them. We always have them behind us, over our shoulder. We always hear their footsteps but we never have the nerve to stop, turn around and take a good look at what a ghost really is. If we did they would simply dissipate. Their power lies in inducing us to run away, to say to ourselves, "There's something wrong with me and I can't face it". This is what emboldens them, this is what keeps them in existence.

In truth, you haunt yourself. These ghosts are of your design. Their presence comes at the cost of your endowments. They rob you of your potential but the dirty secret is, they are you. You choose how large they are, how frequently they come around, you give them permission to haunt you because you don't have the courage to laugh at them. Take heed, I'm not saying this lightly. The harmony of laughter within is spring rain for the Self. To laugh is to be confident in who you are - until you reach that you will always run scared from these apparitions, always feel compelled to pay them the dues they demand. The only way to regain power is to understand that these ghosts serve no lasting purpose and the proper response to their wails of despair and pleas for attention is to smile, acknowledge their existence, then laugh a bit at them and at yourself and how insecure you are at times. Send them on their way and go on with your life, a perfect Being, brushing the dust off your soul.

"Eppur si muove"

"Everything is okay in the end. And if it's not okay, then it's not the end." ~unknown


Been bouncing around inside my head lately - caught up with contagion and catastrophe, the echoing halls, receding laughter and the quiet steps of time - measured and resolute. Through all though one word rises each day as I do. Out of the cacophony it reaches, steadfast throughout my being, reverberating like a bell, at times resembling the sound of a fog bound buoy, at times a crisp, clean, clarion peal beseeching me from a church steeple. The word is hope.

It's a funny word, it's a funny concept. Not sure how to wrap my head around it. I know it's a necessary part of our being but I don't trust it. Nope, not after all these years, not after all I've seen. And yet I embrace it when it does return, as it always will, and not just in an accepting way but naively, with sincerity, as if I had never been here before. That's the wonder of it. Like a drug it alleviates the bad memories and insists that the good was better, more vibrant than remembered. With a little more work, a little more luck - maybe a corner not yet turned - some magic thrown into the mix and the world will be delivered to your door. Ah - how I love that feeling.

And let's face it - we're all hope junkies. We wouldn't be striving the way we are without this hunger. We wouldn't be scared so much that things might not work out because without hope we would have no concept of how it might be. How beautiful and strong our lives, our passions, might blossom. Without hope, well, we really wouldn't care would we? And I know you care.

What I ask myself in my work, in my daily dialogue regarding this feeling is how do I know for sure that what I hope for is really what I want. A litmus test to assess and probe, to understand the liminal behavior that may at times border on neurotic. You see hope is a bit indiscriminate in taste but a demanding lover. Once embraced, hope will not leave willingly. The best we can do is understand that we are going to fail to some extent the rule of logic when dancing with this inamorata. We can be certain of suffering through extreme emotional imbalance and the ever popular pangs of self doubt. And there is no guarantee that by enveloping our lives with this hope stuff that we will achieve what we desire, there is no ticket to this show, no reserved seating - you just get in line and wait.

Yet still I hope. Strongly, fiercely, with resolution I allow this flame to consume me and willingly I burn. Laughing at times, crying at others - I never give up hope, I never will. Hope is the measuring stick by which we judge our accomplishments. There is nothing more precious to our essence than to hope and to find reward from that quest. This is why we risk so much, day in and day out. The delivery through hope, the resolution of hope, is sustenance for the soul. Without hope we do not persevere, we do not grow, we do not exist.

So don't ever question your hope, embrace it and savor it. Certainly monitor your behavior around it, understanding that it is a powerful compulsion but know that your hope is your godliness. Your acts on this earth are all evolved from hope and with innocence it is an alter worthy of your sacrifice.

It Is Not Enough

It is not enough to see
but to also feel.
It is not enough to love
but to also honor.
It is not enough to hope
but to also dream.
It is the gentle, trembling touch
of one soul to another
that unlocks the mysteries
of our existence and nurtures
the roots deep within our being
from which to grow.

A Calm Sea Never Made A Great Sailor

There are few things I enjoy more at the end of the day than a glass of wine and penning a good sentence. So too there are few things that bring a greater fear to my heart. This struggle, this challenge, this urge to create is accompanied close within by a familiar of utter fright. I find I am haunted by the limitations of my ability. Over the years this has led me far from pursuing what I love. It's not so much that I dread others viewing my work or worry about the criticisms or ennui that I may induce. It's my own dance I'm doing and the demon band plays a tune I've scored myself.

I had forgotten the first lesson of true artistry. That is, once you start you have little control and the piece takes you where it will. I've been researching the world lately, traveling and asking questions, - listening closely to the finest thinkers I can find, reading their works, pondering their message. I was looking for my translation of the current socio-economic situation and treading water while attempting to compose a magnus opus addressing what I have found. In truth though, I've come to believe that there is no narrative, at the moment, capable of capturing the subtle twists rippling through our culture. The situation we find ourselves in has a unique cast in the pall of current history. Yet in my soul I know something is shifting, some rough beast, whose hour has come round at last, now slouches towards Bethlehem. This I feel deep within.

To me, it is a strident call. These times demand more from us. It is the perihelion of a cycle that melts the wax and exposes us to to the harsh rule of gravity. I believe now we can no longer sit aside and make casual observations, it's time to turn towards true commitment.

I know I'm leading you on a strange path - forgive me, I'm reaching for feeling more than words and my lexical skills will not readily map to my study of the mountain passes. I ran a race this past weekend with a dear friend and she kindly let me entertain her with stories from my youth to preoccupy us as we trudged along, the first serious run of the season. I was telling her about a time when I was military and they taught us how to run and fight. I remember a key part of my training back then was counter intuitive to mine, and most people's nature. We were strenuously conditioned to move towards gunfire, towards explosions, instantaneously, with little thought and no hesitation.

This was a lesson they learned the hard way in past wars. In general, you would be moving along on a patrol and if it was not your lucky day you might walk into an ambush consisting of non friendly types firing at you from multiple directions. At this point most freeze and duck for cover, if so, then your odds of survival are very slim, particularly if they know what they're doing when they set up the ambush. The guys who trained us (mind you some of them had left pieces behind in the jungles of Southeast Asia) figured out the the proper technique for minimizing your losses in this kind of situation. You immediately turn and move into the firing line, ideally back the way you came or forward depending on the terrain, fast and hard, pouring everything you have into the breach and hoping to god that you break through and come out behind the ambush - then it gets tricky for the other guy. You may realize that this doesn't often work well for either side but the only other option is to sit there and be decimated. Not a game I like to play.

I use this now as a metaphor for the times we're in. We've been ambushed in a way, not by any enemy but by ourselves. We've been lulled these past years into believing many things that were not quite true or that were obvious in their malignant nature yet passing or suspending judgment when the right answer was to rise above the seduction of the market and foment fundamental changes. Accepting and absolving when we should have been more strident in our demands that our culture match the spiritual grace we know we deserve. Now we pay the price.

So the answer I have is to turn into the fire, moving swiftly towards the unknown, striking out and hoping to break through and achieve some grasp of the situation. My goal is to gain access to a point of communication and use it as a tool to put information out that will effectively support the coming changes our culture is beginning to witness. Find mechanisms that allow me to present what I am coming to understand as necessary in a society that is rapidly decompressing and undergoing fundamental transformation. There's an old adage that I've tongued for years - "Never pick a fight with a man who buys ink by the barrel".

Makes sense to me - so much so that I've started a small company bent on moving into the publishing business in this high tech, new world order. We're going to put out a magazine, mobile in nature, designed to be read on your cell phone and other types of smaller devices. I say magazine because that's the closest word I can think of to describe what I want to produce but it really doesn't do the media potential justice.

I have a strong track record of creating products and projects but always strictly in the technology field and backed up by market analysts and preppies sporting MBAs like tennis rackets. Here, my heart leads for the first time and the product, while inclusive of cutting edge technology, is really about creative content. These are days that require people with voices to speak up and make assertions and calls for actions that move us in the right direction. Hopefully I will discover and bring to a greater audience those whose thoughts and spirit might guide us a bit more consciously. That's the role I'm trusting to sign on to as a publisher. And as far as moving into the fire, this is probably one of the scariest places to be at the moment, trying to establish a new endeavor in the media industry.

Rest assured, I'm well trained.

to listen without words...

True strength is not measured by how hard we hold on, but by how gently we let go.

Crossing The Rubicon

When he came to the river Rubicon, which parts Gaul within the Alps from the rest of Italy, his thoughts began to work, now he was just entering upon the danger, and he wavered much in his mind, when he considered the greatness of the enterprise into which he was throwing himself. He checked his course, and ordered a halt, while he revolved with himself, and often changed his opinion one way and the other, without speaking a word. This was when his purposes fluctuated most; presently he also discussed the matter with his friends who were about him, (of which number Asinius Pollio was one,) computing how many calamities his passing that river would bring upon mankind, and what a relation of it would be transmitted to posterity. At last, in a sort of passion, casting aside calculation, and abandoning himself to what might come, and using the proverb frequently in their mouths who enter upon dangerous and bold attempts, "The die is cast," with these words he took the river. Once over, he used all expedition possible, and before it was day reached Ariminum, and took it.

From Suetonius Life of Julius Caesar

There comes a point in the journey of commitment where key decisions are made, acts which determine the flow of future events. It is the ability to recognize these moments that defines the power of our being. We may not, no - we do not know if the outcome is to our favor but within we realize that the failure to act is in itself a failure to hold true to what we believe.

II

I cannot find the string that binds
my being to this universe.

The cord that fed me then bled abandoned.

The twining stump at my belly,
reminding me that I was once a part of something more.