You smile and say:
it's a fine day.




inside an artificially lit computer lab.  with a/c blaring to frigid extremes, which makes no sense given how cold&wet it is outside.


you've but recently joined my life.  i am blessed and even confused by this all.  dumbstruck.  i have grown so accustomed to my mostly-reclusive life in the forest (still 'gifted' with technology, though, a laptop, power, and cell phone).  that i'd lost touch with what adoration is between I-Thou, the bare exposing of one soul to another, not as a mere passing thing or it, but as another soul, shivering in vulnerability and joy.

and you know, how words fail..... yet here i am.   in the freezing computer lab typingwriting..s.s..s....


thou doe'st collide into my flesh, knocking the wind from me.  and when i hold my breath i know bliss.  and when all breath is gone i am no longer, just naked existence in the infinite web of being.  & you too are infinite....  were you ever born?   and if no will you ever die? 

how many dawns and sunsets i have witnessed, mourning the loss of all that i have loved, all that i have cherished and clung to.  i pray that as many times as we die we will be reborn even more profoundly.  with every cell.... every sigh and wish.   may i be pure. . . . .   a silent breeze to soothe you.  a warm joy to pass through thy skin....

Here in the Willamette Valley, Corvallis Oregon.   I've forgotten what a Sun is.  I vaguely remember what blue skies look like.   The grayness is remarkable... shifting in contours, but only to become a darker shade of gray.  Then night falls, but the day is so dark that nightfall is unnoticeable. 

  Schule presses on me...

The rain:  you never let up.  So laden with moisture that in the driest and warmest house, you still feel wetness seep your bones.  I step outside but only for minutes before the frigid drops bite my skin.    I have watched // the rain.............


   Geliebte des Regens.


 My love for Earth is ever renewed and expanding.  Our societal dis-ease is the illusion of separateness from Gaia.   What joy to be swept into you, again,
                            when I dissolve unto dust.

My new home:  beginning graduate school in Corvallis Oregon.


  life doth cast the ultimate spell.....pulling me into its vortex, maddening eddies and whirlpools.  may i never be solid or safe.

Especially random today..

I woke up in sheer fatigue, sleep deprived. I have difficulty sleeping well when I know I have to awake early. Thus I was utterly exhausted, made the trip thru the woods to Santa Cruz.

@ work quite early in the morning. The usual chaos and mishaps... it breezed by fast enough. My students were equally as tired so we seemed to simultaneously blank out and stare into space.


My car is being worked on.... walked down Pacific, the main downtown strip of Santa Cruz. My waiter seemed familiar; I had recited poetry with him at an open mic weeks ago! Turns out he hosts the Thursday slams @ a venue.. Shall peer into that soon.


i am wandering down Pacific.... a guy starts talking to me.  Youngish, early 20s. His face is covered with boils, which he claims resulted from an allergic reaction to steroids in his inhaler.  He obviously lives on the streets....he informs that he only has a van, which he uses to drive up the coast to work random jobs as a caregiver.  Other than that, he has only a backpack and figures out how to make a few bucks day by day.  And he carefully studies me, asking me what I'm up to today.

Indeed...


Next thing I know, we are wandering the streets.  In between he fills in blips of his life story:  he wants to spread love and positivity, he has a 5 year old son he hasn't seen in years (but often thinks of him), his roots in Santa Cruz, this van he lost his keys to, German tourists he met, medical marijuana he takes for some kind of bone fracture.  And on.  An archetypal high nomad of Santa Cruz...  Soon enough it's obvious he wants to sell me weed.  I decline, saying I'm low on money which is true.  He's quite insistent; apparently this is his ticket to getting his van working again.  His hands are absolutely raw and stripped of the top layer of epidermis.  He also says he's extremely hungry, doesn't even have enough to buy food.   I agree to buy him nachoes from Taco Bell.  What a random exchange... as he is trying to get extra toppings for his nachoes (more layers of lettuce & tomatoes), I say I need to be off.

He stares me in the eyes.   I will be thinking of you.  Thank you.

I wish him well on his travels and wander off into the mid-day madness and music of santa cruz....

What thoughts I have of you.........

thoughts that with the coming dawn, vanish.

Drifting sounds undulation above canyon.... 'variations' The pulse of Borknagar's "Origin" plays, somehow transmitted straight through these Aethers, absolute gentle voice of winds and streamlipped creeks flowing on..


The air in such alpine heights as this greatly affects me, as air so integral to one's respiration and thus Being.... Coyote howl on occasion, window open to let pacific winds mention their ploys to me.....


These days of beauty! Ohlone wanderings, Pogonip, Cowell traversings, (stick in hand found from local flora) and kind sky of thy, A light across the canyon illumines silent in orb, Sky draped ever rapturously above, round spherical this Earth.... Sudden gust of air through window, pristine air delicious to lungs.


Joy to this moment, that slippeth into eternity


May all beings be in bliss!

Here I sit, cold-feet, rather filthy clothes, northern California---a new home. I am staying with about 8 people in a large house overlooking a canyon lined with redwoods and Eucalyptus, in a co-op, also called an Intentional Community. The theme of the house is Buddhist practice and mindfulness, as well as loving kindness or metta. Meditation is every night around 9. So far, everyone seems saintly, Bodhisattvas. I do not know how long I will be staying, and they realize that as well. After all, what is this life other than simply passing through?


What a chaotic ride thus far.... Was living in a hostel about 3 days. I only came out here with two backpacks, one of which is still locked up in a hostel locker. My one friend here, Jim, vanished for a few days---lost his phone in a drunken melee. So I've been solitary in figuring out the layout of this place, how not to spend money, how to get everywhere by foot and bus, where the highest peaks and cleanest air is, where the oldest redwoods rest, where saintly children sing and write the poems of life. I've already secured a job--well, 1.5 jobs, since I am starting with only a few hours at job #2 (Tutoring ADD/learning-challenged children). Doing my best to dance with the economy, knowing it is just a dance----get by with bare necessities. There was much frustration, confusion, emotional bewilderment. To be alone, completely ripped from a comfort zone is truly humbling. "A yogi is not held down by social ties, nor the inevitable mental turmoil arising therein."


Yes---it is time to float; time for more freedom, wider smiles and joy.


The clouds laugh....