Keep Breathing

"As long as you can still grab a breath, you fight. You breathe. Keep breathing."
                                                    ~ from 'The Revenant'

Old Zen Story

In the final hours at Standing Rock

  (r)Evolutionary Haiku

Grand things are ahead

worth living, worth dying for.

Life's seasons in flow.

"Perfect is the enemy of good." 
     Italian proverb popularized by Voltaire

Dragons

Our fears are like dragons guarding our most precious treasures. 

                                                                      - Ranier Maria Rilke

It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him. 

                                                                      - J.R.R. Tolkien

Amusing Ourselves to Death

Autumn Equinox(ish) 2016 - 11 years later....

"I am a tenacious little rat who doesn't take the impossible for granted."   ~ Philippe Petit

                                                              ~ banksy

Politics

You Can Dance In a Hurricane, But Only if You're Standing in the Eye

Brandi Carlile - The Eye

Father's Day - The Complicated Holiday

We were talking tonight about Father's Day, my wife and I. She's taught 3rd and 4th grade for many years. Each year she scans the fresh young faces sitting before her, doing a quick assessment of their home situation each Mother's Day and Father's Day. Is there a Mom at home? Is Dad in the kids' lives? A proactive measure before doing anything as reckless as making a card or a gift for the holiday. Not everyone has an active, present, or alive Mom or Dad. If it's too complicated for even one child, she'll skip making the cards or gift.

There was only one year in all her years of teaching that Mother's Day had to be shelved so as to not bring attention to the fact that a child's Mother was far from "Best Mom in the World" material. Only one year. In fact, some kids have had to make two cards for their two Moms who are their parents.

But Father's Day? I hate to say it guys, but our gender isn't representing so well. It's a lot easier for a man to walk away in one form or another.

She looks over her class each year and sees the ghosts of men that some families have for a father. There's the drunks; the missing in action fathers; the inactive ones; the ones in horrific, hateful battles with the mother; the dads who have a restraining order on them and are court-ordered to stay away from the family -- and the men who don't need a court order to stay away because they left long ago on their own.

There was the year that a child's father, who was also a heroin addict, overdosed right before Father's Day. The boy was told by family that he died from taking too many vitamins. Oh, the stories we tell ourselves and our children to explain the men who've disappeared. It's complicated.

She said to me tonight: "Thankfully Father's Day comes the last week of school and there's so much else going on that we can ignore it entirely. It's too complicated for too many kids in class."

There hasn't been one Father's Day in all her years with 8 & 9 yr olds that she could look out over her class of kids and naively take them down a warm and fuzzy path that would lead to their fathers. That path is too riddled with landmines for far too many.

It's too easy for men to 'hit and run' - leave some sperm and carry on without looking back or forward, hitting the door running, escaping - leaving their sperm donation and children behind. They make us look really bad, fellas.

Of course there's some very good Dads out there, too, and today we honor them. Many of them will get a bit of recognition - a favorite breakfast, a card, a hug, a day off... But the Fathers who deserve that recognition? They don't need any of that; it's not about what recognition they'll get. For them, it will be another day of giving just like every other day, filled with the daily sacrifices it takes to earn that title of Father.

So, for you men who have earned that title of Father, the faulty, imperfect, very human men teaching their kids by example how to rise above our collective brokenness, still trying your damnedest every day to simply show up and be present - We salute you. We recognize you. This is for you, your kids, and our future: Michael Franti singing 'Forever By Your Side" -- Yes, indeed. 

Recognition also to the Grandfathers, Uncles and Other Men who step in when a Father is absent. It's all about the love and making a little patch of this earth and our human family better.

Happy Father's Day, gentlemen. You know who you are.

"I Want" - Alejandra Ribera

You had the gun, I had the horse. We took a photograph.
Now I can’t find my way back. And all I’m grieving was a dream.
I’m down this rabbit hole. Even the madness cannot shield this soul. 

There’s so much labor just in breathing lately. 

There’s so much labor just in breathing lately. There’s so much labor just in breathing.
I want the ocean open up before me. I want the aching of a melody.
I want a comrade to share this with me. I want, I want just to want just a little something.
I want to feel the power of a song. I want the light to carry me along.
I want to feel the wind upon my skin. I want the life-force back in my blood again!
I want the ocean open up before me. I want the aching of a melody.
I want a comrade to share this with me. I want, I want just to want anything.

Take these seeds and burn them all. So they don’t take root in me.
I cannot face upstream. He abandoned ship to join a war. Hope he’s victorious.
The water level is rising in this Styrofoam cup.

There’s so much labor just in breathing lately. 

There’s so much labor just in breathing lately. There’s so much labor just in breathing. 

I want the ocean open up before me. I want the aching of a melody.
I want a comrade to share this with me. I want, I want just to want just a little something.
I want to feel the flower of the song. I want the light to carry me along.
I want to feel the wind upon my skin. I want the life-force back in my blood again!
I want the ocean open up before me. I want the aching of a melody.
I want my comrades to share this with me.
I want, I want just to want anything.

Warm Hearth Haiku

warm tea, cold morning

the returning sun climbs high ~

another day blooms.

Frida Kahlo Gives Loss the Boot!

Toward the end of a lifetime of rising above the brutalities of her lifelong physical battles, Mexican artist Frida Kahlo had to have a leg amputated. Always one to stare her demons straight in the eye, she didn't shrink back. Instead, she designed her own prosthesis with a style that was truly her own. Only Frida would think of decorating it and adding bells to it to make it sing with each step. 

She was both defiant and boldly accepting to the end! 

"Feet, what do I need you for when I have wings to fly?" 
                                                    Frida Kahlo

Philippe Petit - Patron Saint of 'Tenacious Little Rats'

From the "poet who writes in the sky," wire-walker, Philippe Petit, a personal inspiration through my last 10 yrs of my own 'Balancing Act': 

“I know in my heart and body that I will successfully do the last step and, therefore, there are no question marks. Maybe there is a forest of exclamation points but I don’t ask myself: 'Oh my God, I hope the cable will support me.' I go there because I am solid. It is this solidity of the most fragile action a human being can do on a little wire that inspires people.

“So it’s really life-affirming. I don’t risk my life. I do something maybe mysterious, but very noble, and carry my life across.”

The word “impossible” doesn’t faze him, either. “I am a fighter,” he stressed. “I am a tenacious little rat who doesn’t take impossible for granted.”

Breathing Lessons

....been trying to change my funky nervous system wiring [result of chemotherapy, cancer, and meds that are a double-edged sword] through regular meditation practice. Book recommendation: 'You Are Not Your Pain'. This poem, a reminder:



Breathing Lesson

Breathing in I see the world;
breathing out I know I’m alive.

Breathing in I hear the world;
breathing out I know I’m alive.

Breathing in I smell the world;
breathing out I know I’m alive.

Breathing in I taste the world;
breathing out I know I’m alive.

Breathing in I touch the world;
breathing out I know I’m alive.

Breathing in I know the world;
breathing out I know I’m alive.

Breathing in I feel the pleasure of the world;
breathing out I know I’m alive.

Breathing in I am content with the world;
breathing out I know I’m alive.

Breathing in I release the world;
breathing out I know I'm alive....

Lymphomopoly Haiku

...roll the dice, pass go ~
collect two hundred dollars;
chance card says s'all good.

Dhamma Haiku

I am not my thoughts. 

Just pretty little trinkets - 

Look! A shiny one! 

The Dance Between Pain and Suffering ~ the Breath

"As long as you are breathing there is more that is right with you than wrong with you, no matter what is wrong." 
                                                             - from Jon Kabat-Zinn 
                                                                         "Mindfulness Meditation for Pain Relief"

Spring Shower Haiku

petrichor rising ~
is there anything better?
rain, earth, breath, entwined

Helen Keller - On Looking Too Long

"When one door of happiness closes, an-
other opens; but often we look so long at
the closed door that we do not see the one
which has been opened for us. "

- Helen Keller

Haiku Under the Radar

Another three months.
Move along, nothing to see.
Pass 'Go' and collect.