this one goes out to the one i love

"In the depth of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond;
And like seeds dreaming beneath the snow your heart dreams of spring.
Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.
Your fear of death is but the trembling of the shepherd when he stands before the king whose hand is to be laid upon him in honour. 
Is the shepherd not joyful beneath his trembling, that he shall wear the mark of the king?
Yet is he not more mindful of his trembling?

For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?
And what is it to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?

Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing.
And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb.
And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance."
-Kahil Gibran:

i can hear waves crashing and my body feels their pull, but the beach is miles away. my skin feels warm as though under a beating sun, but the sky is dark and it is a quiet night.

what is it that i hear? and what do i feel? is my body perhaps ahead in time, ahead of the rest of my being?

though i am now in mexico at 4 in the morning, my imagination is comfortably resting in months past- in a tent, at a farm, with a dog named jay. there is a candle burning and it is just the two of us, and there is a warmth like no other warmth. i know one thing only, and that is that the warmth must stay. though he, though Jay is gone, he is not gone. for the warmth that was then is the warmth that is now, and that warmth is a beautiful, lasting form of love.

it has been a particularly strange week, full of pure experience of life;
a life of loss,
a life full of comfort,
a life full of necessary indifference and liberation.

i have observed a sunday school in which the sacred words of the bible were chokingly shoved down children's throats- in which parentless children were asked to read about "obeying their parents". i have sat with these same children in their beds talking simple things, trying to love on them as much as possible, because they are regular human creatures like the rest of us and just need a little love to be good.

i have blown bubbles with a friend and eaten chocolate (against my diet rules) in a downtown square, playing with children- a child myself.

i have spent a day lost, but not at all lost- observing with carefree slowness the beauty and ugliness of this city.

i have cried with a friend on a side walk over a bowl of fruit (and oh, so much more).

i have felt a bitter lonliness and confusion when deciding to let one of my closest friends and greatest loves be taken away by a strange substance in a needle in a gross smelling vet office.

i have chanted silently, "have no fear", while floating in the ocean- eyes closed and listening to the sea. I have let waves crash me into sand, and I have laughed hysterically, choking on salt water, then laughing some more..

i have stood in the "twilight zone" and have seen a highway littered with sugur-cane, seen the belly of a large truck. i have stared at brilliant stars and have hoped compassionately that someone might be able to feel sad for the man dead in the front seat of the truck.

and then, a few moments ago, i have felt a powerful fear, possibly for the first time in my life when walking home against my better judgement in this city's dark streets (let me explain mom...!)

so i will tell these stories soon, for though they are not all redemptive, they are all reflective of real things. that we may grow wiser together. that you might be able to fill in my blanks, or that together we might be able to answer some hard questions.

"...And like seeds dreaming beneath the snow your heart dreams of spring."


goodnight jay
goodnight friends