The moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now.


Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

"That big glorious mountain. For one transitory moment, I think I may have actually seen it."
...
For one flash, the Mommy had seen the mountain without thinking of logging and ski resorts and avalanches, managed wildlife, plate tectonic geology, microclimates, rain shadow, or yin-yang locations. She'd seen the mountain without the framework of language. Without the cage of associations. She'd seen it without looking through the lens of everything she knew was true about mountains.
What she'd seen in that flash wasn't even a 'mountain.' It wasn't a natural resource. It had no name.
"That's the big goal," she said. "To find a cure for knowledge."

Ignorance truly is bliss, when you overthink every moment, when you can no longer see the beauty of anything, when you are just looking at the information behind it, the knowledge.

When I look out at the waters and all I see are nodes and antinodes.

When I watch the rainbows glow, and nearly sparkle and all I think of are reflecting and refracting prisms of light.

When I listen to the music and hear the tones changing an octave, and think it should have been one lower, not higher...

Watching the logs burn and pop and instead of imagining magic, knowing some form of copper chloride or boric acid is making them those beautiful colours of fiery blue and green.

Ever since the story of Adam and Eve in the Bible. humanity had been a little too smart for its own good, the Mommy said. Ever since eating that apple. Her goal was to find, if not a cure, then at least a treatment that would give people back their innocence.
Formadehyde didn't work. Digitalis didn't work.
None of the natch highs seemed to do the job, not smoking mace, or nutmeg, or peanut skins. Not dill or hydrangea leaves or lettuce juice.
"I figure if Eve could get us into this mess, then I can get us out," the Mommy said. "God really likes to see a go-getter."
...
"The cerebral cortex, the cerebellum," she said, "that's where your problem is."
If she could just get down to using only her brain stem, she'd be cured.
This would be somewhere beyond happiness and sadness.
You don't see fish agonized by wild mood swings.
Sponges never have a bad day.
....
"My goal, the Mommy said, "is not to uncomplicate my life."
She said, "My goal is to uncomplicate myself."
...
Every addiction, she said, was just a way to treat this same problem. Drugs or overeating or alcohol or sex, it was all just another way to find peace. To escape what we know. Our education. Our bite of the apple. Language, she said, was just our way to explain away the wonder and the glory of the world. To deconstruct. To dismiss. She said people can't deal with how beautiful the world really is. How it can't be explained and understood.
...
"We don't live in the real world anymore," she said. "We live in a world of symbols."
The Mommy stopped and put her hand in her purse. She held the boy's shoulder and stood looking up at the mountain.
"Just one last little peek at reality," she said. "Then we'll have lunch."
Then she put the white tube in her nose and breathed in.

 Choke, by Chuck Palahniuk

Go on. Go get a dose of reality.

Night before last Edward Scissorhands branded itself in my mind for the first time as I sat on a park bench in a theatre under the stars. Free B Movie put on by the Victoria Film Festival was a spectacular way to spend a Friday evening after a yummy picnic in the park. As twilight sprung upon us we could see bats darting through the trees- many of the peacocks in Beacon Hill Park were roosting 20 feet up in the huge trees around us, making wild crying sounds in the night like lost children.
As the movie began, the wind would blow the screen every now and then making the pastel houses swell up and shrink, everything felt so surreal.
It was a wonderful birthday celebration. I'm going to pretend it was mine.

Little Miss Asia fumbles by, 40 years too late in matching zebra print blazer and velvet pants. She comes up about the height of my breast, helped by her 3 inch platform sandals and as she shuffles by I can't help but imagine everyone in their respective animal types. It's so easy to imagine.
It's easy - the same way I admire my Mayan semi-sweet spicy 4 oz chocolate drip back into the takeaway shot glass leaving no trace on the brim and turn that image into trees growing backwards on the streets, backwards into the ground. It's easy to imagine.

If one attained perfection, what to do for an encore?

Ideals are like stars; you will not succeed
in touching them with your hands. But like
the seafaring man on the desert of waters,
you choose them as your guides, and
following them you will reach your destiny
-Carl Schurz-
address, Faneuil Hall, Boston, 1859

Did you ever feel like you were in constant anticipation, constant excitement for the future, for the dreams you imagine will come true, places to be, people to meet, life to live? Constantly seeking something always out of reach, something that will never exist in this moment?
I think the secret to existence and the purpose of life is to live in a state of happiness and to be at peace and content with your present. Set goals, anticipate, seek nostalgia: all in appropriate dosages. Absorb the life around you and appreciate being right there, alive in that moment. Be gracious. Be grateful. Be.

invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

Anyone who has heard this poem before is probably familiar with it through the recent film Invictus with Matt Damon and Morgan Freeman, directed by Clint Eastwood. Those who haven't seen the film, it is a story involving Nelson Mandela and 1995 Springbok rugby captain Francois Pienaar (Nelson preaches this poem to him as inspiration; South Africa hosts the World Cup in '95, Mandela has hopes of the country's underdog team winning and bringing a post-Apartheid nation together.)
Whether you did or didn't know these things about the film, the more interesting story behind this poem comes from the poet's life. William Henley, an Englishman, got tuberculosis of the bone at a young age, and by the time he was 25, had to have his leg amputated just below the knee in order to save his life. He wrote this poem in 1875 from a hospital bed; fortunately Henley did make it to the age of 53 and after his death this poem has motivated many, including Nelson Mandela, and the prisoners of Robben Island (he would recite the poem to them.) Its creed of self-mastery is said to have kept him going all those years in prison.

He who controls others may be powerful
but he who has mastered himself is mightier still
 -Lao Tzu-

Enjoyed an early morning walk in my own matrix
cause i was the lady in red, walking down the streets

it's neat to see that short limbo of the city in between
morning and night - broken pots, dirt spray everywhere

empties, leftover bottles and cans and stomach remains
the street uncleaned and raw from a hard night out

it could be special if it wasn't every morning.
And the world doesn't like your music

(Or I could have just told you your gas cap's undone)
at 6:15 am.