I met a young woman whose body was burning.

And what did you hear, my blue-eyed son ? / And what did you hear, my darling young one ?
I heard the sound of a thunder, it roared out a warnin'/ I heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world
I heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a-blazin' / I heard ten thousand whisperin' and nobody listenin'
I heard one person starve, I heard many people laughin' / Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter
Heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley / And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard / And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

-B. Dylan

My Master, my Slave.

My fear wards over me, threatening me with a lifetime of regrets and unhappiness if I do not live in my dreams--which is to say, even in pursuit of them. This life is my slave till it takes from me all it gives.

"Bad! Bad! What? Is he not going - backwards?' - Yes! But you ill understand him if you complain about it. He goes backwards as everyone goes backwards who wants to take a big jump"

- Nietzsche, Beyond Good & Evil

A Prayer

A prayer, Madeleine Peyroux from pomerenge on Vimeo.

Lord
I must be strong now
I don't belong now
In this world anymore

I'll say a final prayer for
Those I care for
Who've kept my company

My destiny is clear
I'm dying to have you near
To me

Lord
I don't belong now
If you are waiting
I am not afraid to die

I'm prepared to go
Divide my body and soul
Won't you

Lord
I won't be long now
If you are waiting
I am not afraid to die

Have mercy, Lord
I'm told it's paradise
To have and to hold you

Lord
I must be strong now
I don't belong now
In this world anymore

Lord
I won't be long now
If you are waiting
I am not afraid to die

-Madeleine Peyroux

Mama

"When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me, whispering words of wisdom, let it be."

-McCartney/Lennon

I know it looks like I'm moving

Every so often I come back around. Last night one of my best friends I have ever made in my young life so far, moved away. We spent the better part of our last hours together listening to each others songs, plugging in one another's iPod's as we saw the time dwindle towards departure.

I told Shams about how nearly a decade ago I can remember weeping to this song....and then subsequently at various points thereafter when I would come back around to putting this song into rotation. Last night however, my tears were softer as we shared listening to this song, I came back around to a place I like being emotionally and spiritually.

I want you, unsuspecting internet passer-by (should you have read this self indulgent stranger thus far) to take few minutes to stop, about ten if you read me and then listen to this song. Sharing our experience is so important. When someone leaves, what is leaving is the ability to share together in the ways you do - even though those ways grow you to share together in different ways. It's all transient, so what makes the sweet sting of departure a loss? Alas, I am but Socrates without a student here, I will postulate no true answer alone it seems...

Every time, after the week began taxing me, my meetings with Shams would bring me to a reality. I would find my own skin and realize it was better than I even knew! Shams lives forever, and though my sweet brother James has moved, Shams will live on when we speak on the reg and visit one another. A brother so close that I swear he was cut out of the same womb that formed me; of course, that is par for the course with Shams.

Different cries and different times. It's that reality of my life that all coming will pass - though I suspect at sometime a few will remain - or at least we can safely say appear to stay, since time is always "running away". Luckily, I don't feel like my soul has turned to steel anymore. It is an interesting apathy that sets in. Us reasonable adults are very, very funny creatures.

I could write forever today, bleed in emotions and thought as they wrestle in loving embrace. I guess I just still want to share experiences with some people, even if I know that we have completely separate lives. The way Shams leaves, leaves hope and appreciation and makes parting more than just bitter, but bittersweet - it is always thusly right?

Amen for Shams living on in my brother Tim; our trinity was marvelous, and I cried again after James left because it became clear how well God (call it circumstance and chance if you wish) takes care of me. I, an only child, was surrounded with such loving brothers as only great poetry can hint towards; then again, awed at how James & Tim came into my life, Shams told me to burst open like this

I hope you will laugh with me loudly, because you see my writing in circles. It's time to be alone again.

Love you Shams, show Philly what brotherly love means, we will see you soon.

Shadows are falling and I’ve been here all day
It’s too hot to sleep, time is running away
Feel like my soul has turned into steel
I’ve still got the scars that the sun didn’t heal
There’s not even room enough to be anywhere
It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there

Well, my sense of humanity has gone down the drain
Behind every beautiful thing there’s been some kind of pain
She wrote me a letter and she wrote it so kind
She put down in writing what was in her mind
I just don’t see why I should even care
It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there

Well, I’ve been to London and I’ve been to gay Paree
I’ve followed the river and I got to the sea
I’ve been down on the bottom of a world full of lies
I ain’t looking for nothing in anyone’s eyes
Sometimes my burden seems more than I can bear
It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there

I was born here and I’ll die here against my will
I know it looks like I’m moving, but I’m standing still
Every nerve in my body is so vacant and numb
I can’t even remember what it was I came here to get away from
Don’t even hear a murmur of a prayer
It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there

She Belongs To Me

She's got everything she needs

She's an artist, she don't look back
She's got everything she needs
She's an artist, she don't look back
She can take the dark out of nighttime
And paint the daytime black.

You will start out standing
Proud to steal her anything she sees
You will start out standing
Proud to steal her anything she sees
But you will wind up peeking through her keyhole
Down upon your knees.

She never stumbles
She's got no place to fall
She never stumbles
She's got no place to fall
She's nobody's child
The Law can't touch her at all.

She wears an Egyptian red ring
That sparkles before she speaks
She wears an Egyptian red ring
That sparkles before she speaks
She's a hypnotist collector
You are a walking antique.

Bow down to her on Sunday
Salute her when her birthday comes
Bow down to her on Sunday
Salute her when her birthday comes
For Halloween buy her a trumpet
And for Christmas, buy her a drum.

- Bob Dylan

My love,

If anyone asks you
how the perfect satisfaction
of all our sexual wanting
will look, lift your face
and say,
Like this.

When someone mentions the gracefulness
of the nightsky, climb up on the roof
and dance and say,
Like this?

If anyone wants to know what "spirit" is,
or what "God's fragrance" means,
lean your head toward him or her.
Keep your face there close.
Like this.

When someone quotes the old poetic image
about clouds gradually uncovering the moon,
slowly loosen knot by knot the strings
of your robe.
Like this?

If anyone wonders how Jesus raised the dead,
don't try to explain the miracle.
Kiss me on the lips.
Like this. Like this.

When someone asks what it means
to "die for love," point
here.

If someone asks how tall I am, frown
and measure with your fingers the space
between the creases on your forehead.
This tall.

The soul sometimes leaves the body, then returns.
When someone doesn't believe that,
walk back into my house.
Like this.

When lovers moan,
they're telling our story.
Like this.

I am a sky where spirits live.
Stare into this deepening blue,
while the breeze says a secret.
Like this.

When someone asks what there is to do,
light the candle in his hand.
Like this.

How did Joseph's scent come to Jacob?
Huuuu.

How did Jacob's sight return?
Huuuuu.

A little wind cleans the eyes.
Like this.

When Shams comes back from Tabriz,
he'll put just his head around the edge
of the door to surprise us.
Like this.

-Rumi, 'Like This'

Defeat.

Defeat, my Defeat, my solitude and my aloofness; You are dearer to me than a thousand triumphs, And sweeter to my heart than all world-glory.

Defeat, my Defeat, my self-knowledge and my defiance, Through you I know that I am yet young and swift of foot And not to be trapped by withering laurels. And in you I have found aloneness And the joy of being shunned and scorned.

Defeat, my Defeat, my shining sword and shield, In your eyes I have read That to be enthroned is to be enslaved, and to be understood is to be levelled down, And to be grasped is but to reach one’s fullness and like a ripe fruit to fall and be consumed.

Defeat, my Defeat, my bold companion, You shall hear my songs and my cries an my silences, And none but you shall speak to me of the beating of wings, And urging of seas, And of mountains that burn in the night, And you alone shall climb my steep and rocky soul.

Defeat, my Defeat, my deathless courage, You and I shall laugh together with the storm, And together we shall dig graves for all that die in us, And we shall stand in the sun with a will, And we shall be dangerous.

-Kahil Gibran

Revelation.

Naked singularities are an exotic prediction of Einstein's Theory of Relativity. They start as ultra-dense fireballs thought to form when a massive dying star (four to five times heavier than our Sun) exhausts its nuclear fuel (Supernovas) and collapses under its own weight. They are so massive that neutron degeneracy cannot hold them together, and so they go beyond even being a tiny but immensely massive neutron star. They continue folding in on themselves, collapsing again and again till they are infinitely small singularities, so dense that they begin sucking in the world around them. The reason they are called Naked Singularities is because they should be able to be seen by the naked eye of any one who wants to see.

But remember, they start out exploding "Like spiders across the stars" - Kerouac. Of course they are just exploding around themselves, a relationship with a star that near by would be much different when considering the final stages of a massive stars life - or even it's daily existence - however like Jack K, we will use that quote more figuratively and for it's imagery.

The last book in the Roman Catholic Bible is called Revelation, and is also known as Apocalypse. The sky's will be aflame. Spiders across the sky. And in the end, there will simply be left another rip in space and time, a black hole - whose determined natural function is for the life and worlds around it to fall hopelessly into it in an instant, though it will seem they are forever suspended in time; in the end then, as always it is, and always it has been - it will all be an unabashedly naked singularity.

I like to read the first verse and the last verse in the Bible. Gen 1:1 and Rev. 22:21. I like to do this periodically because in a few moments I read the start and finish of everything as believed by my own faith (I'm not sure where this is placed theologically so I do not want to ascribe this thinking to the teaching of Mother Church). I see those two verses, and inevitably, I am flooded full, as if a tide has come in, with snapshots of my life from India, through the continents I've lived on, through my studies, through my friends new and old, through the dreams of my future and the confusions of my present and the perspectives on 'reality' all in an instant. It's an effort actually to try and elongate this period of rapid uncontrolled reflection - as if my own soul explodes for a moment, or begins preparing to supernova or nova one day (we can hope it is a nova so it may end as a white dwarf versus a black hole).

I then think of the world that isn't just me, which is to say, the world! Every other thing which comes to mind, till I even begin having this feeling of dancing perilously at the edge of a cliff where I begin seeing my thoughts also as not my own - but of one who I am only a part of. A part who is wholly me, yet who I am wholly not, but only a part of. It is about then that I either fall or explode or come off the edge or whatever synonym you may find most palatable. The whole story of time as perceived by humanity exists between those two verses. Everything we know, ever can know, ever will know, and whatever developments in science and math and art and argument, etc. etc. etc. fall somewhere in between those two verses; all wars, births, marriages, evils, starts and finishes, every single thing which we as humans here will ever, ever be or have been or are - falls in between those two verses.

In the end then, after everything that has happened and will happen, all our worries and triumphs - everything will become part of a naked singularity. I mean this not as theoretical astronomy, that in fact the universe will fall back into itself only to 'big-bang' again (one theory) - but rather theoretically and figuratively theologically. That in the end, as in all things in some ways - at the finish, we see nakedly what it all was singularly. Whether what we see is reality or not I will not attempt to begin discussing, because I am not arguing what reality is - rather what we see, one way or another, to bring ourselves closure on things, is with a nakedness. Often more so a nakedness of ourselves during that period of time - one may even call this humility - but that also I can not intelligently speak to here. So in the end, all of humanity, everything we are to one another, is set to be revealed so unabashedly and simply that we may call all things at once - a naked singularity. And so maybe it is said,

"The Grace of the Lord Jesus be with all. Amen." - Revelation 22:21.

Aquiline

I'm twenty-eight now, young, and not so young. A sophomore, a 'wise fool' by definition. Life is finally getting somewhere near something. I am doing some things, that's about all I know - and even that I do not know. Maybe some things are just happening and I am in their way? A filter of a human being for a universal mechanism to play out; a cog and a wheel, oft fancying himself driver and mechanic.

If I am my own biggest fan, then I am also my own deepest critic. So I seek one who knows my movements before I know I will make them, which is to say, an enemy. One whose movements I learn by heart, so that we may continually try and surprise one another. Not just any enemy, but my enemy, which is to say, my lover; but wherein lies my ability to battle? My vestments are loose, and armor aches to shine through it's tears. A rosary hangs like a sword, a crucifix like a bow and arrow. I, once action and reaction, have become response.

I pray to learn enjoyment in the wrestle; the inside grasping the outside - grasping the inside; both threatening to take one another down - a mixture of earth and sky - tectonic plates locked in a warriors embrace with dark and electric clouds. The ocean flows out, up through my throat. I breathe deeply now days. At times clenching my jaw to draw in more air - my eyebrows arch, my nerves focus, my cells prepare for romance, and war. Alas, one must have a good nose...

Halloween Approaches!

This upcoming birthday, 28, has been significant for me since I was 15. It is like a rite of initiation is complete; as if my heart is much more free to beat, beat, beat. As with all people, many things intruded upon my person during my impressionable young years - sirens which seduced my family into inviting wolves inside; and though I have been blessed to choke many of these malicious and ignorant sirens to death or near - some of them, only Time is going to take away.

This upcoming birthday is a particularly significant sirens' death sentence. Though I tried choking her with great care and effort - she who sang revelrously whilst torturing a young mans heart till it screamed in his head - I never did kill her. Her siren voice would draw me close and then whisper a snakes threat, always shaking me till I became numb; but this Halloween my dear friends, I will watch Time draw near this particularly annoying sirens voice - and slit open her throat for me.

"There's a whole in the world like a great black pit and it's filled with people who are filled with shit, and the vermin of the world who inhabit it - they all deserve to die!"

"Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also" - Matt 6:21

How, I don't know, but there is a world that is soon going to end. It has carried me for some time. It brought me out of the world I was having trouble accepting into a world where magic and love and danger and triumph walk with a gigantic gate - blowing away hearts and minds with the wind of their stride. The work grew into me as I grew with it. It's Western Literature at some of its finest. I can feel the characters and settings and conversations, throbbing on my eyes and in my chest like recalling an old memory. It's that vivid; that engrossing. As usual, ironically, I was told over and over to read them, "No." - something about me just doesn't lend myself easily to recommendations - though as I have matured, I find certain people's suggestions taken more comfortably.

As a new semester has me in new and full time classes, I am placed amongst an English class which has been a pretty good time - though I often feel the need for a time turner. The English is academic, but I finally understand wanting to be able to write. Until now this feeling eluded me, I had no idea how one could not write; when the emotions and ideas take hold of me and tear me apart, sometimes in joy, sometimes in agony - ink pours where blood should; and words and paragraphs and stories and allegory and aphorisms and poetry form like puddles of a wasted self, suddenly renewed, suddenly emboldened.

Recognizing the artistry in this lengthy body of work juxtaposed against my own, and with my general place in maturation, I wish to know how to form the ink I spill into art. To not just write because I'm dying or living, or to write as dying and living, but to die and live, and translate the experience so utterly staggeringly. I feel a daunting presence, lost for some time, of deep desire; I feel the will raising it's head, breathing more consciously that it previously has.

Ready to end this long road, knowing I'm coming to a place in the last book where soon I won't be able to stop till the tears have fallen and my spirituality renewed and, and what else I don't know...but I'm nervous - in any event, with this in mind, I find myself reminiscing over my time here, in the world Muggles aren't readily aware of- I think of a range of individuals; in no order they rise like members of an old life - from Professor Sprout to Dean Thomas, to Harry, to Fleur, to Bill, to Ginny when she couldn't speak around Harry, to Sirius, Dobby (sigh), Lupin, Filch, James & Lily, Albus...etc. etc. etc. I see them as a memory, so vivid I can remember their voices and how they grew in height and their hair and the questions I had/have about their personal lives - I can almost smell them walking by, or hear the fire in the Gryffindor common room, hear the crack of disapparition and then understand what follows that crack - the rubber tubing, the suffocation, the release during apparition. I hear parseltongue, I hear the song of the Pheonix beautifying my sadness, the cold wind to Hogsmead, the thick dust in the Shrieking Shack, etc. etc. etc. etc....all good books are like this. Certain memories even ignite the fear I felt at the time - like a literal PTSD.

"The Ministry has fallen. Scrimgeour is dead. They are coming."

Year's One through Four are very different than Year's Five through Seven. Year Seven almost stands by itself, else is part of Year Six. The ending of Year Four is when everything switches. Year seven is close to done, tears have been shed and nerves have been rattled. It's not melodramatic, it's good writing. This is the slightest bow to a series that I can't express enough about - beyond the writing - for what it did for me, for the time in my life it was with me; such a time of evolution. But God has a funny way of being a part of our lives, in all things, and giving things to us which He knows suit our tastes - teaching us as we go; like medicine in peanut butter to a dog - but obviously more refined. I really hope people are able to give themselves this gift. To allow themselves to sink into the series and let the world become part of their memory; I am glad I was supported to traverse it (eventually I began chasing it) - I'm glad for it awakens an incredible part of our spirits and so our overall beings - and it's an incredibly important part. It lights a fire I won't tell you about, but it's an ancient magic one can only learn about themselves before giving to others.

How To Get Good Perspective

More Amor Fati

Nothing changes. All comes around. I hated Nietzsche years ago, and his overarching death of God just makes more sense now, but his definitions I still disagree with on Theology though understand them better by his location in history and geography.

The 'Eternal Re-occurrence' - that I think he was dead right on.

Truly then, we must go through the birthing pains to become yes-sayers. To struggle through the canal and feed on extracted nutrition. To wail and moan and whine as children. I must say yes to all of it.

It has been what has led me to desire suicide - so really an escape, i.e. drugs, alcohol - for many years. And as I learn to give up on drugs and alcohol day by day - and it does get easier - simultaneously I have to learn to not hate that with all good comes attached a bad, and that with all bad comes attached a good - though seldom less recognized by our strained 'post-modern eyes'.

Then I, and we, are left with a wash. A blank emotional slate where I cannot expect either good nor bad, but truly nothing. This is not Nihilism, this is immaturity.

"Say yes. Be hard so you can create with me my brothers!" to paraphrase various times Nietzsche says these things.

I have never been able to answer the question of why we are here and simple theology is not easily adopted by me...or maybe more accurately, I am the simpleton; I do not reflect the face of Christ that brightly yet, if I may ever. I am left with the only other option thus far - which in it has the seed of the tree which sprouts a belief in God beyond words and so true faith - to rid myself of the question entirely, to simply say "yes".

---

But why? Why not just give up? why strive to keep myself alive by trying not to answer a question whose lack of answer drives me to suicidal thoughts in between my moments of pleasures? But is this not just asking the same question again! Is it still not concerned with it's own satisfaction! So does it not yet bellow, "NO!"

So you see, I/we, must say yes; for as Rumi says, "the real work is outside, digging in the garden."

I must shut down the simpletons thinking and function off the faith that the history of human wisdom tries to tell me - that there is a way to have Heaven on Earth. To become actively accepting. To become a yes-sayer and to thus be able to express my will - for what is, is still that - even when it may not seem to be. And further that as I find my will, and the will to say yes to me, that I would glean the tools to live "As you love yourself" - and so too learn the, "Love one another" - finally then reflecting Christ's face in my will, as my will expresses itself as an extension of His and so our Fathers.

"etc. etc. blah blah. Listen to the roosters crow. Ka-kaw! ka-kaw." All philosophy is an egg says the madman.

You have to watch this of the day

Moments from Everynone on Vimeo.

I have a hard time understanding how anyone could not have an emotional reaction to something like this. Also, oh my gosh. Nothing but silence is required when a balance is struck so well; when Art, Philosophy, and Spirituality are glimpsed at their essence, which when seen, is seen to be the same thing - reflections off the same diamond. This echo's of God for me.

Karan

The formula for Greatness in a human being

AMOR FATI!

Magic Marketing: Your piece of history

I once went to a popular "non-denominational" church in Dayton Ohio. It was the new big draw. I used to go to both a traditional Catholic church and then a non-denom one - this new one was so new that it was drawing from the 'cool' non-denom church I used to attend. So I had to go check it out.

After the "Stomp" intro which had nothing to do with the Gospel but more of a school play feel, and following the applause, the pastor said "We like to break our own traditions here as well" - later on he alluded to the fact that a big problem with 'denominational' churches is them becoming entrammeled within tradition. However, before we move on, this church could not see its desire to 'break tradition' as a tradition in and of itself. Also, non-denominational is a denomination unto itself.

This intro is meant to show how important tradition is to our lives, or even we could say, our inability to actually get away from a tradition. How impossible it is for anyone to be an island. The fact that all our footing, even our unique thoughts, are standing "on the shoulders of Giants" - Newton.

We are traditions in and unto ourselves, and marketing, as it often does, picks up on this. This is the magic of marketing; the echo into our core - if done well. We cannot get away from our tradition - even if it's to 'break tradition' - and this type of 'Magic Marketing' speaks directly to that reality - by these standards, we aren't just buying a product, we're buying a piece of history.

Gatorade

BMW

Clorox

Oh we'll see it, we'll see it, we'll see it!

Sometimes I'm really not sure. Even then I'm sure about that. I heard this on the radio back from school today. School to work. I started doing that mad cry where your eyes are full of tears and your mouth is smiling, laughing, stopping and laughing again; this began when I heard "And they splashed into the deep blue sea!" [2:56] (oh it was a wonderful splash).

I used to listen to this album a long while ago, or a few years, say what you will since time doesn't really exist. I love the lyrics. I wish he had continued, but the artist seems to have died of his own myth. Either way, the lyrics are tremendous. Sinking down into a mountain hopefully. I think daily about the same thoughts, I'm amazed anyone finds me an interesting person or how I live with myself. I learned to hold on too long, learned it from my ma I think. I am moving into my Fathers house (not really, just spiritually and psychologically) and in doing so I am more secured in my manhood. I am and all is. Those phrases rise to the surface. The cream of thoughts. "I simply am" and "all simply is"

maybe that's what got me today? who knows about these mad things. I suspect I would call them less mad. Or more mad. Sometimes I'm really not sure. Even then I'm sure about that.

"Oh my morning's coming back, the whole world's waking up/ the city buses swimming past/ I'm happy just because, I found out I am really no one" - CO'B

Hear me

"First learn the meaning of what you say, and then speak."

- Epictetus

Very shortly, let me say, this quote concerns me when being told I am loved. In most cases, this is a lie because both parties define it differently. Also, love is a verb so being loving and being in love are the same thing - a slave to service, paid in joy like a king.

This also goes for when people like to discuss the various problems with God and religion; further when they argue for their 'spirituality' apart from organization - not paying attention to the fact that they are proposing an organized thought as a tenant of "why no religion, why no God, etc.". In those cases by the way, I appreciate those who don't even try. I guess lukewarm is revolting; this stands even when I act thusly.

That's about it. We must start being honest.

Karan

I'm too sexy for my bear

The following is one of my favorite quotes - one of many, many, many - but for some reason lately I've been wanting to share it.

During and after sex I am consistently struck by how awe inspiring it is. The whole process, through and beyond the aftermath of orgasms. I marvel at it - and I'm choosing my words carefully.

Further, I greatly enjoy the various aspects of sex on its many levels ranging from deep emotionality, spirituality, and psychological effect - all the way through sport and expression. Making love is of course, a very different thing.

As a Catholic I don't like having sex before marriage, but when I do, I've at least been blessed to enjoy myself. In all events however, this quote holds true, and I thank God for it. I hope the world at large - with its latent, and sometimes obtuse obsession, with sex and sexuality segregated from its intrinsic value as living within a Trinitarian God - will be able to feel the same.

"Sometimes sex is the most boring part of my day."

-David Matzko McCarthy

like this.