The Moon was awesome last night

My grandma's name was Chand - it means 'Moon' in Hindi; I just called her 'Nani' -

Last night she was crowned with a halo.

Its an astronomical phenomena known as a 'Moon Halo' - it's occurs because of Moonlight refracting off of ice crystals in cirrus clouds very high in the upper troposphere. The shape of these ice crystals is generally hexagonal which results in a focusing of the moonlight into a ring. It is generally a 22 degree halo, but sometimes you can get a 46 degree halo (which is very rare).

So yeah, Nani was wearing a crown that God gave her and I hope she's in heaven now.

Boy and Man and Daddy; the Camel, the Lion, and the Child.

Eight years ago I tried defining a man; I came up with the following -

"Man is: A big boy"

Today I define a man by defining an adult, thus also defining a woman vs. a girl -

"Adult: A person who parents themselves"

This personal parenting should encompass all the tasks that parents are responsible for; from health and security, to protection and education, to the eternally important heart! with all its millions of implications.

Since about 16 I've been concerned with being fiscally prepared for a family, and especially for my children; to that end I've often worked with my future children's future in mind - and of course my wife, who will get anything she damn well pleases if I can help it.

But three days ago something remarkable happened.

Something snapped. Something good.

I began preparing myself psychologically to be a father.

One begins by parenting the child within them. We know exactly where he or she needs help, that's our first step to making sure our children have the best of us - by first giving ourselves, the best of us - the love and protection of the adult in us.

May we reach lofty heights on the mountain of informed love before our offsprings incarnate. May we know this as commandment and blessing.

The strength in my jaw

Don't you know my dear, that I already live with the hard reality of a Ghost? And that if all the love I have is spoken into an echo, and a fading image - all seasons and tastes long ago became my winter?
I learn to be sustained. I bite hard into the reality of my lovers absence and feel my love by the strength of my jaw.
That I will love her no matter the season or reality-that is the only hard reality I know.

For I love you

My love eternal. My beam of light. Break free and struggle away from this hole, black, and torn in our heart.

Let us not continue My love, my beam of light; let us not continue, but I pray thee, let us start - Finally, start.

Even in bright warmth of healthy sun called freedom, I feel the resounding void of your presence.

Let us not continue My love, my beam of light; let us not continue, but I pray thee, let us start - Finally, start.

Donnie Darko Tunnel

It's humbling and awe inspiring (they go together pretty frequently for me) to think of how many lifetimes one can live during a single life.

I begin thinking of the infinite - then my finite mind just gets blown and my heart falls to awe and my mouth to silence.

It's like I'm looking at someone I know, but not as well as I remember. An old friend that seems to have changed - and one whom I wish I could have explained a few things to!

Mirrors are interesting things. Photographs are like mirrors for history - well, by that standard everything we're doing is history as every moment flies by - each one of these letters I'm typing, and you're reading, included; milliseconds, nanoseconds - you get the idea.

I wonder what I'll think of who's typing this? I already hope I question how self absorbed he was; but then I hope even further that I will think nothing of it at all, but have a heart which hears the same droning song of love that runs through the picture above, through the picture of the baby on my desk, this flannel cad below, the newly forming man writing now, and whatever he evolves into.

Its so neat, to look at yourself and see someone else, someone younger, more egotistical, more agile, starving for knowledge and thirsting after wisdom.

History is like our child I guess; makes sense if you think of the 'inner child'. Photographs of that inner child growing up. Its a marvel with today’s technology what interesting gymnastics we can experience psychologically and physiologically.

I'd hang out with him - for sure. I wonder if he'd like me?

Torch

To the center of Earth I flee,

Your fire; potected in core of my heart.

I burn the world.

I hope I die while hugging

It has been said that "Evening came, and morning followed" thus we move on - to things like scaly chair monsters with vertebrae exposed as teeth and reflections of my Fathers clones; to the tables for midgets and the swung backs.

On to the undercover sweat makers and their flowery black crows with their common confusions and purchased frustrations; and on to a dreamer pointing with his shoulders and frowns; on to fan trees and wheel legs. On to conversations with folded arms and the amateur philosophers of tomorrow who speak with the voices of a decayed peoples - and their noise is like bull frogs!

On to a visage of a dead man formed smeared with and within lead; and giant tempters entering soft skulls to pry open tooth caves and take important papers to sleep hanging from our bodies.

On to time warps and disgusting sentiments with animals barking, howling, & wailing in human voices about animal things; on to recollections of laughing, and dancing fingers, with the woman of today – tomorrow.

On to hot earth in ceramic jails whose escape is meat graves and the activity of morning birds - Herein my refuge rests awakened in excitement by a dying star - this is morning.

Book review and partial exegesis: 'The Untethered Soul'

The systems of energy in the physical world (like the atom bomb for instance) can be utilized to better understand the stunning phenomena at work within a person, and concordantly their psychological and physiological constitutions.

“Just like energy waves, the energy that comes into you must keep moving. But that doesn’t mean it can’t get blocked within you. There is a way that energy can both keep moving and stay in one place – and that is to circle around itself. We see this in atoms and in planetary orbits. Everything is energy, and energy will just expand outward if it’s not contained. For there to be manifest creation, energy must get in the dynamic of cycling around itself to create a stable unit. That’s why energy manifesting as an atom forms the basic building block of this entire physical universe.” – Michael A. Singer, 'The Untethered Soul'

With this understanding – imagine pain, and hurt, and jealously, and joy, and anger, and fear, and any other emotion we can think of as actual physical waves of energy. Sometimes, when these waves irritate and monopolize our consciousness we may begin, as most all do, to task the mind with protecting, or clinging to the experience - till the intensity of their energy is “manageable” for us. This could range from distracting ourselves for some time, to trying to build a world that holds in the joy we feel – whatever – it’s some natural (but unhealthy) neurosis in us humans.

Any reaction, clinging or protecting, does not allow these energy waves to pass through us; thus, as they do in the physical world, these wave patterns begin to circle around themselves and create little ‘pockets of energy’ stored in our minds and heart; and should one keep that much energy harnessed – the result is explosions - at an atomic level of emotionality. Peace becomes harder to feel and becomes more something you work to create a culture for (which is a lack of peace in and of itself). Based on the lack of true peace - true happiness and contentment and finally - enlightenment, become harder realities to attain.

----

The book goes on to describe life lived out of an ever expanding, and infinite source of energy while giving easy guidance along the way with some interesting experiments in vigorous self-examination. It has some pretty terrible writing frankly, thus, it is an easy, but slightly annoying read; but not so overtly grotesque that it’s entirely undesirable.

To wrap up, 'The Untethered Soul' is very wholly worth the slight irritation it may or may not cause you reading it for the higher understanding and solutions it provides – besides, style here is a matter of taste, so you might actually enjoy it. The horse running free on a white serene beach as part of the turquoise cover however...? Well, then there is that.

I will be buying three for Christmas gifts.

All I am

Take that gun from off your lips and ask me to dance

Use those spiders in your veins; crawl up and take a chance

Oh I know the old clock is ticking at our graves

But I swear if you just hold me, I'll keep you safe.

And what will I do? When death comes to take me from you?

I'll run - like I always do, right back to you.

Take that fire in your mind to keep us warm

Use the poison in your smile, oh you know it's such a charm

And I know all your fear,

But I swear if you reach out, I'll be right here

And what will I do? When death comes to take me from you?

I'll run - like I always do, right back to you.

And lady of mine, where's that fear been leading you?

Here's all I am, go on and take it all with you.

Take that valley in your frown that holds my whole world

Fill it with an ocean, and I'll fill it with pearls

And I know it feels like the sun won't rise again

But I swear if you just kiss me, this will all end.

And lady of mine, where's that fear been leading you?

Here's all I am, go on and take it all with you.

And what will I do? When death comes to take me from you?

I'll run - like I always do, right back to you.

Like I always do, right back to you.

Like I always do, right back to you.

Like I always do, back to you.

War, and the Sycophant

Come sweet breakers of the day/ come and take my light and stay/ in their place but gone astray/ a busy man and his wife crying.

Evening strikes and the muscles grow/ the mind the heart and that broken soul/ the past is a jealous ghost/ but she can’t live without us trying.

The heart that shines/ with flames and thorns/ keeps me safe, blowing smoky horns/ the only child that I’ve seen before is the Christ, who comes before my dying.

Reminisce, idolize that whore/ wood creeks on a bloody floor/ a man rises like a shadow at your door/ and your Lovers here, to find you hiding.

Midnight asks of love what for?/ tells me to keep watch by the shore/ the shower runs and the warrior roars/ a new father will keep his swords a' flying.

Twilight sparks for the sycophant/ a calculated masters chant/ the army rides those who can’t/ while those who won’t, sit suited deciding.

Come sweet breakers of the day/ come and take my light and stay/ in their place but gone astray/ it's a busy man and his wife crying.