Living in balance......

Think about the characteristics of a person that cause you to respect them. It could be their persistence, their reliability; durability, compassion, or any number of other descriptions which present an impression that sticks with you, and in turn creates the story of the person.


We all have a story. Some of us lead or have led simple lives, yet the real story is deep and complex. As we move from the cradle to the stone, we narrow our attention to not only what matters to us, but what has been reflected back from others as “a good trait.”

The things that cause us to keep on track and avoid wandering too far into the world of self-consumption (difficult to do when this centeredness tends to isolate us into making decisions that feed us and us only), is a narrow mirror of what others return to us as a positive or useful characteristic.

Even though this opinion of ourselves is driven by others, it none the less supports the argument that we are in fact social-creatures, relying upon the support of those impressions to keep from being eaten alive by our own self-need.

We need to give. It simply feels better than to take. In the end our lives need to be balanced. Think about it. He was thinking himself about how the Native Americans, once living on this land below his feet as he writes, considered this balanced living essential to move on to the after-life.

In recent hours he was struck by the words of another who knew his mother enough to use a term to describe her that was so eloquent and true…a description that reflected how before her end she had achieved this balance he speaks of.... living close to the ground...in touch with her own death..…she simply said….”your mother was an Indian.”


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When there's no wind......drift.

Regardless of your direction, or who accompanies you on the trip, the one thing that becomes evident as we age is that we all have to steer our own ship.


He often thinks of the days in his minds past, the last life so to speak, when he crossed the big waters by sailing vessel, spending weeks of the sun cycles over the bow, with nothing but the future in course and the past over the stern.

When we chart the start and the finish, we have what the thinking person would call, a plan. When we steer by the prevailing, we leave our path to fate, or chance. Both choices and methods have a place.

Take stock in the journey. As much as we prefer to think that those around us are mates on our boat, helping us to make the difficult choices, the bitter reality is that they are busy guiding themselves. We share the wind and run along sides for moments, days, years, often stopping inthe calm of port to enjoy each other’s intercourse. But then, in time, the wind picks up and we are guided out of the harbor, with little choice.

Stand straight and stiff into the wind, for as long as the legs will hold. There is much to learn and lives to live. After all, it’s later than we think.


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Drifting.....

Daydreams are like night dreams, but much more self-directed.  We continue keep the course of our lifes work, steady in our daily progress, yet often times the fuel needs to be summoned from a day dream.  He has had these daydreams since childhood.  Never a burden, at times a crutch, but always filling the soul from an opening in the window.....

Drifting, drifting, drifting away.

I got myself a mansion, then I gave it away.
It's not the world that's heavy, just the things that you save.
And I'm drifting, drifting away.


Drifting, drifting, drifting uh-huh
I rid myself of worries, and the worries were gone.
I only run when I want to and I sleep like a dog.
I'm just drifting, drifting along.


The suitcoats say, 'There is money to be made.'
They get so damn excited, nothing gets in their way
My road it may be lonely just because it's not paved.
It's good for drifting, drifting away.


Drifting, drifting, drifting, uh huh.
I feel like going back there, but never for long.
I sometimes wonder if they know that I'm gone.
I'm just drifting, drifting along.
Drifting, drifting along. Drifting, drifting along.

                 ............words and dream by Eddie Vedder


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Grey day........

Grey day. Even the squirrel, lounging out on the end of the Oak branch, looks glum.


Yet the mind wanders quickly to pierce this grey ceiling and surfaces in a cantina South of the Rio Grande. Far south. South of all the melancholy and wishful thinking, the plans, the new ideas, the failed attempts.

In the evening, just off the dusty road and day’s heat, under the cabana, you will find old happy men. Not happy as in jubilant or gay, but rather happy as in content with the world about them. Men with limited expectations and the comfort of the next breathe in a life they can reliably predict.

Easing the belly up and into their space, he makes the obligatory gesture which simply acknowledges no threat. A nod of the head constitutes opening statements. Oh, but he knows they are quietly curious. After a full beers time of adjustment to the pinprick to the cultural bubble, he initiates the exchange with a question, in his foolish but respectful attempt at their language. As pathetic as he sounds to these native Indians, he always does so with a smile in his eyes and a warm heart in his thoughts.

They laugh and smile and begin to engage him. These older men exhibit a childlike playfulness that is contagious. Sometimes they sing funny songs, other times they cry. It always seems to evolve into an indescribable exchange of human emotion.

He lies in his blanket on the next morning reliving the experience just hours before like a highschooler the day after attending his first wild party.

What a day ahead….nothing grey about it.


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Free at last.....

In tough times, free is a good thing. Often though, there are strings attached to free, which make it actually cost.

With his responsibilities behind him, and 4-5 days ahead, he took to the road in pursuit of that warm morning sun found on that stretch of isles called the Keys. He had a tent, gear, a cooler, cash, books, and time. He was racing the chill, and chasing the centerline.

Remember how it feels to have your white winter face absorb that warm morning sun, and the natural absence of shoes, as the sand scrapes your feet clean.

The energy flow when racing the latitudes against the clime is sublime. The flow is effortless as long as you have the right music and access to gas station food. For these two variables we all are unique. To him, the music was fuel, and the food just filled the gaps.

It was Christmas morning; he had been driving all night since tucking in his two bright lights, with sweet smiles, under momma's safe umbrella. Somewhere outside Nashville he pulled in for unmet needs. After navigating the empty station he arrived at the counter to exchange pleasantries and currency. The gap-toothed gent behind the counter, wishing he were home, spoke up first, “I got a Christmas deal for you buddy.” “Oh yeah, what's that,” he countered. “Dem dogs in the steam box are free” he exclaimed. “Free is good”, is all he could come up with.

On closer inspection, the hotdogs looked pretty gray. The grate had long stopped rotating, although the dogs still had a little sweat on em. “Free is free” after all.

It took till darn near The Macon-Dixon line before he started finding out how free can actually cost a fella. He has never liked Georgia since that fateful night of endless roadside squats. He eventually slept it off while parked on a side road. He woke mid morning in his bag full of chill. He had been sweating like a grey dog in a steam box.

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Even Tall Trees fall........

One by one they move on. Today he will attend the funeral of a friend. In actuality, it is the death of a father of a friend. But in that moment, when those that rocked the cradle cease to be, a part of us goes with them as well.


It was a neighborhood thing. Your street cred was only as strong as the family that sprung you. Brothers and sisters surround, but it is the old man that guides the ship. This old man had a mysterious sense of power in his eyes. Whereas he imagined that other fathers ran small businesses, or sat in corporate cubicles, or drove to nearby states selling paint or shoes, this old man was connected to something far larger. Even when we were young, he was considered “the godfather.”

Yet beyond the quiet closing and opening of cell doors, the onset of age and the subsequent arrival of disrupted mental and physical health, he had humor. People gravitated in the direction of his stories and his bellowed laughter. He was a man of grand vision and unlimited possibility. He was a man of the neighborhood.

Yet in the end, he was a man of limited time, and last Thursday, at 93 years of age, that time ticked, ticked, ticked, to a stop.




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Any man.........

Not every man is any man. Many men live in a world above the rest, if only in their minds and bank accounts. They never fear they will walk in the shoes of “those men.”


He was leaning against the wall of a commercial business, out of obvious sight, but with the world in view. It was a cool but sunny fall afternoon and he was thinking that if he was of the habit, it would be a classic smoker’s moment.

He could see the old man carefully stepping along behind the businesses attempting to appear a non-threat. His thick flannel hung loosely from his worn jeans, ball cap pulled down snugly against the breeze, and he carried a 5 gallon bucket with his left hand, allowing the right to pick up small items and discarding them, save for something of value or usefulness, which then was added to the contents of the prize bucket.

Like an animal the old man stopped and jerked his head in his direction, sensing he was being watched. He of course was still there, leaning against the wall, observing. The old man must have assumed the fella watching had some level of authority over this property because he quickly set the bucket down on the broken pavement and fell just short of raising his arms in surrender.

“How are ya today sir”, he offered. The old man looked pleasantly startled by the congenial salutation. The old man looked down in the bucket for a long moment and then raised his humbled eyes from under the ball cap and asked “things picked off the ground any mans?” “Yeah, he responded back to the old treasure hunter, “It was any mans, only now it’s yours.”

“Thank you kindly young man” the old man replied as he walked on, eyes to the ground. He continued to lean against the wall watching the old man search and find, all the while he was thinking that if he was of the habit, he would have offered the old man a smoke.

Any man would have done the same.



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Simply........think differently.

He is sort of stuck today thinking about how we use the past to form our expectations of the current moment, and the future as well. We often base our judgments of success on the experience we bring from a previous benchmark. Can we all really say that what has happened thus far has been so right?


Think of the moments in your life when you really sat back and reflected on a successful experience, or a real meaningful moment. Not just the feeling one gets driving a new car off the dealers lot, or when you finish mowing the grass, or when you find a $20 bill in the empty dryer at the laundry mat, but rather when you felt genuinely appreciated for your contribution.

No one will ever question the value of history and the reflection on learned experience. Yet, perhaps it is time to consider new ways of being, behaving, and engaging our world to nurture this evolving mindset that puts people ahead of personal gain. It will never happen you say? You’re convinced that humans are self-pleasing first and only consider others out of guilt or personal agenda. Perhaps that is true.

However, when you reflect back earlier on the most meaningful moments of your existence, you will discover that they will fall in the giving category more so than the taking. So why is our society, and certainly our economy, so geared to the accumulated gains from the taking as a measure of success?

Those individuals who have gravitated toward a varying degree of voluntary simplicity are finding new ways of engaging in their lives, and discovering new ways of measuring individual accomplishment. Those that still choose to cling to the past benchmarks of success may eventually be squeezed, due to natural economic pressures, to engage in in-voluntary simplicity, leaving the experience to be one of necessity rather than free choice.


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Headed South.....

The fact that it occurs annually does not diminish the grandeur of the event. As days grow shorter, highs mark lower, and the lows surprise us with white etchings on the windshield, we are reminded of the migrational pull to the South.

Year after year he performs the ritual autumn dance of preparation. It is the anticipation of relief from the chores of summer, and the acceptable use of hours for reading, dreaming, and stoking the coals of one’s inner self. This becomes a time to hole-up, let go, and use the darkness to our advantage.

Yet, by the emergence of the first New Year moon, warm climes and exotic culture seep in through the unconscious and surface in odd returning habits such as standing your backpack in the room corner and tossing random contents at it from time to time, as you watch the snow accumulate out the window.

Yes, it then will be time to hop the cartel grip, and re-enter the lands nearer the equator. Of course you will have spent hours of preparation researching the history, maps, weather, culture, natural features, languages, costs, travel options, and the acceptance of a couple of studious gringos in dark skinned lands. The latter rarely short of a pleasant surprise.

But that will be then, and now is here. Now calls for immersion in the death and dormancy of the natural world in these Midwestern latitudes. It would be hard to really anticipate and absorb the sprout of spring without staring down the annual death and silencing of the fall.

When the migration begins, he wishes to leave with it, but knows he must remain to kill off this year, and hope to be born into the next.

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Wood and nuts.....

There seems to be this obvious dilemma brewing in our society as of late. If we cannot support the overconsumption of throwaway products, and consensus of most agree that debt most be reduced, how then will this lack of purchasing effect the economy as a whole. Said another way, how will we recover if we cannot spend, as seemingly the economy has been supported or propped up for years by the no-limits consumer.


Seriously. Are stores going to close, companies fail? Are only the ones that offer quality products, that fulfill real needs, going to be the lone survivors? Will people pass up buying the new chain saw, and welcome the use and assistance of a neighbor? Will he then help that neighbor sealcoat his driveway in return? Yes.

The possessions we own that predate the plastic replacements from China will become more valuable as we are reluctant to buy new ones. We will care for them and maintain them more attentively, now knowing the costs and reduced value in tossing them to the growing landfill.

Perhaps you have not noticed. Many are in denial. Yet the structure of our society is changing right before our eyes. We are so fortunate to be able to witness now, what will be so commonplace in ten years. Look around. Pay attention.

By the way, do you have a chain saw that works? Winters coming and it is time to gather wood and nuts.


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Falling in.........

Meeting an old friend for coffee is usually an exercise in memory; that is, trying to remember where we left off in our lives during our last time together. Well, repeating stories just comes with age.

In between the updates describing the daily grind in digestible terms and stories, he uttered a most remarkable nuance. He simply stated that since our last visit he had fallen “completely in love” with a woman. These words, from a man who had rarely described anything remotely close to his love life, surfaced brightly and with great enthusiasm.

“Ahhhh…can you tell me more,” he asked. The friend responded quickly that he had nothing but respect, admiration, and a strong attraction, which did not resemble the physical attraction he had had for others in the past. He described the window through her eyes, literally a soulful tour, revealing a warm and loving woman.

The friend mentioned that the fact that she was Asian and spoke very little English did not seem to detract from the strong attraction. He was beaming with a glow that previously was either nonexistent, or just never shone through in any other circumstance they had found themselves in during the 25 years of friendship.

He could have just left good enough alone. He normally refrains from questions unless offered by his friend, but he could not help but ask, “So have you two been intimate yet, are you a physical as well as a soulful match.” And then he added, “Can I meet her sometime, my friend?” At that point he regretted asking the question.

“Well, he responded, I actually have not spoken to her yet. She works at a café where I get my coffee. I have been madly in love for 6 months now.”

He was in love with the idea.

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The wolf within......

We are beginning to now recognize how the last couple decades represent a clear example of human over consumption. We borrowed and bought beyond our means and the rules encouraged it. The imbalance of resources and demand has been out of balance for years now and the scary economic reality is common fodder around kitchen tables and across the bar stools in this country. It may be time that we summon up the “wolf” within us. The wolf is known most for its reliability to the community (pack), efficient and sustainable consumptive patterns, and a clear and consistent leadership structure.


A common debate in the environs of the western public lands surrounds the release of and subsequent hunting of wolves. In 1991 we finally agreed that the imbalance in the wilds of Yellowstone National Park in particular, was primarily the result of the systematic slaughter of the Gray Wolf. The reintroduction, though thoroughly contested, has been extremely successful in restoring the natural prey and predator relationship, and returning the “wildness” to these wild lands.

The conflict rages on as many wolves have been shot by ranchers protecting their livestock on lands bordering the massive park. Recently, a wolf that was collared and tracked for many years, a favorite of the rangers and naturalists, wolf 527, was shot dead after roaming beyond the invisible line.

Why does the wolf wander beyond the abundant hunting grounds, to its own demise? Perhaps these wolves, like humans, are not satisfied with having enough, and need to express the wildness that is controlled by property and fence lines. Perhaps enough is not enough? Why do so many of our leaders wander into unprotected areas to expose the apparent inner weakness, or wildness, which cannot be satisfied by having all their apparent needs satisfied?

The complexity of the psyche cannot be overemphasized. The wolf within us is real and requires expression at some point. One can only wonder if there is space enough for all of us to howl.


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