Dreams

 

I have been staring into the abyss for far too long now. I believe that we are here as witness, so for a very long time now I have observed the overwhelming evil that has pervaded this earth. 

White men with their Roman empxre dreams have created the popular narrative of the past decade. We all know what that entails and I’m not using any of my words to add to to the thought content and creative energy that this narrative has amassed. 

I believe it is the job of the artist, the writer, the creator of any kind, it is our job to drink deeply from the creative well and pour out the sentiments into our medium whatever that may be. 

We are infinite and our collective power in our place and time in the universe is endless. 

So,

I’m going to be intentional with my dreams. Beginning by searching for them. Writing them down. Speaking them. Allowing them to change me. To influence whomever they may. Encourage those who may be sitting back like I have been and observing this demise. 

Here it begins.

I don’t want to live in a world where there is inequity. Especially when we have the collective power and the very real available resources to make sure everyone is equitably comfortable if we simply redistribute wealth. Food and housing for all is possible in our lifetime. We only have to stop worshipping the rich and begin holding them accountable to the society they have been siphoning off for millennia. 

No more billionaires. 

No more prisons for profit. No more prisons for just about any so called crimes except the big few felonies. And rich people purposefully hurting the poor. Separation from the community should be reserved for destroyers like Elon and Donald. Those who murder with policy and hide behind the illusion (delusion) of power have killed more than any serial killer we’ve glorified by repeating their first middle and last name along side their nicknames and crimes. No more police in the American sense. It is a broken system built on protecting rich peoples’ stuff and desires. It has broken those who serve it every bit as much as those whom they have been taught to oppress and destroy. And it must go. 

I do want universal healthcare. 

I do want free  universal education access through college. It’s doable and it is necessary. 

I want a simplification of our representative government.  They exist to do what is best for all of us. Not simply themselves. Money must cease to be a factor in our political discourse. It should not be possible, much less lauded and encouraged, to purchase a position within government. 

I want to find a work/action/do niche that I fit properly into. Not one where I squeeze myself into little corners in order to make a paycheck. But something where doing is rewarding and  profitable alike. I want my being and doing to harmonize with one another. Maybe start a collective that is non cult-like chill warm inviting and self sustaining. 

I want my children to be happy and feel loved. I want them to value other living creatures: plants, animals, especially every human. And I’m proud that they seem to be that way. I hope they find something they love or a million somethings along the way down their life path and feel satisfied in their own place and time

I hope this for all the children.  I want children to be nurtured to love themselves exactly as they are so that they can grow up into adults who truly love themselves and love those around them enough to offer them the space to do the exploration of their being and discover and celebrate their individual unique shape. Let us remove the boxes and what joyous beauty may wildly spring up here! 

I want to see a huge reduction in the military industrial complex. Decimate. It. Spend 90 percent of that money on non violent sustainment of our own people.  

I want not only nonproliferation of nuclear weapons but a safe draw down to eventually zero. 

My deepest hope is that we become a people who are content to BE, no longer defined only by what we do, no longer comparing litanies of myopically designed tasks for someone else’s comfort…that instead we will revel in who we are both individually and collectively. I want more singing. More dancing. More reading. More painting and sculpture.  More music. More movies. More sitting outside just staring at the trees and birds and butterflies. More love. 

More of something new, after all,

"There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy"

Woman invented man and called him god and that was our first mistake. 

Ogier gardens

A beauty that I know and love hosted a poetry workshop in the gardens at the local university today. It was a lovely pleine air experience with humans all of whom except for one I had never met before. I’m never fully at ease around new people and this was no exception but I summoned the courage to read aloud a still life poem about grapes I’d written just then in response to a prompt to interact with the fruit she brought and displayed. I was not as brave with the second piece that I’d drafted. Maybe because it felt like a draft. Or maybe because as the shaking subsided from my hands and vocal cords I became more painfully egoistically conscious of myself and how I didn’t fit in and how the words longingly looking back at me from the paper seemed somewhat cacophonous against the backdrop of the sweeter sounds all around. I dunno. 

But I do want to share it. With my worldwide audience of random strangers who meander past my blog (timeless medium of written interaction). And a few instagrammers who will follow the link here.

Cut deep was the call

Here’s the response:

(Cut)

Immediately while she was speaking, asking what deepens or complicates the beauty of this fruit 

(Your fruit)

My mind is cut by the image of the hands that gather these fruits  

Oranges and pears

Pomegranates and grapes 

Specifically in this country 

Especially at this time

Who will gather these fruits 

When they cut off the hands of the harvesters?

Whose hands will stop them from hacking us 

All of us

To pieces

Mine  

Mine?

Mine! 

All of ours so yes also mine 

(Deeper)

I remember the green snappy sour grapes 

Tart and growing in the woods beside my childhood home 

Before

Awareness crept in

A late summer afternoon, I’m part of the woods

Where I was conceived and born and raised 

And loved

And hated

A dream of the fruit itself 

And a nostalgia for that place, those people 

The heavenly scent of honeysuckle wafting all around 

I’m lying on the dirt floor hands digging into the earth

Looking up at the rugged branches of the maples

Marveling at their crown shyness

Almost touching but never quite, gently refusing to violate the other’s space, sweetly whispering compliments across the wind

Reflecting the same image seen in the grapes below  

Clumps of green glinting with the flecks of sunlight 

Holding a symphony of earth’s savors 

There’s a harmony in it and my hands are involved 

This time

 This one goes out to the ones I love 

This one goes out to those I may leave behind. 

I know. You know. The fear of hell?  Of earth? Poverty? Imprisonment? Keeps you from calling it out? I tell you that there is no power on earth (in heaven nor hell above nor below) that can bind you from doing what is right. 

You know what Christ asks if it is possible for  you to do. 

You know 

That he has shown me, oh man, what is good, and what the Lord requires of me. But. To do justly. And. To love mercy. And. To walk humbly with my god.

And when the time was right.

He stood in the synagogue and said 

“The spirit of the lord is upon me 

He has anointed me 

To proclaim the good news to the poor!

He has sent me 

To proclaim FREEDOM to the prisoner

To give sight to the blind

To set the oppressed free  

TO PROCLAIM THIS IS THE YEAR OF THE LORD’s FAVOR

And there in front of them he proclaimed the scripture fulfilled  

I know you know the truth  

I know you know justice 

I know  you love mercy

I beg you to walk in integrity  

You may ,  thou mayst, timshel

Do not let those who say you cannot, mustn’t, won’t, don’t let them control you .

Do not allow yourself to point to the fact that I don’t believe what you do to disallow your god from using a donkey like me.  I believe like you do that truth and love will find a way.  I know that you too  believe in truth and love   

You too can dream of a better future  

One where we feed and house rather than condemn and incarcerate (modern acceptable vernacular for enslave) Ourselves 

One where we allow our efforts and experience and brilliance to benefit

Ourselves 

 

Hatred of ourselves or fear of what consequence we may fall upon  is what keeps us subservient to the rich and powerful 

 But I ask you…what if? And so what?

What if ensuring my neighbor had a home deprived me of mine  (the fear they instill in us so we don’t advocate equity ) 

But so what? Then there would be two of us side by side on the same road  

What if loving my neighbor as myself required me to love myself despite my ugliness (the learned self loathing of humanity)

But so what? Then you and I would be able to love one another and ourselves more than we could have ever known 

What if the future is so much more abundant than you want to restrict it to because you DONT believe  in you or your neighbor 

But so what? Each step towards faith hope and love  (the greatest of these is love) will gift your future days in ways that you have yet the ability to appreciate. Oh but one day  what a day that will be