in a world of hurt

On By earthskyairIn compassion, creative writing, life, love, poetry, writingLeave a comment 
in a world of hurt
you cower, 
left alone in the grey, flattened battlefield of your soul.
tears tremble in your lashes
as your eyes dart, searching for some kind of solace
in this unknown, razed place of your own being.
your cries are meaningless
there are no open arms in this upended world.
in the end
you must raise yourself up, alone,
to climb from the wreckage,
heaving with effort
finally, painfully, to move your limbs,
driven by instinct only
to leave the wasteland behind
and make your stumbling search 
for the one you somehow trust is there, 
your own anima 
still waiting to bloom
beyond the devastation of mindless blows.
exhausted and aching,
as you climb, you inhale the breath, and know the gift.
in a world of hurt
you bring love, still.

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Stand for Freedom

still dark

On By earthskyairIn creative writing, inspiration, life, poetry, writingLeave a comment 

still dark,
the far reaches of the climbing sun
begin to spread a grey film,
the shapes of things appear again.
a lazy roll of thunder makes its way
through a quiet hiss of drizzle.
awake, but uncommitted,
words begin a slow tumble through my brain,
sorting out what dreams left behind
and the niggling realities that lay before.
in this blurred and murky world
I choose again.
despite the rain, 
a bird sings with the coming light of day.

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Stand for Freedom

less tech, not more

On By earthskyairIn creativity, freedom, humanity, technology4 Comments

I am over it. 

Technology is already pervasive, but the push continues for more, more, more. Our phones are in our pockets, and there is an app for just about everything already, but apparently AI is gearing up to take care of the entire universe. We won’t even have to think anymore, in fact, it might not even be allowed.

Still, I would rather see your misspellings and stumbling grammar as you explore and express your own, original thoughts, than any perfectly crafted paragraphs generated by Chat-whatever. I would rather you write and sing your own song, paint your own pictures, design and build your own constructions, take care of your own body with exercise, love, and real nutrients grown from the earth, maybe even have a spiritual life and community, than watch as tech generates everything from music and art to food, friends, control and revision of our bodies, weather, omnipresent military threats, and more. 

As tech creeps in and takes over what’s left of our natural world, we humans become less human, less of who we are, while becoming simply more of an inane commodity. Our language and thinking, our bodies, our cultures, our environment, are increasingly defined not by people, but by a monolithic, ultimately uncontrollable system. I fear for the world we are creating for our children, and theirs.

“In the modern world, the most dangerous form of determinism is the technological phenomenon. It is not a question of getting rid of it, but, by an act of freedom, of transcending it.” Jacques Ellul

Like Ellul, I do not know all the answers, but I have faith that transcendence is possible, and seek to live individually and in community toward that effort.

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Stand for Freedom

abode

On By earthskyairIn animals, environment, family, nature, walkingLeave a comment

Delightfully, a pair of geese have settled to raise their brood near one of my frequented paths. There are eight sweet goslings growing at astonishing pace. It is amazing how quickly they grow and become comfortable on the water, pecking at everything and waddling around.

All the while, their two parents keep a close and watchful eye over their clan. When I approach along the path, I can see they are calmly on alert, prepared to muster their crowd away to safer territory if necessary. Where they bed down, all ten of them, is pretty much invisible to other souls passing by. I keep my distance, enjoying them with amazement and gratitude.

The other birds, too, are all very busy, flying to and fro, building nests, singing lustfully, searching the earth’s surface. They are beautiful as the creatures that they are, doing what they do to live, in the natural constellation of their world and culture. 

“There is nothing in which the birds differ more from man than the way in which they can build and yet leave a landscape as it was before.” Robert Wilson Lynd

Imagine a human family of ten (or two) in our culture today, and the many demands deemed necessary from housing to food to transportation. These demands all have pronounced impacts on the surrounding natural environment and beyond.

It is not just a matter of size and biological needs that drives these impacts, but also perceived needs, wants, and an unthinking disconnect from the natural world. While we may enjoy many advantages that serve to keep us safe, and warm, and dry in our constructed homes and cities, it is so essential to become mindful of the ever-growing distance between us and our natural world. Our place within nature, our relationship with it, is a fundamental in life. It’s beautiful, too.

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Stand for Freedom

purpose

On By earthskyairIn creative writing, creativity, nature, poetry, writingLeave a comment 
Truth is the trees reaching toward the sky, splaying their limbs,
	sprinkled with buds,
the arrival of the robins and the cardinals, their bold songs 
	ringing out,
the squirrel poised inquisitively on a branch,
the grasses below emerging from the remains of the fallen 
	leaves.

Truth is the soul looking up into the arms of the trees,
hearing the trills of the winged creatures,
washed by the sun and air,
eyes searching up and up into the blue, toward the unseen stars.

Truth is the butterfly emerging from its cocoon, intent to fly.

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Stand for Freedom

just dream

On By earthskyairIn creative writing, poetry, writing10 Comments

Dream again.
Go big.
Go small, too.
Any kind of dream will do.

Just dream.
Let ideas grow your heart,
perhaps the perfect pasta sauce
or an amazing work of art?

Forget the fetters
can’t and won’t,
forget the doubts that others say,
in your heart you know the way.

So look inside
and see what’s there,
uncover your dreams,
lay them bare.

Like food and air
we need our dreams.
Unique and precious to each one
they touch the world like rays of sun.

Your new words now are
can and will,
the quest of your dream
only you can fulfill.

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Stand for Freedom

sleepless

On By earthskyairIn creative writing, poetry, writing2 Comments

I lay still in the darkness 
fatigued but eyes alert
thoughts hissing and snapping 
loud in the quiet hours
trying to pray
searching for that place of solace
lips moving with words
even as the brain rushes over all
the din of my beating heart
that heart so wrapped around this earth
shouting down my whispered pleas
this worried heart, pistons throbbing
wake up wake up
yet the world rolls around again
merely jostling the slumberous herd
here and there a frantic soul arms waving
carried along in the sea of proud surrender
that one cries out
wake up wake up
exhausted with love distraught
still crying out
wake up wake up

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Stand for Freedom

red sky at morning

On By earthskyairIn freedom, human rights, writing4 Comments

Whatever side on which a person comes down on the matter of the medical procedure de rigueur, the matter of freedom eclipses all concerns in this moment. In light of the president’s statements yesterday, every US citizen should have freedom alarm bells going off, and it’s a five alarm situation.

Those alarm bells have been ringing quite some time now, but these latest edicts directly challenge our responsibilities as citizens. It is time to speak up and stand for freedom – if not for ourselves, at least for the children who will inherit a free country or not.

Call them “emergency rules” or executive orders, “mandates” are not the language of freedom. “Mandates” that affect one’s control of their own body, by force, no less, are the antithesis of freedom. “Mandates” that create favored and discriminated classes in our society are not about freedom. “Mandates” that unduly benefit certain actors who are also relieved of any liability speak directly to corruption, not freedom.

Funny how we used to speak of laws and democratic process, but today it’s just “mandates” as if that’s a thing in a democratic country.

It’s not like we couldn’t see this coming. Twenty years after the events of September 11 saw the Patriot Act hustled through, the door was opened and freedoms have been crumbling ever since.

In the last year alone, censorship – never the hallmark of a free country – has become blatant and broad, and served to obscure data, analysis, and discourse.

Such manipulation has already succeeded in creating a class that scoffs with derision at their fellow man or woman’s rights if their views are not compatible, openly viewing them as stupid or uninformed or undeserving. Such a lack of compassion, vision, or even instinctive self-preservation has not been nurtured with the ideals of freedom, nor by those who would champion our freedom. Sadly, this class, too, who would shut down both choice and discourse, will fall victim to “mandates” of other stripes if they are allowed to proceed apace today.

Today’s concern is not about a pandemic or a medication — this much has become obvious even in the context of our data-suppressed environment. No, today’s concern is about control. 

For every citizen, today’s concern should be whether we have the courage and the love of country and our fellow beings to stand for freedom. And in standing for freedom, by the way, we also choose life and health.

It’s time to wake up and to speak up. Stand for freedom.

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Stand for Freedom

on a labor day

On By earthskyairIn creative writing, writingLeave a comment

It’s a spooky town. The breath of its deep darkness hangs in the air. Walking these quiet streets, I can feel the rage and torment, the lostness and grief of the men who struggled with their lives for bread and liquor and their place on earth, the bruised women who toiled with terror and hope and despair, the dreamless children who walked the rail in their dirty clothes.

The place seeps perhaps not with their ghosts, but with emotions so intense they linger through the years in the shadows of the looming houses, those vulgar homes too big for common sense, the ones the workers never stepped inside. But those terrible feelings, they permeate the very streets, wash the entire town with a laughing anger, in a final futile conquest of this place. 

Because they own it. They own this town, the specters of that otherwise pointless life-or-death struggle. They are gone and utterly forgotten, but they have an icy grip on this place and they wring it, wring it, choking it with that rage they cannot purge. 

And so inside the quiet rooms of the mansions, in the alleys behind, on the corners of the trendy little main drag, the desperation plays out still. No lessons learned, this labor day, the money still changes hands while a baffled earth looks on. The drugs and the alcohol somehow ensure the clock gets punched, while others tread the mill in their trance. They wake up to breathe another day, the vague sense that something different could exist still somehow pushing the blood through their veins. But there, in the distance, the rumble of the train, soon the whistle blows. Like I said, it’s a spooky town.

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Stand for Freedom