we are the dance

Life is a delicate balance. Always, something is ascendent at the expense of something else. These soils - wrought from the bodies of ancient microscopic sea-creatures, fertilized by ages and ages of the frothing biology of microbes, plants, insects, birds, mammals - these soils give rise to wondrous tress. Trees that seem to writhe with life. To some, in tortured, contorted poses. To me - in the embodiment of a type of dance. And when one comes to pass, the grand accumulation of all the materials gained over a lifetime will pass again on to the soils, to feed the mammals, birds, insects, plants, microbes, and of course - future trees. With care, one could imagine the long, long ages passing before your eyes, seasons upon seasons whizzing by, trees growing up towards the sky then falling and returning to earth, over and over again, the seemingly random pattern of life ever repeating, with each instance unique in all of time, an electric dance pausing for a moment, heroically, against all odds, stark against a deep blue sky.

the uplands

Just over 11,000 ft up in 'Patriarch'. It's hard to put into words, this grove. People come streaming by, some pause briefly to take a picture then go; others wander reverently where raised voices seem out of place. Some try to explain it all to those who will listen, telling the story as a stranger might at a wake, how some of these trees have stood since the time of Christ - all told with an earnest tone. But who can say what the cold winter's chill feels like after the ever-too-brief summer sun? Who can fathom the long quiet, the raging storms? We wander briefly amidst the old ones, whose thoughts are much too long and slow for us to hear. We are mere ephemera, a passing shadow to those that remain when we leave.

So, I have finally finished my book:
Lost and Found: Confessions of a Bay Area Vagabond.
It took longer than I thought, mostly because of the writing, which became a labour of love. It is interesting to have to write, which like any artistic task, can loom large and seem impossible. Now, this book is hardly War and Peace, but the act of creation is often about getting out of your own way, breaking past your pre-conceptions of who or what you 'are' or what you can be. I am ever self-limiting, reminding myself of my 'limitations' at every step, bringing to mind past behaviors, and their seemingly hard truths about who I am - all of which is just a bunch of hooey. Life is what you make it, and the Self, an illusion of convenience, crafted to get one off the hook for being in the moment, a fallback position. So, go forth and create, make mistakes, slip off the rails a bit, draw outside the lines, find a new room in your mind's house.