Blogging from Asheville, NC circa Feb. 2003, when we were dorks.

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Even in absurdity, sacrament.
Even in hardship, holiness.
Even in doubt,
faith.
Even in chaos,
realization.
Even in paradox,
blessedness.

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Thu 05 Dec 13

Viva Madiba

As a child, when MTV and worldwide broadcasts were still exciting and new, I caught an advert for Paul Simon performing live in Zimbabwe as a giant unifying musical collaboration against Apartheid. Being the weird nerd kid I was, I knew of Apartheid, and of Mandela, and of Stephen Biko, and I felt a strong connection to these issues without knowing why. Would it be the little Apartheid I'd face later in my life? Was it a connection to a continent that I knew- in my blood- that I shared a deep biological connection with... a spiritual nameless cord my youth perceived and chased but knew not what after? I watched the concert in its golden lit distant light, sweat pouring from every upturned face, and clenched fists demanded freedom for Madiba, a single person that was the perhaps the first in history to change global dialogue and policy through the medium of communication through the masses. His unlikely path from Robin Island to President in the course of a few years proved to this young mind that global movements *by, for and of the disenfranchised* not only can happen, but with the growing ability to talk around the world that they will happen. Mandela, my first true childhood hero, remains a global pioneer and a name for the ages. In researching my ancestry I've discovered that I have a shard of African matrilineage. If one man can create an overwhelming transformative power that can offer hope to the Motherland, then each one of our voices can ring around the planet and petition for the highest ideals of freedom, justice, and peace. Madiba, in my inner world you help free me of my own oppression. My gratitude to you is as endless as your legacy is long upon this good Earth. AMANZA!

filed under: from the birdy's beak blogged: 22.05 Thu, 05 Dec '13

Tue 22 Oct 13

I hope you find

Just heard that song again
the one you thought was pretentious
but we were all pretentious then, trying to
figure out who and what we were, these
oscillating quanta of love, distrust,
moored to the past, insistent little boats.

We're decades older now, and I never knew you then.
Do I know you now? Did I ever? A cipher from
the "out west" I took a Greyhound to find,
looking under the massive pillars of
cooled lava, billions years, what
did I expect to uncover?

"Wish I knew what you were looking for...
Might've known what you would find."*

There's this bridge, perfectly safe to cross
yet a single budge and we're a'teeter over the abyss.
Can't have that. Right?

It's not you, it's me, and if we're to believe
the atoms it's all just me; all else is a maybe and
ain't that just the way it goes?

"Under the Milky Way tonight..."*

I threw some words into the fire the other week
when in fact those words doubled as me in the
cathartic flame and crucible of the Alchemist,
beating away at the Secret in the dark.

Just as I am now.

Still don't know what I'm looking for.
But I hope you find.

*(c) 1988 Kilbey & Jansson "Under the Milky Way Tonight" by The Church

filed under: from the birdy's beak blogged: 01.53 Tue, 22 Oct '13

Fri 04 Oct 13

Working for it

If it weren't for bending over backwards
I couldn't see the stars resplendent over me.

If it weren't for working myself to the bone
I�d never know what binds me together.

If it weren't for wearing holes in the sole of my shoes
I wouldn't feel the heat of the road in walking with you.

If it weren't for always burning the midnight oil
I wouldn't be dreaming on the cliffs of time, fire rushing.

And if it weren't for the busy work of bees
I�d long ago stopped looking for the honey that sweetens the deal.

filed under: from the birdy's beak blogged: 11.57 Fri, 04 Oct '13

Tue 24 Sep 13

Quantities of When

If only I knew how to schedule forever
Everything goes as far as next year
If only we knew who wrote the other in
Wouldn�t we both like to hear?
You took a few days and made an infinity
I count the minutes until I can lose them again
Searching the pavement to see what time fell from your pocket
Tracing circles over squares, collecting quantities of when.
Even the finest cogs will wear and gears will someday hesitate.
Seconds will be lost- trite at first- yet lifetimes, when watching long enough
I�ll clutch a timepiece even when it�s long since lost the hour
It�s in that voided time where seconds tick again; appointment kept, we vanish in a puff.

filed under: from the birdy's beak blogged: 02.23 Tue, 24 Sep '13

Wed 18 Sep 13

Rhymes with a slight twang

A clock is made for ticking
Heart wrought for beating
Deep, my body makes for breathing
And it�s your love that�s only made for waiting.
There are a billion songs that cry for touch
I�ve tried not to sing yours too much
And yet how many nights have stars drifted by that I longed to clutch?
When it�s been your light that I crave such.
We know life�s too short to nervously kick the dirt
As history scrawls on by we pretend not to hurt
And there�s little more left than the fading fabric of your shirt
Midnight chimes by- I�m gladdened by those days we did exert-
-against the impossible
-toward the improbable
-for the sake of love
-at the risk of ever loving again.

filed under: from the birdy's beak blogged: 02.18 Wed, 18 Sep '13

Sun 08 Sep 13

Lifting your eyelids

The day begins with that split second of light
seen through eyelids yet unopened- awake long enough to the blur of
billion year protons passing through the most holy of veils, the membrane dividing
the inner experience of self from the outward appearance of body, of day time, of time.
Fumbling for glasses, light is unfocused yet light still,
no diminishing by my lack of meaning for it- being-ness also, and love,
take any focal point that holds the world together that may bend and twist in clarity-
no matter how mumbled the definition there is an intactness to these forms outlasting skew, smudge.
First steps, first thoughtless inhales, thousands time s repeated
but the Universe was reinvented while you were dreaming, you�d shed atoms,
taken on new ones that have for eternity been recombining, just as for years you juggle philosophies-
what more magic is there than waking up, and what more proof do you need that you are finally getting close?
The question will always be too big for words.
Yet the answer will always be yes.
Time to get up. See the light
through your eye�s skin.
Now, arise.

filed under: from the birdy's beak blogged: 22.44 Sun, 08 Sep '13

Mon 19 Aug 13

Two balloons in traffic

Wheeling to the hospital tower for today�s hopeful attendance to my mother
Under a sky not intent to please anyone
I saw two balloons caught up in the traffic
One black one white
Tossed about by the passing cars, bouncing off hoods, helpless to climate and architecture;
In the short time I saw this dance of escaped joys, neither burst,
And the road surged us all forth to turn lanes, crossroads, dead ends.
Yin and yang, id and ego, a tango of duality here enacted by decorations eloped from the party.
The world, so big and ruthless around these bumbling carefree creatures,
Reduce their polarities to the trivial as all manner of time and brutal machine bite at their thin skins.
In that hospital room, how I wish we could just float like that- careen into an ever-expanding lightness-
Not beholden to the tubes whose ties bind to beeps that measure the degrees of life we have left.
The atoms that are me and she are suspended in an ether that we don�t yet understand
And to an extent, we are bumbling along as nebulous energetic clouds held together by a Holy Who-Knows-What
With names and histories and diagnoses scribbled in the chart that holds us in one place.
Maybe as free as we get are those two balloons darting 'tween the traffic on a duty filled Sunday
Shouting for joy as yet another piercing blow is avoided, savoring the sweet space between threats.
�I can't see it,� she said, �but I know it's beautiful.�
Too tired to find the glasses.
As oxygen flows and the morphine is released, she knows-
And the blur of the window is enough.

filed under: from the birdy's beak blogged: 00.15 Mon, 19 Aug '13

Wed 07 Aug 13

Never Dance The Same Way Twice

Wondering tonight what birth must be like-
Is it a thing where suddenly light erupts,
And the great precipice of life suddenly lies before us,
Resplendent in all its nebulous impossible colors
And there�s no choice to fall screaming into the prismatic whirl
Of what will be- one day- a legacy carved in a stone?
Time seems little more than a breeze-bent twig,
And you, a leaf, budding, greening, expanding, going ruddy,
And with the incantations of retreating migrants spinning madly to the Earth.
On a molecular stage, all the cast come out to bow to the applause of enrapt gazers
The final act completed-
Reunion, you spill into yourself only to careen into light again after bearing the dark times.
We�ve danced together so many times, and I still clumsily step on your feet,
We giggle at our follies in this starlight,
When once an umbilical cord was our sole hope and understanding.
What thread shall we now weave, of what fiber?
Our lives depend on some deep nourishment that- like our placental origins- lurks nearby but amorphous.
O sages, O glories, thank you for the momentary animation of all this collision of inexplicable awe.
Though I and thou and all I love is mere dust, we�re caught in a whirlwind of singular happenstance,
And for however long this crazy weather bounces along,
So passionately I savor this spin in your improbable circles.
Birth all in this wild party over and over again
In such cunning ways that we�ll never
Dance the same way twice.

filed under: from the birdy's beak blogged: 00.58 Wed, 07 Aug '13

Mon 05 Aug 13

Statement on Mountain Moral Monday

We are standing here as Asheville residents, Buncombe County taxpayers, and concerned North Carolinians. But we've also gathered as humans, for our own causes, for whatever fire that is burning deeply in your chest. We are our Mother's children. My mother worked three jobs to raise me as a single parent, and in the early '80s took me along to her Women's Liberation Movement meetings. I can't say I remember much from those young nights, but I did gather there was some kind of inherent inequality that made no sense whatsoever, and Mom was doing her part in her own way to right wrongs that might not be realized for generations. In many ways, that work has only just begun to pay off- and now, she is teeming with cancer, dependent on the very government that only in the past decades has begun to redress the rights of women. The system is slow to yield- yet as it does, it only grows roots elsewhere that we must be ever-vigilant to watch for, lest they take hold in some unforeseen soil and strangle the harvest we�ve so long been toiling under the hot sun for.

We are our Father�s children. Sat on knees, taught right from wrong, the glowing eyes of childhood looking to men as our exemplars as to the right and noble use of power. My father, though our political views of the world contrast, taught me that the system is a thing that changes with will and attention alone- ignore governance and be governed. Participate in governance, and govern together. How we long for a world where those ideals reigned as simply as they are spoken, but the halls of power are shellacked with a veneer that keeps our hands from truly feeling the marble underneath, democracy is no longer hewn by hard-worn hands that have worked their way up- it is as cheapened as a neon sign that buzzes long into the night that the club is open to members only. To reclaim true participatory democracy, we need to tear down the false temples to its dying memory and bloody our knuckles in working to build a new liberty from the ground up- from the street corner to door of the Governor�s Mansion- if no one answers the polite knock than we take it off the hinges- that is the People�s Door, not any one man's.

I've worked for over seven years in the most poverty ridden corners of western NC. I've seen the horrors of psychosis from Meth substitutes made from insecticides. I've seen children cut their bodies all to hell because they believe there is no hurt in this world greater than being unheard. I've seen the body bags. But I've also seen the hope. I've been told countless times that without mental health and substance abuse services (which have been largely stripped down to being crisis driven), that the sobbing patient gripping my hand would have no hope to live. I was once told by a doctor that the patient I was about to evaluate was doomed to die, cirrhotic, an unmotivated drunk. That was four years ago, and with the help of the very services that are under attack he recovered and is now coaching his nephew's little league team. I also was told that a person very dear to my heart was little more than group home and jail fodder at age ten. He's now employed more than he wants to be and is addicted to nothing worse than Zombie movies and I'm damn proud of him.

Friends, let us remember that our ancestors came to America not because they were running out of land in Europe, but because they sought to create something radically different. The American experiment has suffered horrific growing pains and inflicted great injustice while seeking out a way to somehow make it- much like a teenager who struggles with identity and what to believe and how to act, we have had a very rough childhood as a nation, and we have been very hard on Mother Earth and Father Sky. But they can be forgiving, if we truly mean it. And we can make amends to �the least of these,� and keep the promises that bound us together from the start, and get better at keeping them. Practice justice. Practice kindness. Practice love. And by all means, why we are gathered today, practice transformation- we will not get it right in a day, or a decade, but it�s a progression of efforts through the generations that will be recalled by the generations to come. Transform North Carolina, Raleigh, Western North Carolina, Buncombe County, Asheville, your street, your home, your heart. That�s where it begins, ends, and where the measure of our successes will be felt the most.

filed under: the state of things blogged: 09.49 Mon, 05 Aug '13

Fri 02 Aug 13

Wordy catch up

I'm rather behind on posting various endeavors I've endeav'd on. So to amend this, below you'll find a lil' something I wrote for our newsletter of why unfamiliarity is a good thing. Sunday-ish I'll post A/V from my service at Jubilee on 7/21, and on Mountain Moral Monday, I'm all soapbox-y about the sad state of our State.

Stay Tuned!
XO
jaybird

Nothing More "Via Positiva" Than An Unfamiliar Road

In our neck of the woods, we face a sign-post: "Unfamiliar Road." Seemingly our quarter's has baffled the inner-GPSs of even the most dyed in the hemp Jubilant- yet this is a good sign! Unfamiliar roads may conjure some anxiety; prospects of getting lost are generally not seen as Oh Yeah! moments. Unknown terrain gallivanting is a hardwired uh-oh going way back to our early mammalian days; straying far from the pack was dangerous. Eventually we became migratory. Our ancestors trod new paths across the Earth, facing hazards far sketchier than modern-day "what if?" metaphysical quandaries.

Looking past the sign-post we've got to ask, "why are we spooked by the unknown?" If we're staring down "Everyday Lane," we'd know what we'd see, anticipating bends in the road, recalling landmarks and scenery. We may even desensitize to moments of passing beauty because it has become routine, part of an ordinary tableau to which we've built up an "observation tolerance." The other choice at hand, the Unfamiliar Road, presents newness at least, and good chances for abundant mysteries. Taking paths hitherto unknown map neurons together in entirely new ways. Facing the mystery is the beginning of knowledge.

This thing called "knowledge" can be divvied up into fourths, such as: 1) Things You Know You Know; 2) Things You Don't Know You Know (i.e. what you've utterly forgotten but your subconscious still hangs on to); 3) Things You Know You Don't Know (i.e. how to build a hovercraft), and; 4) Things You Don't Know You Don't Know. We spend a lot of time in #1 because it's safe, mostly risk-free, and doesn't require much in the way of effort beyond the primitive mind's comfy zone. Knowledge of the #2 variety lurks in the shadows, but is informed by #1's experiences. The good stuff lies behind doors #3 and #4; that's the knowledge that awaits down the Unfamiliar Road.

There's no clue what's down this road- could be a bear, or a Boomtown. You won't know until you pass that sign-post and start walking, taking in the newness, nudging the brain from its ordinary naptime into attention and attunement to the environment you're propelling it into. Anxieties that holds us back from the road are old, and serve a purpose- to keep us safe. Yet that safety was never meant to be permanent. As that same migratory species, it's in our DNA to forge ahead- body, mind and soul. If it means taking a left instead of a right on the way home, or dipping your feet in the creek you pass everyday, there are an infinite number of ways to trek down the Unfamiliar Road, and love every Positiva minute of it.

filed under: from the birdy's beak blogged: 18.55 Fri, 02 Aug '13

Sun 14 Jul 13

For Trayvon

Refrain:
We who believe in freedom cannot rest
We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes

Verses
Until the killing of Black men, Black mothers� sons
Is as important as the killing of White men, White mothers� sons

And that which touches we most is that I had a chance to work with people
Passing on to others that which was passed on to me

To me young people come first, they have the courage where we fail
And if I can shed some light as they carry us through the gale

The older I get the better I know that the secret of my going on
Is when the reins are in the hand of the young who dare to run against the storm

Not needing to clutch for power, not needing the light just to shine on me
I need to be just one in the number as we stand against tyranny

Struggling myself don�t mean a whole lot I come to realize
That teaching others to stand up and fight is the only way my struggle survive

I�m a woman who speaks in a voice and I must be heard
At time I can be quite difficult, I�ll bow to no man�s word

filed under: the state of things blogged: 00.17 Sun, 14 Jul '13

Wed 10 Jul 13

we are vast

Nothing we do
Is ever small or immaterial.
No action is ever lost to the world.
Each breath, gesture and thought matters
In a lifetime as brief as an eye blink.
Everything you are reflects the
Incomprehensible immensity
Of everything you do.

filed under: from the birdy's beak blogged: 23.33 Wed, 10 Jul '13

Wed 26 Jun 13

A minority viewpoint upon waking up to a new America

[click to expand image]

Justice in the US isn't always perfect: see yesterday's ruling on the Voting Rights Act. We have so much yet to do. So many more people disregarded by the State. Freedom is a long march worth blistered heels and if you're not the one you're marching for, all the better. Freedom requires conscience. This image is just a symbolic way of saying that this is one battle that's been surpassed for equality in America; for many, it is still "midnight" in their struggle; full equality for women in the workplace, full reproductive rights, equality for the legal system for ethnic minorities, equality for immigrant children who've lived in and only known this country, full recognition of Indigenous People and First Nation rights to their won resources, healthcare equality... I can't stop thinking of the disparities yet to conquer. Yet that is the American story; as we encounter wrongs, we stand, and as the song goes, "we shall not be moved!"

filed under: lavender, poofy & proud blogged: 11.20 Wed, 26 Jun '13

Mon 17 Jun 13

Says it all, y'know

filed under: the cosmos blogged: 02.16 Mon, 17 Jun '13

"Aut Viam Inveniam, Aut Faciam." - Seneca