trees


The trees do not waste
their energy
rejecting the darkness of night
or the shifting seasons
or the way the winds blow.
Look at their arms
stretched so far and wide,
embracing the whole world
with every fiber of
their being!
They are showing us
how
to grow.

Electoral College


Ghosts of our former glory,
keep reminding us
those golden days are long past,
that we no longer have the excuse
of inexperience
to allow repeating
the follies
of youth.
Help us turn and embrace
the ripe era of wisdom ahead
with clean hands,
capable and caring,
and unfettered
by such blind greed
as this.

The Presidency of Our Fears

Friday Nov. 11th, 2016 – Amazon, Peru

Thoughts of expatriation
are so seductive
— to keep a greater distance
from the dark taint of
corruption and lies.

Yet, how can I desert you now
America?

Now, more than ever,
you will need your meek warriors
to join together
and fight
for goodness and truth.

Now, more than ever,
will you need your sentinels
to keep the beacons lit
through the long night
ahead.

the fire inside

I wish I could adequately describe the way it is when this feeling floods into me and every petty, small, singular part of me is overpowered and washed away with such love and admiration for this experience of the world that I can barely string words together to attempt to show you the exquisite truth of it all.

How to encompass so much wonder…how to connect the fire of you to it…

I doubt I’ve managed to succeed yet, but I’m going to to keep trying because everyone should to get to know what this feels like.

Aryk

tonight – suddenly – I am distinctly remembering that first week in Berlin – the sharp biting chill and the thick foreign layers brusquely piled against the cold yet also cradling the treasured depths of warmth inside everything candlelit the unusual syncopation of European cars on wet roads filtering up four floors through the tall straight panes to swerve into the pop and gurgle of the radiator and the creak of the parquet under my feet bouncing off die Deckenleisten and the distance measured by the signature of the U1 rumbling all mixed up with grey days navigating trains and buses and endless stairs to history with my rusted shut Deutsch and the bright tantalizing market canal confusion and your splendid chuckle and shining mind traveling with me through ascendant light plays and security geeking prodding me to explore deeper and consider more about all the connections between these living pasts and futures and where we stood at the bubbling brewing Berlin edge of everything.

It’s a diamond, this jeweled slice of German winter I get to carry in my heart, and I am so deeply profoundly and utterly grateful that I get to know such amazing people as you to light up the world for me.

rattlesnake

Suspended in this reflective bardo
between the sorrows of loneliness and error
and the joyful weeping of full-hearted prayers
in gratitude to the overwhelming beauty of this world

that rattlesnake coiled in my soul’s deep womb

stirs

rustling with the sound of cottonwood leaves
and the diamond bright sharpness of pure mountain rivers
red ochre and bone ivory scales
scalloping through dreamtime
and the star-scudded firmament
to shake loose and slough off
these old worn-out frames and clothes
piling up around my feet

always,
this struggle,
to stop

wanting

Fortune: snake, dragonfly, coyote, mouse

change is coming

a wild shift

full of power
that will shake the very core of you

fly through the illusions you have built
in idleness and ineffective defense

let go of your hiding away and your smallness

lay it down,
lovingly,
front and center,
as an offering to that past life
that no longer serves you

know yourself full and shining with all the incandescent fire of your truest being

it is time to share your gifts

If there is one thing..

“If there is one thing we can draw from where we are now and where we were then, it is that the unimaginable is ordinary, that the way forward is almost never a straight line you can glance down but a convoluted path of surprises, gifts and afflictions you prepare for by accepting your blind spots as well as your intuitions.” – Rebecca Solnit – Hope in the Dark

We can do this

“We as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a “thing-oriented society” to a “people-oriented society.” When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.” Martin Luther King Jr 1967

We can do this. We can. We have the power to make change happen. All we have to do is actively participate in making this world reflect the things that we value.

For A, For Everyone

My dear friend,

I want you to wake up in the morning and wrap your arms around your body and give it thanks for all that it does in carrying you through this life. Love it for how selflessly it enables you to be here in this world. 

I want you to stand in front of the mirror and look yourself in the eyes and say I love you. I love you. I love you, until you believe it. 

And then keep saying it. Everyday. 

I see you so often calling out to the whole world to love you, to validate you, but no one else can do that for you but you. 

No one else can do that for you but you. 

You can do this. 

You are immeasurable and I long to see you love yourself as only you are capable of. 

Love,

K