Tuesday, February 2, 2016

Stop, Breathe, Be present

I sat on a rock, high above Medicine Park and the edge of Lake Lawtonka. I could hear the  gentle inhale and exhale of the wind across the boulders and cedars. I stopped; no photographing, no speaking, just listening and being.

It was the cure I had been looking for.  I watched as the morning slowly unfolded, the pale sun across the horizon, a few isolated cars on roads disappearing into the horizon. I drank in the silence and solitude like someone in the desert would drink that first gulp of water.

The boulders all around me were brightly colored with yellow and green lichen. The few people that had made the trip up the hill by bike or on foot watched in awe, each in their own space. I was intoxicated with the amazing sound of rushing wind.

There's a moment when you are just so pleased to be where you are. It doesn't happen often that you realize where you are and fully take in the moment.

Taking a full, deep breath seems such a simple normal thing but how many of you can remember being present and taking that deep breath. Life seems to be too fast, too insistent on attention, we keep ourselves occupied, never realizing we are breathing, never mind feeling present and enjoying the place we are.

It was the recharge that I've been missing. Almost like air to the lungs, sometimes we just need to simple breathe and be, even if it's just for a moment on a mountain somewhere in the middle of Oklahoma.

I offer a challenge-you've got twelve months. Do a recharge, once a month, go somewhere, stop and take a deep breath and experiencing being. It will make a world of difference, this is the start of a series of monthly recharges, stay tuned.


Sunday, January 17, 2016

Dandelion


Just a bit of spring in the middle of a winter landscape. It was amazing to see just a bit of green and rich yellows when everything else was gray and colorless-it is Texas but still it was nice to see color, even if it was just a weed....

Wednesday, January 13, 2016

From the Survivors: A Poisonous Sea

The venomous sea
How well we swim naively
Sip the nectar feel the edge soften
You’d think we’d avoid it like a cancer
Instead
Flies to a flame
But never forget, how we survived
And from where we came.

The hallways were long and dark there
But the light was brighter outside
So safe and constant, a childs’ playground
Inside
The rooms were filled with ghosts
I was creative
Safe was a place you kept
never rock the boat
while he slept
be silent,
keep still
and the stillness kept in my mind
and stays to this day
can not  sit still in a quiet house,

I never feel safe.

Tuesday, January 12, 2016

A Father's Greatest Fear

No tracks to contain its teeth
No light to show its path
Only the darkness
This feeling of being helpless,
separated
missing
I want for you a safe space
A place
Where you might not feel the wound
The wind that screams like a furious train
Our house, untouched, we can’t complain
But still in that darkness
The feeling of being safe escaped me
That feeling of keeping you safe evaded me
Crushed beneath the inevitable track
Death sits across the table smiling
We speak in hushed voices
The silence
Is unnerving
Come out of this place
With a different view
I feel helpless, I feel guilty

I couldn't protect you

A Black Sky: December 26



We were running through a landscape
Ants crawling out of the mound
As this grand spectacle showed its face
And left
With a horrifying sound

I was so afraid to lose you
Your skin never seemed so thin
So fragile
In that black landscape
Where everything was sharp and alive
Dangerous teeth of nails and wires
I followed you afraid
I walked the darkness like one of the zombies
Pouring into the streets
Ghosts from broken houses
Fallen rooms
And swinging chandeliers

All faces in shock
You assured me you’d be fine
Go home
While you crawled beneath a transformer
And broken electrical line
And your face never looked so scared
So sad was I that I could not contain
The blackness that filled that evening
Only the shadow remained