Why are we afraid of love?  What's so scary about love?  Do we avoid love because we want to control, and love cannot be controlled?  Maybe.  Yes, definitely.  But what can be done about this fear of love?  What measures employed?  Which balms applied, to this problem of love? 

God- it's so simple-  so easy that I can't possibly be that stupid/wise/smart/idiotic as hell.  And yes, yes, yes.  I know.  Shut the fuck up. 

Yes, I'm neurotic-  but you're hurting me when you tell me that I blame....  So, stop that.  And also, what ever else you're doing, 'coz it bothers me. 

You can probably tell I'm in a, well, scattered mood tonight, but I just had to blog, if only to assert my ontological status as Me.  When I  touch my face, shark skinned, not my heart, I smile but tight-lipped.  That's why this entry , this latest installment of the Eyes in the Pine mini-drama/saga, isn't working.  I'm afraid of love, and insisting, insisting, insisting that what I can do is just as good.

But it isn't . It sucks.  Yet, it is.  And first there is a mountain, then, not so much, and concluding yeah, pretty much.  Which is a good thing.  Meaning that Love knows itself through Fear, meaning that to be  simple-  whipping around, razoring focus down to a fine line that complexity barely crosses- is unlikely. 

Yet cross it does.

So I'm stuck down at the Crossroads again!  Love is tied on the tracks, and you can feel the metal pulse, quicken.  The train is a comin', and straight for God's Hole in my Heart, if you have the balls to stay on the tracks..............to lie there with the headlight firing up the trees, knowing that it really won't hurt- quite the fucking contrary in fact.

So, dear and beloved reader of whom I know not, may your dare to say yes, yes yes and more Yes; even if no gets its free ride, and why not.  'Coz, Yes is big enough to allow No to enjoy his pleasures, small as they may be. 

Nice Yes.  So Nice to be Yes. 

After last entry's sort of millieu,  coming on the heels as it were of a confusing day on a confused- yet still somewhat adorable- planet,  I'm musing on the confusing.  Staying with it, feeling what confusion really is.

Yeah, it's thinking.  Thinking.  Like you didn't know.  Thinking is confusing,  and all because it scares itself, thinking does, into reaching the much-dreaded conclusion.   All lonely up there, conclusion,  looking for a dustless shelf.  Reaching up. 

Good luck.  All shelves are dusty.  Hang in there, swaying in the living breeze.

Conclusion:  conclusions are not truly conclusive, but the radiance that hides there- and oh, if only I could.......................melt into that. 

Melt in the Mouth, not in the hand................

Hiked up to a local waterfall yesterday with my new roommate Richard, and his friends from Florida,  a certain John somebody and his son, Liam, who is 7.   A powerfully fresh experience awaits those who climb to the middle shelf of these falls; hang out there for a while.  All about you the gurgling of pools fresh replaced forever, effervescent sheets of shining water reflecting sky and revealing earth.  The breeze is full of mist, a new sun revealed.

I could go on, but, you get the idea and I'm no freakin' Annie Dillard that's for sure. 

Anyway, so my new roommate Richard happens to be a very ardent Buddhist.  He starts hollering mantras up towards the top of the falls above us, a vigorous, robust display of spiritual fervor.  But certain powers at that waterfall on that afternoon, roaming those distant mountains, disadvantageous to man; to a man; these powers pushed back- Richard slipped, fell, standing right there, and yes, he could have broken his arm.  Physically o.k.- but badly spooked.  Quit the entire vicinity,  boom,  legging it quick time to the lowlands without delay.

Why am I sharing this story?  I'm not so sure.  Maybe I'm  feeling a bit like that right now.  What goes up............ As I wrote those  last words a pileated woodpecker just tremolod outside, and so I'll leave that as a final.........?

Took this pic on that middle shelf thus spoken.

Oh yeah- wanted to say that hanging out with this kid Liam was a whole lot of fun;  I'd forgotten what natural experts kids are at imaginative plasticity and play.   What's yours up to?

I've always wondered why birds are that beautiful, and why birds sing so dang purty.

Well, there's only one possible explanation- birds are simply pleased by such things.  They have genuine artistic mojo. There's no reproductive value in the nuances, the little touches, the subtleties of the design and coloring of, say, a cedar waxwing.  Science would merely say that this is 'nothing but'  the mechanism employed by a female Waxwing picking the best genetically endowed partner.  But, if I want to get laid and I impress you with my Picasso Woodblock Prints- instead of my TiVo of a survival-of-the-fittest Olympic relay- it says something big about higher aesthetics and refinement- favors that birds are not supposed to curry.

So, Dear Reader, I leave you today high in the trees with a bit of a quote, pondering the charming society and artistry of birds:

If ... we look at the speculum on a duck's wing, we might imagine that an artist had drawn his brush across some ten blank feathers, which overlap sideways - making white, bluey-green, and black lines - so that the stroke of the brush touched only the exposed part of each feather. The pattern is a single whole, superimposed on the individual feathers, so that the design on each, seen by itself, no longer appears symmetrical. We realize the astonishing nature of such a combined pattern only when we consider that it develops inside several or many feather sheaths completely separated from one another; and that in each individual feather it appears at an early stage while it is still tightly rolled up, the join pattern not being produced until these feathers are unfolded. What sort of unknown forces direct the construction work in the 'painting' of these feather germs? (Portmann 1967, p. 22).

It's so easy to eye roll and head shake the thoughts that come of a quick glance about.  Tiring of that reflex, I just start tuning it all out as best I can.  But then- a shock of recognition, always. That first second of realizing that you're snug in bed and it's Tuesday morning and, yes, that actually is the garbage truck outside and your can is chock full of the stinky things of summer, far from any curb, and you might just make it if you run, now.  Hiding just won't work for long.

Take war, holocausts, tornadoes and what-all.  Child abuse, torture, the deaths by a thousand cuts- the innocence of  t.v. with snacks piling up daily, slowly, to a cold mountain of diabetes and dementia...........

So many things to be fixed; reasons to feel sad and anxious.

But, instead of a Tragedy, suppose we see earthly life as a School? Suppose a war is a way that beings choose to grow?  Do we really think that growth doesn't require pain?  That the Universe is just hanging around, instead of evolving?

Way I see it, I have to choose.  Tragedy or School- One takes Ground, and one takes Figure, or we try to ignore the whole thing. 

I'm learning to choose School.  But trusting the basic goodness of Life is a switch for me- a big switch.   Switching allegiance to Pleasure from Pain.  Trusting pleasure-  real pleasure, deep pleasure, pleasure that comes unbidden as our birthright when we stop thinking we have to pay for it...............the pleasures we have to pay for are totally second rate, if not pain wrapped up with a bow.

So, how do I not only trust Pleasure, but distinguish it from a demon in a smilin' dog? 

All I can say at this point- I'm wanting to learn- is to simply ask one's heart, not the idea of the heart but it's Palpable Presence.   Right there, fuck fuck fuck!  So frustrating- right here, always- but I'm still stuck in a very stubborn tragedy- the fact that I'm addicted to tragedy!

We don't have to pay for Pleasure- but our loyalty, so tested, like beaten gold will shine in, and as, the very Sun.  It already does, and I refuse to see it.  What a tragedy!

Well, back to school I suppose................

I want to open the door, but I cannot.  Arms seem to be missing..............fingers just melting into thought,  a thinking that simply fills me with the Rage of the Powerless.............  Somehow, the causes and laws of the World have me standing in front of a closed door, and that pisses me off royally........

This door cannot be opened- it is a closed door.  Open doors may be squeaking in a light breeze from here to Fort Fuck,  but this son-of-a-bitch door is closed, Jack. 

Maybe I can't find my hands, but I'll bang my freakin' head on this thing until Tuesdays are no more....................( I really do think they should switch Tuesday with Thursday, but that's another matter).

Tuesdays still exist...... OMG:   DMT molecules are active in the brain.

Some things don't need handles.  I thought I needed a hand- but I already had a foot in that door,  a sneaky little sandal,  Soul's gifted footwear.............

Behind all that closedness,  grandma's old white pocketbook, full of silver dimes, washed in the quiet morning sun.