Well, no, I'm not going to name them for you.
But I am going to delve into the prickly thicket of contradictions and see where I get. Let me begin by saying that we are mentally battered on a daily basis with impossible situations, hopeless exploitation and, yes, a never ending stream of contradictions. The world is full of them! And the more I try to find a solution to these problems and carve an ethical path through the fearsome tangle that is everyday life the more contradictions I discover inside myself. I see the danger of hyper-consumerism yet I keep buying new things in every place we go (by the way, I excuse this by claiming they are "gifts"); I see poverty and exploitation reducing good, beautiful people to shrunken skeletons on the side of the road yet I don't reach out to them or even offer a kind word; I give scraps of food to mangy flea bitten dogs yet consciously avoid the mumbling toothless woman who is tugging at my sleeve. Arg! And the list goes on, as you can imagine. Of course, these are some of the darker contradictions and there are many little ones too. I drink Coke sometimes cause it is amazingly satisfying, even though I hate that corporation with a fiery, undying passion for all the wreckage it has left in its wake. And the list goes on and on, and day after day I wake up humming a tune and little birdies alight upon my finger and I skip off to class only to be battered again.
What to do? Let's compare our contradictions to a pet hermit crab. You have to love them and give them attention, but not really too much, cause they aren't much fun to play with anyways. Actually, if you get too involved with them and start poking your fingers into their shells they might pinch you, and then you get angry with the hermit crab even though you should have been minding your own business in the first place. Still, you must accept that they are in your life, and tend to them kindly, look at them from afar and ponder their grotesque beauty. You can't just let them die because they smell, and let me tell you from experience that that is one stench that does not just go away...it clings to you and infiltrates your dreams and you cannot for the life of you ever forget that you let that little thing die.
We must accept these things and move on. Life is too short, and art and beauty is too important to live with our minds caught in the muck of intellectual masturbation. Let's take a picnic to the creeping forest of existential crises and look around for a while, but then lets come home, cook a meal and bask in our ignorance and relish our undying curiosity. The world is so freakin' huge! And all we can do is try our best, think as hard as we can, and lighten up a little.
Groovy.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
If Dresses Could Dream...
We walked through the cotton fields and the woody heads leaned and toppled from their stalks. Cotton is pure white, colorless, each fiber stoically rejecting the colors of the rainbow. It is the semen of our clothing, bursting forth and dripping down its branches. My cotton dress paid silent respects as the branches caught my hem and wondered about this offspring. Woven and printed it must have been as unrecognizable as a tattooed teenager, yet a frayed thread gave itself away and I imagined a tearful reunion. My dress had no idea of its origins, these heavy white balls oozing grace and laziness, only to be describe by words like "undulating" and "sensual"...but they are just fibers. Oh! but the way they tangle and matte in the branches! Cotton is wild, it bursts! It flows! And my cotton dress paid its respects. On my way out I wondered if it wanted to stay, saw the simplicity of its ancestral heritage and longed to be reduced to fibers and seeds, dirt and an absence of color, in India, under the sun.
Friday, January 1, 2010
A quick ballad to harken in the new year...(sorry for the poor rhymes!)
The earth rest her head on the shoulder of the moon, and bare-assed and carefree we howled like loons,
High on our freedoms and passions and fears, drunk on our laughter and smiles and tears.
Those tears they will flow in this year to come, entangled in laughter and sipped like harsh rum,
Hot and dusty we'll surely fall to the ground, but take just a moment and glance all around.
There is no stopping these moments that fly by, though we beat down our fists and ask again WHY?
Why do our hearts break again and again and when will the time come when we stop asking when?
If your wings seem broken and your voice is too weak, the open your eyes and see how loud you can speak.
You speak with your feet that have traveled the world, you speak with your hands and your silk sails unfurled...
catch hold of the passions that in you do blow and let them take you to the places you know
You know you don't know and that is the key, so when you look in my eyes you'll see only me,
Looking back at your beauty and wonder and grace I can't see broken wings for the curve of your face.
With fingers entwined we can stand side by side with no destination but a ticket to ride.
And in our frustration though we grumble and fume, remember that even prison bars can be made into a loom.
All through the night crickets whisper my name and still every morning its just the same game.
I can say, however, with some certainty, you are the ones I want playing with me.
So lets sit in the sand and let go of time, sharing our thoughts and spitting broken rhymes,
For though the moon is appearing to wane, its a lunar eclipse just in time to entertain
These notions I have deep inside my dreams that maybe, just maybe, nothing is as it seems.
Let's break all the rules, lets show all our teeth, let's pull the blade of love right out of its sheath,
For dangerous though such a thing could be, a world without love is much more scary.
Try compassion without fear, friendship without tyranny, and if you want to sing a song come and sing it with me.
As the moments spin on faster than not, feel the flames of life making your heart burn red hot.
There is no mold that can hold us inside, and our lives are dynamic though we have tried
OH! Lordie knows the efforts we've taken to appear put together and to not be mistaken.
So put your guard down and please step away, forget all your enemies right here today,
For there may never be a better time to just start anew, to reflect on these years though quickly they flew.
Every moment is yet another we've created, and every moment is an opportunity to become elated, and lets hope for joy though it may be belated, and lets practice love though it may be outdated,
Cause this is the new year, it's two-thousand-and-ten, and there is no saying if a time will come when
The world will be at peace and live in harmony, and all of the people with speak for the trees...
So NOW is the time to become engaged! Come take me hand and let's rattle this cage.
Happy New Year!
High on our freedoms and passions and fears, drunk on our laughter and smiles and tears.
Those tears they will flow in this year to come, entangled in laughter and sipped like harsh rum,
Hot and dusty we'll surely fall to the ground, but take just a moment and glance all around.
There is no stopping these moments that fly by, though we beat down our fists and ask again WHY?
Why do our hearts break again and again and when will the time come when we stop asking when?
If your wings seem broken and your voice is too weak, the open your eyes and see how loud you can speak.
You speak with your feet that have traveled the world, you speak with your hands and your silk sails unfurled...
catch hold of the passions that in you do blow and let them take you to the places you know
You know you don't know and that is the key, so when you look in my eyes you'll see only me,
Looking back at your beauty and wonder and grace I can't see broken wings for the curve of your face.
With fingers entwined we can stand side by side with no destination but a ticket to ride.
And in our frustration though we grumble and fume, remember that even prison bars can be made into a loom.
All through the night crickets whisper my name and still every morning its just the same game.
I can say, however, with some certainty, you are the ones I want playing with me.
So lets sit in the sand and let go of time, sharing our thoughts and spitting broken rhymes,
For though the moon is appearing to wane, its a lunar eclipse just in time to entertain
These notions I have deep inside my dreams that maybe, just maybe, nothing is as it seems.
Let's break all the rules, lets show all our teeth, let's pull the blade of love right out of its sheath,
For dangerous though such a thing could be, a world without love is much more scary.
Try compassion without fear, friendship without tyranny, and if you want to sing a song come and sing it with me.
As the moments spin on faster than not, feel the flames of life making your heart burn red hot.
There is no mold that can hold us inside, and our lives are dynamic though we have tried
OH! Lordie knows the efforts we've taken to appear put together and to not be mistaken.
So put your guard down and please step away, forget all your enemies right here today,
For there may never be a better time to just start anew, to reflect on these years though quickly they flew.
Every moment is yet another we've created, and every moment is an opportunity to become elated, and lets hope for joy though it may be belated, and lets practice love though it may be outdated,
Cause this is the new year, it's two-thousand-and-ten, and there is no saying if a time will come when
The world will be at peace and live in harmony, and all of the people with speak for the trees...
So NOW is the time to become engaged! Come take me hand and let's rattle this cage.
Happy New Year!
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