collapse

Collapse occurs on both collective and individual levels. I am interested in the phenomena of breakdown—the collapse and consequential rebuilding of identity. The collapse of concepts propels individuals and societies alike into complete disorientation and breakdown. Humanity exists delicately, in the ever present possibility of collapse. The collective anxiety that thrives as a product of this instability can manifest in nearly all aspects of human life. It often motivates an intense need for control.

When we are consumed with the need to control we are no longer flexible. Unlike the branch that can bend and adapt to the various stresses of nature, we are prone to break. It is important to recognize that breaking is a common, even orderly, part of nature. I mean to say that breaking is a synchronized response to a pressure too powerful to allow another outcome. It follows the laws of physics. In this sense, the breakdown, as mystifying and devastating as it is, is a particular response to particular events and thus “happens for a reason.” Sometimes, it is the disguised means of our survival.

Spark

The mission was to become what we are

and I do not know if I am a dog, a chemist

or a silk screen. If I am lonely I need only

the soft tapping of tonsils, the stock

exchange, the hustle.

It is ludicrous what they ask us to be.

It is lucrative. Conditioned in captivity

but I do not know if I am captor or

captive. I read somewhere the God-

Force is the tension between the polarity

in every cell. A spark burrowed in

the atom could not decide if it was

positive or negative, if it was meant to

infiltrate an eccentric haired genius, tack

its potential to nuclear weaponry or just

meditate. I am the fallen star and the rising

sun, both. I do not negotiate the differentials.

I did not start the engine but I did ask

to be born and stumble, startled, on.

gripping the roots

I feel sometimes that I have just come up for air. I have just surfaced from deep waters, from drowning, and I am gasping, gasping at the air, gasping at the miracle of surviving and being alive. Well, well. It's funny, but I believe that I too can find rest and ultimate peace in God. It's funny because it feels so...well, predictable? Or rather like I am surrendering to the inevitable, exhausted from resisting the age old testimony of so many wayward souls, drunkards and gluttons, who collapse into a pool of tears and mercy—on their knees in surrender, gripping the roots of God. Funny because the words that have always been above my head and at my heels have burst forth, shot through the marrow of my experience, and become Living Bread—grace and forgiveness in the blood and bone. Living. And these coddled concepts are no longer cognitive but Living, and I am surrendered to them in total surprise.

Live in the Wow: an Oregon Extension Memo

To begin to describe Oregon, I’ll borrow the back of a postcard (which actually refers to the lava beds of northern California we visited) to call it “a place of rugged contrasting beauty.” One of my earliest impressions of Ashland, OR when we visited Shop n' Cart and I noticed a variety of hemp products, incense, and crystals mingling with the groceries and cornucopia of organic products was, "Christ, this whole town is stoned." This did not illicit the former enthrallment but instead invited disease and dread that I would spend the semester narrowly dodging cannabis zealots. Since this first bit of knee-jerking I've relaxed and shifted my sentiment. I now, while waltzing in the pleasure of my sobriety, embrace my inner stoner, who fully enters the Wowedoutness of the West. I joke that I have a lasting reservoir of THC that seems to be activated at both whim and will.

Life on the mountain here in Lincoln (a bumpy and winding 30 minutes above Ashland) is gorgeous and simple. While remaining simple and serene it is fantastically thought-provoking. The community here is committed to challenging inquiry. And as far as I can tell it is totally legit, meaning, there's no sense of censorship, or skirting the ugly. They are familiar with the power of radical ideas as potentially concept crumbling. Our conversations find us approaching the edge of the cliff before retreating back to safety. Yesterday, however, I experienced a puncturing. The Void caught me by the throat and said “I am damn tired of you ignoring me.” So I practice. I say, “Welcome, Void.” This seems to startle and diffuse The Void’s aggression. I can sense The Void shrugging its figurative Void shoulders as it lets go of me.

Maybe it is the long dream of arriving here, the sustained patience it required, which leaves me dangling in a dream state of not quite believing I am actually living this. Maybe it is the baby deer who prance around behind our cabin, or maybe still, the majestic and flowing mountains who daily invite me to drown in the sweet abyss of my surroundings. I feel like I’m on drugs, except no, it’s something wholly different, whole, in fact, sublimely generous, like I’m living in the land of sweetness and light and it’s dawning on me that I am not “like” living it, I am in it, with it--I am of it. So I’m awed. I realize that somehow my clumsy yearning has made a vessel for me. It’s a psychedelic rowboat and once while I was sleeping I painted in round wavy letters “Live in the Wow” so I could trick my waking self into remembering it. Yeah, I remember this.

I’m a child again. Really, because I was born in Montana and every time I see these mountains they are the Montana mountains, Big Mama mountains, cradling mountains. So, huuummm, it’s like this: when I sigh now it’s a prayer of thank you because my passing speck of a life is caressed and held in the great gorgeous mystery. I remember who I am: I’m an act of Love.

She said, "Remember, your
physical body..." And the words
fell like flowers, cherry-blossoming.

Patience, little cyst, your eyes
so wide they eat the world
whole, devoured. Spirit-
spired light breaks my skin.

Try catching Heaven in a jar;
tell me how it swells for you.