So much, but not too much. ..

What does so much but not too much look like?.... it looks like bones with a soul pinned onto it. It looks like a crock pot of ribs and the meat is falling off. It looks turquoise. It looks important.

and it feels electric. and it pulses and thrives. it feels like a melted neon sign. it feels alive.

it comes in waves. and it mostly lives in your legs. like restless leg syndrome, except you know its not that.

and it looks like thirty something people that you love so much you might burst. and you are not sure how it will.

and it is so much, but not too much.

"Oh a little PO-EM, how cute."

About two years ago I posted a po-em on here. It is funny to see where your subconscious will take you in two years. Here am i.

It’s a walk on a path,
It’s taken at night,
It’s guarded by ghosts,
It’s led by moonlight,
It’s taken alone,
It’s taken on sand,
It’s encircled by water,
It breaths on dry land,
It swallows up choice,
A gravitational pull,
It throbs out a pace,
A mute, seductive lull,
It lies below truth,
It draws from a day,
It sinks into dark,
It wisps you away,
It calls with demand,
It insists on defeat,
It swirls in your bones,
It turns up the heat,
It’s involuntary,
It’s shattering molds,
It taps like a hammer,
It slowly unfolds,
It unravels the logic,
It lures out of sight,
A mecca, a pilgrimage,
It’s taken at night.

day dream believer

Right now I am taking a Jung class. We are supposed to keep a dream journal. It has been really amazing to be so in touch with the inner world. The more i focus on my dreams, the more i remember them and the meaning they have. However there has begun to be a strange overlapping with my waking and my sleeping life. Not that i can't tell if i am awake or asleep (usually anyway) but just that waking moments often feel so dream like and metaphorical, like symbols of my inner life. Usually it is the other way around, or thought of the other way around. Dreams are usually full of symbols and messages for our waking life. It feels as if there are things in the physical that are trying to awake my inner world as well as things in the unconscious that are trying to awaken my outer world. it is very fun. and very strange.

for example when me and todd drove up to and thru big sur, it was very mystical and symbolic. we drove up a windy road that was blocked off for construction. it was lit up by huge lights and a kid was stopping traffic at one point. i felt like i was physically living out a myth like never ending story or something, even though it was almost a common scene. then we pulled into a out look over the ocean. it was late at night and really dark. from inside the car we heard a loud, startling gurgling sound. it turned out that there were gigantic elephant seals all over the beach right by us. it was like demons from deep within that feel more dangerous than they are, and that need a voice. it was so out of this world, and so deep in the other world. the crossing over was amazing and beautiful. like a dream of something so beautiful you can't believe it came from you. and the sights the next day with the fog and the sea and the sun and the green grass. it was truly out of this world, from some far away place from within where the most beautiful things wait.

on the other hand, my dreams have been so telling of my waking life. so vivid and telling.

it has been quite fun.

I used to write a lot of poetry.

And some of it was actually pretty good. I want to still write it, but i have a hard time finding the words anymore. I used to write songs too. Some were lame, but some had some pretty damn good lyrics. (sorry it just sounded fun to say "damn" when talking about some of my own work. haha) A good number of them had meanings i didn't even understand until a while later when i looked back on them. somehow words had come from some hidden place with in me, trying to tell me something... but it took me so long to understand or to pick up on it.

i wonder if my outer life became too poetic to put on paper. or to have a need to. but that just seems ridiculous.

but lately with school and life i have had so much to think about. so many characters within me that want voices...and answers. sometimes i feel like a rotted out piece of wood to them...to saturated to process any one thing. and so they just run thru me all wild and river like. i want nothing more than to be able to write some kind of poem for them that i can look back at later and explain to myself...and at last see what it is exactly i am trying to say.

sweet refuge...sweet refugee

Last night I layed in my bed and cried. School has started back up again, but since me and todd are moving to MOAB! i will not be returning to east high....or to the kids who i gave my whole freaking heart to. I went to East a couple of times with the new person, Garderner, this week to introduce him to my friends and help get him started. It was heartbreaking. Tashi had been waiting to see me. His hair is getting long. We talked about his dreams of being in India. Esta told me her baby is walking. Josephine moved. Leslie and Mary almost knocked me over when they came to give me a hug. Jasmine said I can't be replaced. Naima talked about her dreams of going out with some one famous and about how much fun we had last year. Yohanna's in foster care. April and Marko broke up. Victoria still hasn't gotten her model shots. So basically you can see, my life was a little bit wrapped up in this refugee highschool scene. And as henious as it was, i am not sure if I can hand them over. I spent so many akward afternoons begging forien looking kids to come hang out with me and getting yelled at by teachers to go to class. We spent hours and hours together. Working out every part of their lives from power points, to being in a new place, to finding rides to the early morning assembly rehearsal. I sat on their couches and heard their stories. I stayed late after work to listen. I shared with them some of the most important things in my life...hiking, planting trees, todd, chess, and i'm just not sure if i can turn them over. It broke my heart to walk away yesterday, even though I know I needed to let Garderner have his turn. But to you Garderner, all I can say, is you can't love enough. That will be your only regret, is that you held back too much.

the poor are always with us...

remember that saying? Well tonight as we were driving home and I was getting ready to come into work I was thinking about the people in the shelter. When we passed the prison, I thought of the people in there. Then I asked todd why it is that some people end up on the recieving end, while others of us end up on the service end. I remembered a girl from new life centers who had just recently gotten out of jail and then went to an eating disorder facility. why was it okay for her to be on the recieving end of these institutions? How is it that my coworkers and I only picture our selves on the service end? I wondered what it would be like to even entertain the idea of being on that side of things, and how did the other half of exsistence end up over there? But the poor are awlays with us, and even within us. . .

As I step back and think of myself as a whole, I realize the potential for me to cross to that side is there. Within us all is a light and dark, yin and yang. Each of us is capable of great and lowly. We are not disconnected from people on different paths, we are all connected in that we are made of the same potentials and in that we are all simply creative extentions of the infinite. That brings me a lot of peace and turmoil all at once.

Yet when I take even another step back and even another step back after that, I realize that this same patturn is manifested in all systems of life. You can see it in society, which is nothing more than a reflection of us. You can see it in the spirit of the earth itself and the the giant universe it is a small part in. It all thrives on it's oppisites: fall and spring, dessert and jungle, morning and night, light and dark, yin and yang.

and so the poor are always with us, because they are us. We are not as separate from anything as we would sometimes like to be. but i think instead of scaring me, this gives me a fresh perspective of my connection to those i deam my oppisites, and a stronger desire to find and cling to light and to help others do the same.

me and you and pee and poo

sometimes if you think about what life is, it can get weird and overwhelming. in a way that makes you want to hide under a blanket or in the tube toy my mom gave us when we were little. does anyone remember that? and sometimes it seems so simple and wonderful you think you might burst.

last weekend i was swinging with my nephews. i love my nieces and nephews so much that i am sure i was never loved the same by anyone. malachi was on my lap and brigham was next to us. i was holding his hand so we could swing the same. we were singing in and out to help us pump. then i remembered that song from sword in the stone, only i couldn't really remember the words, so it was going something like:

in and out. thin and stout.
that's what makes the world go round.
in and out. up and down.
that's what makes the world go round.
red and blue and sock and shoe,
pee and poo and me and you,
and that's what makes the WORLD GO ROUND!

and when i said 'me and you' brig looked at me and smiled. and when i said pee and poo he laughed a bit. and when i think about the way he looked at me as we swung and held hands i thought...."and that's what makes the world go round!"