There is No Chaos, There is Harmony

Lately, I feel like the river of my life has been caught up on some rapids I wasn't expecting. I feel like I've been on a lazy, lax float trip on a calm river, just floating, kicking back, and enjoying the day, when suddenly, the clouds roll in, the wind picks up, and the river turns into this churning torrent, and I'm caught with my pants down.

Saturday night, the BattleWagon was broadsided by a car full of young and innocent people on their way out to a fun night on the town. While nobody was hurt (well, as it turns out, some guy in the back of their car banged his elbow up), it seemed to have been no harm, no foul. We all drove away, going on with our lives. I wish them no malice.

Earlier this week, I also discovered that I've been getting attacked by bed bugs. So tonight, I'm scrambling to clean my new apartment and bag up all my clothes and bedding to make way for the exterminator to come tomorrow and spray the whole place down. This weekend, wherever I wind up, I'll be sentenced to doing enough laundry to wash everything I own.

I admit, I'm freaking out a little bit. I didn't think it was too bad, but it's enough to push some people away, including some of my best friends. One, in particular, is going through enough on their own, and, in their own way, reaching out to my oblivious self.

I took a walk to collect my thoughts, calm down, and try to figure out where to go from here. I'm realizing that if I go with the river analogy, I should just shut up, focus, try not to flip the boat. This way, when I get done, I have an awesome story to tell.

Is it this easy? Only one way to find out...

Battle damage to the BattleWagon

Last night I was out running around when a group of kids, 4 kids, from Colorado Springs, ran a red light and t-boned me. The picture shows the end result. The BattleWagon has an undecided fate. The insurance adjuster will be out tomorrow to give me the 411, and we'll see if the BW gets fixed, or if the time will come to lay her to rest and instill her spirit in a new BattleWagon. Sigh... I've held it together this long. We'll see how much longer I can keep my wits.

Colors

Colors are a fascinating thing. They have this sort of enhancing quality, like a visual adjective to whatever it is you're looking at. Like texture and shape, colors vary so endlessly. I just saw this picture, and I couldn't help but throw it up here. Thanks for reading.

Chillin at the Homestead

I lay here, stay warm and hiding from the frigid December air outside. The 17 degree briskness outside chills me to my core and amplifies the cough I have, the lingering effect of a fall cold.

I ponder many things in my rare moment of solace. I consider returning to life in the BattleWagon, an unfulfilled experiment cut short by a longing for passion and love. I dream of the freedom of the road, the drive and empowerment that comes with that freedom. I remember how strong I felt, how I felt pushed beyond my limits and realizing that those limits were illusions created by society and personal fear.

Looking around and getting a sense for the early winter darkness, I recall the times when I was growing up, home in the winter evenings. My sister and brother were off doing other things. My dad would be sleeping and my mom would be working. I would have leftover pizza from Pizza Hut, and I'd watch Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Every time a big truck would drive by, this little glass ornament would rattle on the window in the dining room. That is what evenings such as this remind me of.

With any luck, I will once again be in the BattleWagon, but hopefully, this time around, I will be travelling, exploring, and educating those who read my blog about new places and things in the world, geographically, spiritually, and politically. This world around us is not as small as some would think. There is far too much to see, to experience, to really live, and I would feel it a shame to spend so much time away from that life, as if we are denying ourselves access to a world larger than the one we've created for ourselves.

I'm hesitant to commit to a statement about how now is the time to take another big step forward, but I can feel adventure poking it's jovial sunrise over the horizon of my future, and as I wake from this slumber, I embrace this new dawn with an open soul. I am prepared to take it in as much as possible. Now is a good day to live.

Dreams That Haunt Us

This morning I woke up to a surreality. I dreamed that I was on a truck with four young men, in the bed of the truck, horsing around like five young guys would do. We laughed and joked as the driver of the truck drove us along a dirt road that gently wound it's way through the foothills of a quasi-desert. If you've been up the Ute Trail near Salida, you know what I'm talking about. It's a desert with rocks everywhere, each potentially hiding a rattlesnake. The trees aren't too thick, but they are there, short and dry pinion trees. But anyway, back to the dream...

So were driving through this open space, and suddenly the truck starts, and we aren't in it anymore. The five of us are in a stadium of sorts, behind the stands, in the dark of the concession area. I look around, and the guys are now in military uniforms. We walk out to the balcony where the stands would be and look down. Beneath us, a street comes out of a tunnell, and the packed stadium is built around it. Everyone's cheering. From the tunnell are troops, marching in parade with tanks and even an F-18 fighter jet. Amazing.

Suddenly we're on ground level in the parade. I let my guard down, and feel honor and duty swell up in me, just in time for the parade to be suicide bombed. I saw some things in my dream that I dare not repeat on a public blog, but wow....

I woke up this morning motivated. To do what, I don't exactly know. I'm still hanging in this odd daze. I can't get over just how powerful our brains are to be able to create such a vivid world, so vivid that it can effect our emotions for hours or days or even years after we wake up.

Snow Day Enlightenment

I was supposed to work today, a Sunday. Yesterday I went with a co-worker and spent 8 hours driving to Colorado Springs in the snow, installing window graphics on two banks, and driving back. Afterwards, I allowed myself to enjoy a Saturday and went to another co-worker's birthday celebration. I sang some comically offensive song, drank some delicious beer, and made a great night. I defended my friend and co-worker against those who would seek to hurt his feelings, and then I laughed and made everone else laugh.

Today I woke up exhausted, so I shot a text to my co-worker. Today is a snow day, I'm going to enjoy it. I took a brief ride in the beat up, battle-ridden BattleWagon (whose recovery from the infamous Battle of Trout Creek is still on-going). I went to the grocery store and got the fixings for a crock-pot of Red Chili, using hot italian sausage and ground buffalo instead of the more traditional ground beef. I spruced my apartment up, and I caught up on some liberally religious newsletters I've been neglecting.

It's amazing to me how much we neglect when we get so caught up in things. We work and do chores and go to sleep. We wake up, we do it all over again. Sometimes we squeeze in some time for reading or, accidentally, TV. We listen to the radio during our commutes, and we go on with our lives having just had a snippet of what may be going on in the larger world than our own.

Last night, I met some incredible people and had a wonderful time. It was excellent to be able to get out and do something that wasn't the normal ebb and flow of life. Today, I'm learning how important it is that we all do this regularly. It's difficult to do, I know, but it's necessary for our sanity to take time to appreciate or even accept that there are things, people, pets, news... there is stuff that we're missing. To gain knowledge is to truly grow a healthy thirst for more knowledge, and when we fail to come to terms with this, we become stagnant, not desiring to learn or do anything else, for that matter.

Don't be complacent or stagnant or bland with your life. Learn and grow and learn some more. It's much too short a trip here on this blue and green and white sphere to simply let it fly by us and vanish.

Depends on the Day

Lately I've been pretty introspective, looking inside myself for the things that make me tick. What it all seems to come back to is what and how I believe.  Coincidentally, I've had several spiritually minded newsletters and conversations find their ways into my life, including an opportunity with a curious young lady who asked me what I believe. I told her it depends on the day. It got me thinking about things, and I had to ask myself more seriously what I really do believe.

I don't think we should confine ourselves to believing a religion. I wrote a blog a while ago about what I believed, using the word "belief" in a different context. My spiritual journey has taken me from my naturalist roots through brief stints in Evangelist Christianity, Buddhism, Agnosticism, Humanism, Jediism, Athiesm, and even a made-up religion my high school friend Donavan and I created called Schlingoism.  Where it deposited me, roughly, is a place that I sort of conveniently call myself a Universalist, or more specifically, Unitarian-Universalist. However, I think the specific label is a mis-nomer, for the Unitarianism within that church is all but dead. Far gone are the days where most of the church claimed to be Christians who rejected the idea of the Trinity. It seems that now everyone would fit into the Universalist category.

Basically, this means we believe whatever we want. God is a term used loosely and interchangably with words like "will", "universe" and "spirit". We understand that there is something that ties everything together, and however we decide we want to view that web, that's up to us.

So that puts me in a place to answer the question of what I believe. The answer: I don't exactly know. It's always growing, always changing. I do believe that there's a source (call it God if you want) that is like a silent guide that helps us find our own way if we're willing to let it. I do believe that death is but a way for us to pass on to the next level of conscious existence. I do believe that we should challenge what we hold as true constantly, knowing throughout that the idea of truth itself is only relative to our experiences. I do believe certain people throughout history have mastered their emotions and actions enough to become prophets and visionaries.

So, is this a religion? Maybe not, but putting this all together in my head, heart, and soul (my trinity, oddly enough), I feel like I've gotten a deeper understanding of life itself. Perhaps this IS a religion to some. It feels more personal than any faith I've ever been officially a part of. It feels like I've done all the work and will continue to do so, and every new thing I discover makes me fele that much more joyous and tuned in to the world in which I exist.

I suppose the moral of the story is this:  The next time someone asks you what you believe or what church you go to, really think about your answer. For me, I'm very content and satisfied to have the where-with-all to simply reply "depends on the day".