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walking on the path i look down at my feet. i look also ahead, at the trees. above, at the clouds. to my right, the rushing river.

(there are many rocks on which i tread... not the same rocks i am used to, and not even rocks with a history that i may be able to imagine. but rocks nonetheless. i study them, in between glances, for the special one which i will take home with me.

you can't take them all home; i tried that once, helplessly, in a place which throbbed of mystery and wonder, but i now treasure some of these as relics from a place which continues to exist.)

but the path, let us return to the path. is the rock, the individual rock among thousands, nearly as interesting as the path itself? the path, a collection of shared directions, an accidental display of time-worn tracks, forged by untold numbers of travelers, human and beyond - the miracle is in this unintentional preservation, and in this image as in countless others i see my life.

if you and many other souls are traveling together; or if yours and many other bodies were inhabited by the same soul;

the path remains ever-yet-wandered-upon,

and i want to live the creed of finding that beautiful.

laida lertxundi - vivir para vivir, 2015, 16mm

hope is the thing with feathers
that perches in the soul,
and sings the tune without the words,
and never stops at all.

and sweetest in the gale is heard;
and sore must be the storm
that could abash the little bird
that kept so many warm.

i've heard it in the chillest land,
and on the strangest sea;
yet, never, in extremity,
it asked a thing of me.

jean de pomereu - sans noms

i will learn from myself, be my own pupil. 

i will learn from myself the secret of (your name here).

an icy fog

in the cold capsule of your home you wait in patience. the air is warm, and it is dark. a household appliance hums somewhere, singing only to itself. is anyone operating it, aware of its "on" condition? there is no one else here. in all of these gigantic high rises, with so many thousands of others living, you never sense another soul. you never hear their arguments, you never feel their footsteps or smell their bodies. but they are there. they must be. why else was such a building constructed?

so many questions, so many of the same questions you have had daily since before you can remember. there are never answers, and so you've begun to formulate your own. sometimes they make sense, but others sound as ridiculous as what the questions suggest. one option is that it's always been this way. this is the way life is supposed to be and you are merely a bystander of this section of history and its unfolding.

but that explanation does so little to soothe the aching and wounded bird in your chest. you are not a robot; you feel with a heart as real as that inside any other being. yearning for release, escape. what other option is there? it's possible that...

that you may change the course of this so-called history. that you may create history for yourself. that all is, in fact, within your power to change and affect. how can this be so?

to destroy the nothingness you must stop feeling so at home in it. to destroy pain it must be shielded against. why is pain where you want to hide? the embrace of aloneness, and solitude? the place you are the most unhappy?

you don't understand.


on the precipice of change, at the crossroads between sense and insanity. that is where i find myself.

daily.

to take the first step... what does it entail? to reach outside of myself into the void and hope there is something i can grab onto. there is no genuine assurance of anything existing out there at all.

i don't quite know how i became this way but at least there is still hope inside me that i am wrong.

.

this morning i found myself at the top of a mountain meadow amidst swirling and winds which grew ever colder. the birds were plentiful, as were their cries - always anew, i experience the fullness of these creatures and their explicit presence in my world, their world, our world...

.

i think of the snow watching me, watching us. i think of the infinity imagining us, of us imagining It. i think of the outside and the all, all at once, and maybe this is what helps me remain (sane?). i am nothing without that which created and holds me. it plays with me. i play in it. i am all and nothing all the time.

circular writing and circular existence, i find myself in this circle all over again and can imagine no greater home.

this body is practically transparent. the self is transparent and illusory. what we are are mirrors unto each other, unto nature, unto experience.

as much as i read, listen, and respect all manner of artists and thinkers i still must rely solely upon myself and my experiences first for the revealing of

truth