REally *Great Guy i Am. lovE.
*REGGAE

Reggae
rEggae
reG***
reG***
reggAe
rE**ggae

I am tired.
Tired of feeling alone.
  Tired of feeling unneeded.
   Tired of feeling ignored.
    You only talk to me
      When you need help.
        When you need advice.
           I'll ask
            'Hey how are you doing?'
-Silence
              'Hey what are you doing today?'
-Silence
              
                   I am Sick
                     Sick of feeling useless.
                       Sick of feeling stepped on.
                         Sick of being spoken to
                           only when those around me need help,
                               For they know I will never turn down a 'friend.'
                                    A 'Loved One,'
                                        A 'Confidant.'

                          To whom do helpers turn in time of need?
                                             In times of sorrow?
                                              In times of panic?
                                     What holds the mighty rock?
                                  The rock that breaks the waves?
                                     The rock whose sole purpose
                           Seems to be protection against the sea?
                                            Who helps the rock?
                              When the ground begins to tremble
                                       And open its mighty maw?
                                            To whom do I turn?
                                            On whom do I lean?
              When I am Sick?                                     When I am Tired?
        
                                                                ­                              Because I am Sick,
                                                           ­            And I am Tired
                                          And I am closed.

Autumn has the wind
Winter has the sun
The time between the seasons
Is my favorite - bar none

Frost is in the morning
Chill is in the night
But the stars will still shine brightly
Until they hide from morning light

The sunset's bright with purple pink
The sunrise red as blood
Water at the rivers edge
Threatening to flood

There's beauty and there's danger
All that which makes life sweet
Living on an Island
Really can't be beat

Raven crosses the threshold
Hawk, a protector and a visionary . . . stands watch
Together: a great change is gonna come

Raven sculpts the formless into shape, awakening
Hawk to an inspirational message
Together: a pathway to higher consciousness

Raven mines the darkness
For facets of light, where our true self is found
Eyes wide shut, eventually leads to our souls purpose

Hawk surfs the primordial forces of life and
Can't see so catches an updraft for improved perspective
Eyes wide shut, eventually leads to our souls purpose

Raven brings the ghost
Hawk brings the quill

Together: Turtle Island medicine

My heart is a deserted island, lost in a big ocean.

I was playing a game with my kids the other day

I asked:
What do you use to see?
She said 'your eyes'
He said 'your brain'
Both right
Next I asked what do you use to hear?
She said 'your ears'
He said 'your brain'
Both right, again

The wisdom of children!

The game ended there but it got me thinking about what we use to feel
The most straight forward answer is our skin
Your brain is what processes the sense of touch so that has to be included
What about your heart?
Where does it fit into the big scheme of things?
Isn't the heart the space where we process feelings?

I have to loosely define things and often turn them upside down
ruminate
reorder my worldview to make it copacetic
I'm pretty sure that I often walk in two worlds
If my mind is simply locked in the western paradigm then people look at me like I'm bizarre
I'm not joking when I say they've wanted to lock me up because of my views
When I allow my mind to get locked into this western paradigm,
I sometimes even feel like I belong in lockup.

That's even worse than being held against your will
You're being held because you've lost your will

So I play with definitions to better suit my needs

When you do this however, there is a risk
Last summer I unlocked a spectre as I drank deeply and greedily from Crypt Lake

Crypt Lake is a real place on this planet
How did it get it's name (you might ask)?
According to the Blackfoot, placenames aren't given,
they come from place

Let's contextualize ~ this is all part of the journey
The physical leads to the spiritual and vice versa
To get to Crypt Lake you have to enter Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park
Found in the southwest corner of Alberta and the northwest corner of Montana
Once through the gates you have to catch a boat at a certain time
You have to be in the physical plane of existence at this point otherwise you're not getting on that boat
Once you get to the trailhead, then you can start to drift

That's what I did
As I walked, I let the stories come into me
I let them flow through me
They were sitting there waiting to be told
A spruce, arm in arm, with a pine
Hawks circling overhead
An ever present alertness for our bear brethren
Always open to the wildflowers
Indian paintbrush (I have red hair could I be considered an indian paintbrush?)
Pollinators flitting about
Oh, the water

Listen to the stories the water told:
First we come to Hell Roaring Falls
Next Twin Falls
Next Burnt Rock Falls
And to reach the Crypt, we have to pass through a mountain tunnel
Opening up to Crypt Falls
and finally Crypt Lake

This is a regular heroes journey if you allow it to be
I was in that place in my mind where I allowed it to unfold as it may

This is a place that's also known as the Crown of the Continent
Not far away is Chief Mountain, Turtle Mountain, and Crowsnest Mountain
Also Writing-On-Stone and the Milk River and Sweetgrass
These are holy names, this is a holy land

What I saw at Crypt Falls was the backbone of the continent
I saw the backbone of Turtle Island

I was floored
I had been on a continent wide spirit quest a few years previously
There was talk that the Deed for Turtle Island was coming due
And maybe it would be produced at one of these gatherings
We all waited but nobody produced it

I ruminated on that idea for a few years
I'm pretty sure that the Deed was there
Those who held it, just didn't realize

I learned something at the Crypt
I wanted answers and I made an assumption
I assumed that the water held the answers
So I drank deeply, even greedily from the Crypt

Right there in the international peace park, on the crown of the continent
With the Old Chief and the Crowsnest not far away
Writing-On-Stone just a sashay away
What about writing in calcium?
If I were the earth, I would encode important information in something
Transmutable

Not blood.
Bones

What I learned up there on the mountain as I gulped down knowledge from the Crypt was that the deed is written into the bones of the land and into the bones of those borne of that land

This is indigenous knowledge

It's in the water, the water is the medium for the message
The bones are the stock
But just like a double helix
A genetic sequence is an expression of time and place
On a certain spacetime continuum this innocuous looking structure
(take a look in the mirror)
Has all the necessary answers

No man is an island but as an aggregate, if we can remember who we are, we can become even more solid than a rock.

Maybe as an aggregate, we can become the rock we've always been looking for.

It was something I never expected,
and island has become two,
the waters a nervous calm,
two flags waving proudly one in the same
yet the same become different,
The birds silently wait for the chirps of its old playmate,
waiting for something that doesn't seem to come,
so for now its on to the next,
on to find solace in an unexpected old,
or become one with an imperfect new.

i take the fisher boat
pushed up by white-glowing waves
to the other part of the island
and i will take you with me
and we will build a house; only made out of wood; wood gathered by me: like a man should
live beneath trees; and look up
every morning
at the strange, never-seen birds
singing their tropical symphonies;
before we learn them Beethoven and Tchaichovsky
run through sand with bare feet;
even in winter
eat ***** fruit
drink strange water
But we don't care;
'cause
we are living
and we are life