MonuMental

are pleasures that are shared.

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Invite the resonance

Delight in the betterment of all things with this call to focus

Find your mindfulness

Let every moment of life resound and ripple throughout your being.

Honor this sentiency as the Earthly bell rings

Feel this vibration bring life to the body

Embrace oneness as energy is realigned divinely

Touch the earth

Listen as the reverberation traces an ascending spiral towards peacefulness and one’s rebirth

Make this journey

Feel not the blurring vibration but interpret every individual pulse

as a reminder for the spirit

Succumb to its beckoning with holistic adherence

Allow your soaring gaze to be grounded and your working muscles to become still

Find rest in the calling as your consciousness fills

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I had a very lazy day today. I don’t regret having spent half of today on last night because my friend Derek was in town from Bakersfield, CA and it was worth reallocating my hours in order to have a great night out being around someone who’s becoming an “old” friend. It’s been over ten years since we were students at VA Tech and I even knew him decently well before then. After a nice but kind of long day traveling up to Fairfax for the Ekoji Buddhist Temple’s Obon Festival I went out to meet up with him and whoever else he may have with him out at a bar not far from the house. I probably left around 10:30 to meet up and don’t think came home until around 3:30 or so. We played pool for a couple of hours, shared rounds of beer and appetizers, and then went to one of the little park-type spaces internal to some of the blocks around the Fan. Two of Derek’s friends brought us there and she grabbed some cans of beer from their apartment and he played his guitar for us. We talked and listened and sang and just let everything happen as it felt right to do and time flew by us without the care to draw any of our attention to the passing hours. As bars were closing down and partyers were becoming restless we were soon joined by different groups of younger kinds coming to hang out in the alley and walk around on some of the large random geometric shapes that comprised the little park. As many as 20 or 25 of them were hanging out with us under the alley lights, can-checking beers and making basic temporary companions for these last hours. A few chit-chatted here and there, but mainly those that came around us just came to sit and listen and let the music help them enjoy their likely buzzing minds that much more. It reminded me of what it was to be young like this, where you keep yourself open to situations where you just might have a chance to be around harmless strangers and feel this kind of late night city-park connection. It was a beautiful night without much humidity and an occasional fleeting breeze that stirred the lightest of alley debris and swept a few hairs on your body.

I love experiences involving connection because there’s something so inspiring about them. It reminds me how similar we all are. It rejuvenates my spirit to be shown how easy it is to hang out with some people. These kids show up, mingle around a random pylon or one of the shapes that looks like a sideways-turned triangle-cut slice of cheese with a hole in it, and they just inner-are with one another. Thich Nhat Hanh uses that term for the human experience where we physically just exist with one another and the very-centered spiritual souls and the harmony within our own mind and body becomes none different than all of those around you. More specific to tonight, it was fun to be around all these kids. They just showed up in different groups, intermingled with themselves and a couple of them broke to wonder around walking back and forth along the knee-high serpentine concrete barriers that provided the only kind of flow to the park considering it’s random assaults on space and function. It was one where everyone was aware of everyone and you acknowledge their presence and they do too, non-verbially from 20 feet and the the overall scent of acceptance filters the light coming out the electric poles. About 10 at a time might be sitting on the ground with Derek or along the concrete barrier with me and we were just all vibing and Matt and Derek kept mouths silent for 10 or 15 minutes while they did the best versions of old songs we all love, songs that alley I doubt had ever seen.

  One of the last dudes, just sitting. Listening.

This connection was what I tend to look for in life.

That day I had spent with Sara, another friend of ours, and 2 more friends who also form a married unit in the eyes of the government and God. We were a little hyped in the care ride up and had a great time laughing about anything that came up. We parked and quickly got settled so we could eat some of the dishes they had prepared to sell to festival goers. The day the turned to one of fun and interaction when the time to do started. In different combinations 4 of the 5 of us took turns attempting to quickly learn and perform the dances to acceptable levels. Some were simpler than other and we did better at those. Nen Daiko ramped up the group of attendants for a little while playing their various songs and triggering various fun memories for the first yearwe had attented Obon. After that was the lighting ceremony and we were led in prayer by who seemed to be one of the highest ranking leaders of the Temple. I don’t think he was Darmakirti himself, but I didn’t attempt to take the path to where my group was that would cause me to pass by him not knowing the culturally-sensitive way to approach or greet him. I was separated during all this and when I came over to the group they were all sitting or bent over aroundwhere we had previously placed out candles that morning.

The Obon is a celebration where the Buddhists remember and celebrate the loved ones and family members we have lost in our lives. You get a candle earlier during the festival and youwrite any being of previous sentience. I found our girls and Jody hovering the candles or the ground and I squatted behind Jasmine and Sara. I immediately realized our friend was having a hard time. She had lost her father and misses him dearly.

Jasmine and I found a great connected for one another one Christmas while on the way to the Christmas Eve service at Sara’s church. I posted on Facebook a status that generally expressed non-specific hopes of cheer and a great and peaceful night to those who don’t practice any religion. Jasmine happened to see that and began texting me about her appreciation for my thoughts and she began sharing her father’s struggle for health and life that had been going on for a little bit of time now. It was the year anniversary to me experiencing the most important loss a had faced in my life. We connected easily and shared a lot of concern and appreciate for the other and formed a temporarily strong bond over those late hours until the waxing new day.

Sara was consoling her as best as she could and I kneeled behind both of them sitting on the edge of the meditation garden and just rubbed her back while she kept her head down. Silent but softly exhaling the worries and pain within her. As soon as I touched her I could tell how she was feeling and decided that since Sara had taken the highest responsibility of her emotional support that the best thing I could do is just continue to rub her back all over. Some of the times when I’ve collapsed in my hands and have all my sadness pour into my head, the first thing that seems to send me to a place where I start rebuilding the strength of my soul and remembering the good things I still can be found to have often start with the soft, sympathetic, living back rub. Not the ones you give your person after a long day, but the one that where ever movement is a consoling gesture. I always feel a lot is conferred during a consoling back rub. I learn about what the person has going on inside of them and the mere allowance of you to do this is an acknowledgement of your place in their life.

Sometimes you might be brushed off because they feel it is unnecessary, or you’re not someone they can have touch them when they’re experiencing such a sad moment, whereas other times you’re just not friends who are close enough in that way, so a shrug or motion to the side lets you know they’re not interested in this physical consolement. So just the face that you’re allowed to offer your consolement is a tiny statement of you connection to this person to whom your heart is reacting to right now.

I know I tend to enjoy them as if I’m being hypnotized by the person sitting by me talking. Rubbing my back, and that physical tenderness is so much of a help sometimes that I feel I honestly get “rubbed into a better state of mind”. The verbal message may be that you have to pick yourself up and build your self back to that amazing person you have previously felt you were, but the rubbing of the back lets you feel support as if this person here feels my pain, agrees with my hurt, and is going to be happy to see me back to my normal self soon enough.

We soon enough all got ourselves us and had a more quiet drive back to Richmond. Though we still all talked and laughed quite a bit, this was still the quieter, reflective part of the road trip. The various connections in the car were a great point to reflect on as we went mile after mile down the dark interstate.

Today was overcast with these similar reflections on friends, and family, and even just people in general. I think we both here spent a lot of time thinking and feeling about what we enjoy, what we have, and what we feel we would trade anything to have. These three things apply to everyone. We just all label our feelings, fixes, and fortunes differently.

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with a weary head embedded in the sheets amidst the livin’,

and the bottled dreams that drift the spiral margins of the linens,

a body rests between the covers worn but wholehearted

from turning pages when the lesser traveled roads parted,

the pillows billow still as willows waiting for disruption, a sanctuary of the most sensational of functions,

painted to the bedpost the cover of this epic, draws connection through the mystic senses tuckered in the fabric,

seeping color sinks among the boundaries of my frame/and

I watch the dynamism known to shift the world’s arrangement,

a sparkling glaze is lowered as a curtain full of fantasy,

a land that’s rich with harmony dissolves in front the canvassing,

standing in aesthetics sheen with color like none other,

flowing water rounds the boundaries like aqueous nirvana,

Thought is compromised with nearly tangible felicity,

virginal detections born of aromatic sensory,

I journey to a tidal shore with forest in the distance,

the feeling of a million visions circle in an instance,

the scaping land that spans the cape creating heaven literally,

visualized in person with the light of vivid imagery,

awaking into slumber drawn as humble be the irony,

the dream’s derived of particles normally disguised to me,

a weary tide that rises late can still recover victory,

a gift within itself I sleep to visualize my history,

a world expands and opens hands from momentary heightening,

to cultivate the beauty that I see will bring delight to me,

a hanging candle balanced in the center leaks a thin

magic born of happiness inscribing onto sheets of wind,

I’ll serenade the centerpiece in Sun drenched Earth & be

the longest shadow demonstrating thankful feelings personally,

absorbing the abundance touching mind & body purposefully,

no wonder it’s depicted as the cyclical rebirth of me,

of course you’ll see that mind & body have a co-existing wis-dom,

obviously my almighty knows me best and then some,

now what am I but content contributing to continents,

and what am I but content to ascend above the obvious,

committed to identifying beauty in the backdrop

I shine with affirmation caught engaged within a snapshot,

(looking through the shutter moves the color through the lens cover, you’ll discover soon that others often overlook the miracle,

refracting noise & clutter as the squirming coils are striking, bending lighting to your liking has the world appearing spherical)

a tryst of pulsing rhythm sets a comfort to the scenery,

drifting clouds of memories shift into the evening,

(the sun shines the thinnest line over the land it passes

like a burning silken signature scrolling over canvas,

the beam of closest distance brings its densest gift of radiance

and changes life forever as it shifts its light away from it)

I touch the Earth with thumping hands and synchronize vibration,

so every day and night I feel the church of my creation,

a drowsy head composes sound with somnolent resound,

alas another day has fallen to the beauty of the crown,

creeping remnants of a life assort themselves through what I’m seeing,

as the portal to the mortal hues string towards my being,

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Past Lives

I was once a parent killed at assembly speaking out for the fair education of my children.

I was once a soldier who learned to stand against the tyranny on his uniform.

I was a doctor facing ruin from treating the poor during dinner hour.

I was once a sister pushing classmates off her brother at school.

I was a surgeon helping violated and underprivileged women.

I was once a cellar door marked as the Underground Railroad.

I was once an anti-Saddam pamphlet circulated in Iraq.

I was once a secret Internet server in China.

I once warned freedmen when an assault was planned.

I once hired women for fair pay before I had to. 

I always opened the door for my neighbor’s children because I know what went on there.

I was once born to a tribe that made blankets for lepers instead of warring with their brothers.

I kept my Chinese daughter.

I was the first slave ready to fight for his country.

I once nailed science experiments to the doors of cathedrals.

I used to picket tobacco growers because our crop produced better smoke and oil and paper and rope.

I was the first to break bread with my enemy so we might better learn about ourselves.

I once made a machine that eased tortured bodies from their pain.

I was the flicker of a million silent candles in Laramie, Wyoming.

I was the first Nazi who changed his mind.

I was once a prophet unafraid of speaking out in a sinful world.

I was once a spokesperson for freedom.

I was once a candidate for truth.

I was once a valid life given for a cause they hold most dear.

I was once a child abandoned by a parent capable of raising me.

I once argued with an officer.

I was a Central Park visitor robbed for his jacket.

I once was a teacher found guilty for teaching.

I was once a minority group leader suffocated in a burning house one Sunday morning.

I was a Mexican immigrant who did hard, honest work.

I was once a chief urging peace with the settlers.

I was once the target of a media ploy.

I was an interracial couple uncomfortable at a new church.

I went to an urban elementary school where I was hesitant to succeed.

I once set sail on an unsinkable ship.

I almost stopped for breakfast on September 11th.

I once was a sapling bulldozed in a rain forest.

I was going to hatch at one point.

I once won the popular vote.

I became the most famous man trampled by a tank that day.

I was once the largest glacier in the North Sea.

I always got to high school on time at Columbine.

I was once a soldier acting for a cause they believed in.

I was once right in a world that was wrong.

I once had relentless virtue.

I now have the inability to be silent.

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I’m really looking forward to this weekend. My girlfriend is coming home after being away for 4 days again and it might by the third time recently we see the same friends who we tend to go for periods without catching up to. The Obon festival will be fun if we can make it but it depends on if her flights go as planned or not. She’s had a number of delays and cancellations on most of them lately. Another friend whom I really enjoy is in from Bakersfield,CA and I welcome the chance to catch up to him for a minute if possible. If it all falls down my girlfriend and I will still at least get some quality time at home and get to spend time with each other even if it’s just sitting on the couch, drinking wine in between naps and fast forwarding commercials on the DVR. I love these people who make me feel this way.

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Today was spent walking around work everyone else who was just unexplainably worn out from the 4th of July weekend, whether we stayed in and rested or went out and partied hard. It was so good to get home and have the day be over. I like my job fine but it’s always good to come back home and be on my own time. The day wasn’t very demanding physically nor mentally, and getting off work to come home and write and draw doesn’t take any more energy than it did to get through the day but being able to take your time and do what you feel is always such a great reward for getting up on time and giving it your all during the workday.

This 4th of July was in many ways as good a holiday as I’ve ever had. I’ve always liked the Fourth because it’s never been a day you had to prepare for or commit yourself to any demanding plans. The most I’ve ever had to do typically is buy enough burgers and buns for the people I may be having over for a cookout. Other years it’s just been me and one friend hanging out deciding if we want to dig up something to do or just go and watch a movie where the theatre is dark and cool. This year my girlfriend and I met up in the morning with a couple of our friends at Robious Landing which is a park near the James River with access to the water where people can boat, or jet ski, or swim, tube, whatever. Stand-up paddle boarding was the event of this year. My friends became highly interested in this somewhat new water activity that’s really gaining momentum in nowhere places like Richmond and is coming into its own in a lot of ways. Their regular trips to Hawaii introduced them to the placid, peaceful sport and over a short amount of time they’ve become involved in a more competitive version of it where they may race other paddlers as far as 10 miles up the river. Thankfully for us we can benefit not only from them sharing their boards with us but also taking a few minutes each time to give us some pointers and show us how it’s done so we can quickly get comfortable on the big boards and start having fun with them on the river. I think it’s the enjoyment we get out of spending time with these two particular people that really brings it home, but none-the-less the paddling around itself is a pretty neat thing to be doing on any given day or weekend. After a number of hours on the James we hit up one of my favorite places to have lunch from back when I worked in BonAir. Chicken Fiesta is the name of this little dive that I miss just a little each month being out of proximity to its charcoal rotisserie TexMex style cuisine. It wasn’t the best example of their food that I’ve ever had but I think everyone liked it alright.

We came home for a little repose and she ended up falling deep asleep on the couch. I nearly did myself but had just enough mental energy not to give in to the endorphins spilling over my brain and later on went over to another buddy’s for a little cookout and get-together while I left her uninhibited in her rest. I came back to a person ready to knock out some of the things on her “to do” list that had been weighing on her brain while we were spending the actual weekend part of the holiday resting up and taking turns sleeping on the couch. All in all it was a nice weekend and I wouldn’t trade any minute of it for that which anyone else was doing. Spending time with friends and living with a person like her continuously keeps my bar well-elevated and often reminds me of how lucky I am.

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My leaves thin as if I’m one day to be a freestanding pathway of veins. The channels pass freely though the skin that they serve can retain only a fleeting gasp of breath. My frame trembles and posture becomes poorer yet.

How can this be.

Perhaps if still water could explain why they once ran as swift then lay their hurry to rest at river’s edge. Why the scripture written by the silken curvature no longer engraves its wisdom along the outskirts of sprawling fields with enough post script and commentary to fill the space above with substance and grace, feeding its extended body with strength enough to blossom seeds as if the entire area were a hymn to the world of continuous breath and perpetual growth.

Maybe it could explain the whispers that were once the after breath of day and how I can no longer hear a sound but a thread-bare vocalic decent from want to weary.

Perhaps the great swell that allowed these waters to rise from out this Earth has descended and retrieved its substance once-bestowed.

The only light that nourished my abrasive stem, textured and chaffing, nearly penetrates every layer from the cradle where seed and germ adhere to my rooted network that delves beyond sight and reach.

I feel the weakness of structure only recognizable by the presence of others.

Those around me know nothing of this, yet I can only observe this by our co-existence. Recognized only through co-inhabitance. Though it is obvious we are guided on separate paths, no less in opposition than in divergence, we are contrasting vectors of maturation, as if I am the last key to an old world.

My connection to this Earth it eternal, though transient.

My leaves thin as if they are to one day fall like snow from heaven.

Softly.

Permanently.

A one way avenue whose currents are steered by more than the gravity of the world. A declination of minimal impact though an epic within my circle.

My growth had always been a product of cyclical forces encircling my frame from within an invisible enclosure.

I peer at the ground and see remnants of myself. My blooms lose their connection to drift flaccidly and rest so delicately they appear to never touch the soil. Yet they are one. Comprised of the same material that was me, once was clay, once was rock, once was fruit.

My leaves thin as though the very air to whom they used to pay fragrant homage has reclaimed them as their own.

My very being begins to scatter itself throughout the wind to sparsely inhabit all states of matter. Spreading itself the way starlight grows dim with distance. My body wears along its assigned chronology away from its escaping origin.

The moisture at my footing loosens the fundamental grasp I have to this place and with patience, stillness infiltrates a firm scaffold.

With the world’s sweet honey clinging to my roots like a fertile blessing of wax around a vital wick, running deep within a pillar of transformation, comprised of past and future, additional pieces of me join the Earth’s lymphatic movement and souvenirs are given out for all things to remember.

I forget what I was and become all things.

The bowing of my legacy as represented in this withering stalk meets no resistance.

My color has become faint and with no palette from which it can regain its boldness my expression is saturated with exhaustion, not vibrance.

I kneel into the shadow of those whom are to follow and deprive them of no further opportunity to reap the best of what I have received. Tomorrow a new soul doth rest.

I hang my key with beauty renewed.

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Ahh a freshly paved walkway

The hard rubbery asphalt nearly Springs me forward towards my next step

Feeling young with an abundance of energy thinking that I could never get tired of this

A beautiful new world spreads out in front of me just waiting for the massage of nimble toes and soft steps and the occasional tripping over my own feet

So let’s walk

Let’s walk until the new pavement reaches the worn sidewalk and keep going from there

Watching the cracks pass under me every two or three steps noticing the accumulation of all walks of life caught in between them

Making me think this sidewalk isn’t as much “worn” as it is just “warmed up

Strolling over frame after frame like the filmstrip of life

Trying to wipe away old stains from a child’s series of chalk drawing that knew the fame of making their statement long enough to really get down deep into the concrete before the Summer rain could wash it from memory

My terrain no longer pushes me in that effortless stride but with a little bit of work I keep myself moving forward, bouncing along to an imaginary pule in natural unison with my heels and toes

So let’s walk

and keep walking even when we get to that part of the sidewalk showing a little more wear and tear

Not necessarily any misuse or abuse but just the wrinkles of existence that have to manifest themselves eventually

No matter if it was barefoot or boots that made their mark

The semi-crumbled and crushed segments, once solid and strong, now require a little bit more kick if one is to continue moving past them

Stepping overtop with a little more caution

not wanting to trip these feet that are starting to tire and ache from the march but moving right along

because walking is what I do

Let’s walk

Not for the love of it but let’s walk because I’ve been waiting to get up here to stumble across these cobbles

A little tricky so I take things slower which also gives me an extra moment to look around and enjoy the colors of each individual cobblestone

While the Fall leaves speckle the trees with harmonic multicolor the stones cover the path as a pixilated blanket of spectral unity

My tiring feet show the scuffs of the concrete sidewalk now long behind me

The more predictable and difficult parts of the walk yield appreciation for this now-classic and abstract topography

and as my weary legs remind me of the journey I’ve just made

I feel joy just to be here

and I’m still walking

I have to take a knee every now and then but that just gives me a chance to set my gaze at where I am and turn my eyes back to where I was

I’m pleased with this walk

What I’ve done and where I’ve taken myself since I started

But I’m not going to stop now

So let’s walk

Let’s walk this increasingly tattered path

As these legs grow tired I am happy to see that my route starts to slope downhill

Not providing more strength but removing some of the energy needed to go from step to step

The appearance of my walking sick helps me keep a steady gate while these wobbly feet and shaky ankles keep me moving

The stones keep coming

Some are broken

A few remind me of past moments I’ve had

or previous steps I’ve taken while on this great walk

As the ground quietly begins to mix in smaller rocks and debris

The cobbles have lost some of their tightness and secure setting realizing I’m not on the perfectly smooth pavement where I once walked

I start to take things one step at a time

Still moving

This walk isn’t finished until this course is entirely broken down

And then I’ll take my last stride

with both feet together

Planted in the dust

Resting my souls

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For the second time in my life I’m claiming the 4th of July as a personal independence day, a day where I have decided to be free from the worries that have slowly come to haunt me. Whether these be real, merely possible, or entirely self-inflicted, I claim an internal victory over how these things will be interpreted. A few years ago while walking around Belle Isle this idea of letting go of the troubles I was toting around came to me and this secondary meaning for the 4th of July was born, in my world at least. That day I had my iPod on playing The Underground Sound of DC and I kept my camera in my hand. Despite having lived in or around Richmond my whole life, this was my first real day around Belle Isle and so I really took my time walking around, taking pictures of everything around me  from different angles and enjoying this icon of Richmond city living. It was a beautiful day. Over a few hours I delved deeper into my commitment to be free of the needless energy spent on the things that had started to be a part of my every day.

It made me think of The Jazz Poet’s Society’s song Sugar where they’re saying “people living in my head, but they ain’t paying rent”, which is a way to describe the people who cause you to keep them on your mind all day, worried about what they’re doing, or what they’re saying, what they might or might not do that might cause you pain. The events of that day were monumental to the Me. 

Happy 4th of July, Happy Independence Day, to the whole of America. Me included.

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