Open your eyes.

Wake up.


Take your face from the pool of human existence and remember who you really are.
Are you awake yet?

Are there mirrors in your dreams?

Reality is a dream.
Can you see yourself in the mirror, or can you only see your represented form?

Open your eyes.
Open your mind.

Are you dreaming?

Is this all a dream?

Can you remember your dreams upon waking? Can you remember your waking upon dreaming?
Are dreams the closest expression of consciousness without limitation?

Where are your hands? Where are your feet? If ever you are walking a long ways alone... do you ever take your legs moving forward for granted? Do you forget about your feet?

How can you tell that reality is real?

What is real, anyway?

I could say more, but...

Ask yourself these things.
As yourself...

Am I conscious??

Yesterday was my birthday. I'm 23.
A decade ago, I never thought I would be 23 on the verge of spontaneous combustion.
Woe is me.

Looking back, one always finds something that has been lost, possibly forever.
Beauty is often mistaken for a trait that can be admired in others and subdued in ourselves, and thus, the trait is often distorted and skewed into a form of nostalgic wishing and wanting for what we've had or been or think others have that we do not.

I look at photographs of myself from moments that have passed by, and often find myself wondering... what happened? When did I stop seeing myself as young and beautiful, and start dwelling on the tiny cracks, imperfections and fatigue that seems to be a consistent state of being for me now... even, dare I say, the 'norm'? When did I fall asleep in my youth, and wake up as an adult?

If the saying is true that we are only as old as we feel, I am old. If the saying is also true that thoughts become things, than I am making this happen to myself. WHY?

Must I shrug off everything in my life like an old coat that no longer serves its intended purpose? Am I clinging to so many things that are actually hurting me, but that I feel are needed, wanted, and justified?

What is a tradition except a habit that refuses to fade? And what is a habit if not a pattern of behavior? Patterns of behavior are usually responses to stimulus.

Why is it so easy to perpetuate bad habits but not painless to cement new ones?

Can anyone hear me?

Am I dreaming? Am I awake or am I unconscious? Am I both, undulating between conscious awareness of NOW and the busy monkey mind of petty humanist bullshit?

If I had the chance to dream perpetually, would I? Do humans crave the mundane inane rituals we must participate in, or do we only crave the drama and the chaos that we always want to rid ourselves of, but only just?

Am I crazy or is the rest of the world crazy and I'm the only one who briefly exhibits sane tendencies? I know that I am not the ONLY one because I have connected personally and mentally with others, but I know for a fact that the majority does NOT think the way that I do when my monkey mind is distracted.

Why am I compelled to do art when I know that the entire system is set up to quell my urges? STILL compelled. Burning need to make my meaning and submerge myself in art as if it were an ocean. If it were, am I afraid to let go and breathe in?

Can we ever get off the merry go round?

Headphones make our attention solitary without withdrawing physically from reality. This is mirrored in our dwellings, automobiles and "me" centered egos.

If Nikola Tesla had a patron who was unconcerned with profit and control, how far could we have advanced in the last one hundred years?

Can we ever truly share everything freely or is it the inevitable function of the individual and collective egos to be hungry, greedy and gluttonous? Is this the fundamental problem we as a species face, lest we face our extinction?

Are we always doomed to repeat ourselves? Is that part of it too?

Humans walk the balance of fear and love in every and all actions. Selfishness and Selflessness are only separated by direction of energy and consideration... which is why it is so utterly difficult to consistently be selfless as human animals dominated by ego.

Freud could have been on the right track, but couldn't see past his own ego in 99% of what he said, and we have created dogma and system and a religion of "rightness" based off his, and other, interpretations of reality.

Everything we have been taught, told or believe is FALSE! Take everything I say as false as well. Unless it resonates. If it FEELS familiar, as if it was explained to you in a dream... explore it. Intuition is our forgotten art form.

We are an objective collective of a soul having shattered shards of subjective experience. Imagine if all consciousness was one multi-faceted eye (think insect compound vision) and we as individuals are one single lens. We can only see out of a tiny fraction of the entire vision, yet because we are unaware of the connected nature of the other lenses (or people, shards, etc.) we feel isolated, alone, and resign existance to the small tunnel of knowledge we have access to. The Collective Consciousness, the Higher Self, all this is just the ability to step backwards and view all the lenses together objectively.

Rocks, trees and animals are all conscious, like humans, why can they not speak or rationalize or have a concept of linear, progressive time like we do?

Scope of vision. Dimensionality if you will. Rocks and trees are single point consciousness. Animals are linear but only experience NOW. They can interact with rocks and trees and other animals. Humans are linear but we have the added feature of time, memory, and the ability to abstract and conceptualize thoughts and ideas. We can look forward, backwards and NOW but we get so caught up in the before and after that we often forget about Now, the only moment that really exists. We have the ability to interact with everything from rocks to other humans.

I am now tired, sick, fevered, hungry, and headachey. Is it true that 90% of genius and art comes from pain? I think it's a true statement to say that strife can cause beauty in its wake. But to assume that truth, art, and beauty can only be achieved by pain, hurt, and deprivation is false.

I hope something I've spilled will resonate.
I hope that I've made an iota of sense to someone.

I hope someone out there is listening.

So today has been a LONG day for me!
Up at 6am, class at 8, ran around all afternoon getting supplies and doing homework, class in the afternoon, I come home for about an hour, and then I go off to the Roseland for a concert. Ben Kenney and DJ Kilmore in concert. OMG, let me just say, both of these guys are super talented. The show was super small (I think less than 40 people showed up total) and I hung out with Kilmore before his set, got his autograph, and then when Ben was on, I was front row center. :P Had a lot of fun watching a luchedor drum battle between Ben and his drummer (who is fucking amazing! I forget his name...)

Anyway, long day, class at 11 tomorrow, gotta go to bed. Sorry if I've been scarce this week guys. Busy busy!

i did Salvia for the first time tonight.
I didn't know what to expect, so I feel as if I wasn't "there" enough, but I do know I was there.

All I remember was spinning. I didn't remember physically moving at all, but apparently I tried to stand up and was picked up and laid back down on the floor. I have no memory of this. All I can recall was feeling as if I were tied to a Tilt-a-Whirl and couldn't figure out how to get off because there WAS no off. I apparently said things, speaking to Others, but I don't remember saying anything. I know that the people I was in the physical room with felt and looked and WERE completely unreal to me. I felt as if they ONLY existed in this new and fractured perception, and not in what I had previously assumed was real.

I couldn't stop laughing. I have no idea why. Something was very, very funny. Jovial. Carnival. Existence was a fucking RIDE. I KNEW IT. I finally knew what Bill Hicks had meant, but I still can't remember. I don't remember anything except the spinning. Next time I'll close my eyes. Maybe then I'll fall deeper in, and not get caught up in the feeling of being sucked down the drain. I knew that this was absolutely NOTHING like any other drug I had ever experienced, because with things like marijuana and psilocybin, you are aware you are "you, on a drug". I was NOT myself. I had deconstructed what "April" meant, and I was walking on a WHOLE different dimension. When I came back, for about 20 minutes, I had utterly forgotten there was ever a "before".

I walked home tonight. Of course, after I had regained my foothold onto this reality.
It was 2 am, and honestly, I could not have been happier to be alone with nothing but my thoughts. I didn't even turn on my ipod. I didn't see the point when my brain was so much more engaging.
I stopped on occasion, took pictures of "interesting things", even composed a monologue I had planned to remember and post when I got home. And then I realized nothing I thought then would matter now. These things I am writing are only shards of what I was REALLY thinking.

All I am sure of now... is that there is NO reason to fear.
We'll remember that sooner or later. I have honestly never felt as happy, calm, collected and at peace as I did on that cold lonely walk home. I realize that there is nothing in my life more important than...?


I touched anything tangible on my walk home. Brick buildings, stone, metal gates, all those things that make us realize we can feel. I honestly felt like hugging buildings. Not because I felt like I was on E... I wanted to touch and feel and experience being tangible again, because I realized that's what I'm here for.

I look forward to my next experience. My vigor of life is renewed in full and my perception of what we take for real is forever open to interpretation.

To anyone who is reading this... I really do love you. :)

Every day that I am out, every weekend I see the people on the streets enjoying the city, I breathe in the air and am so very, very thankful for my chance to be a part of this. I know that everything gold has its tarnish, but at the same moment, I focus on those great things that make this city beautiful, wonderful and full of opportunity. Even the grit feels like silk.

I think it's been a very long time since I felt this hopeful.

I know for a fact it's been a very long time since I felt this ALIVE.

God Bless you Portland. You are forcing me to live my youth.

No really.
I'm cooking bacon!
And apparently not sleeping. Wtf is wrong with me?
I'm also retarded because I spent the last like 5 hours in the hallway picking up the free internet because I can't get it very well in my apartment. But guess what? I'm in my apartment, on the internet! Just in the corner by the far wall. :P

I'd fucking kill for a chair right about now.
I think I'll go look on craigslist for free chairs.
Instead of sleep.
Fucking insomnia. -_-

Yes I've been posting pictures of the city. Why? I love this city, and I love my camera, and I love the view out my windows. If it hadn't been raining so much recently I'd be out more with it taking pictures of pretty much everything. So I'm sorry if you don't like pictures of skylines and pretty houses and buildings and traffic lights and all that because I DO! :D

K, that's all. I'm gonna go eat some dinner.

BYE!
:P

So life has an interesting flavor as of late.

I DID get what I wanted for Christmas, I was fucking lucky and got a Macbook Pro (omg, I love you mom!!!) and a few other nice things. Christmas itself was an almost forgotten holiday since I had so much else to worry about in December, but I got through everything.

I got married on the 13th of December! But don't worry if you're pissed you missed it, we're doing our "real" ceremony and stuff in August, so you'll get invitations then. :D

I got an apartment in Portland, I'm downtown now, so if you're around, let me know and we'll meet up.

I'm also starting college on the 22nd of this month, so I'm expecting a huge artistic EXPLOSION sooner than later with all the new input and time I'll be having to dedicate to art. I'm so excited. :)

Nothing really aside that, but my life has pretty much taken a huge 180 from what it was.... although things are still unfortunately tight financially thanks to the fucking military being asses... (that is a whole other rant I don't care to get into, but if anyone is curious, I'll fill you in.) but I always deal, I always make it through the skin of my teeth (which might explain why there ISN'T any skin on my teeth... O_o) so if anyone is worried, just leave me a message telling me you're sending me good thoughts and good energy that everything will work out fine.

I love all of you, and I hope that 2008 is a fucking fantastic year for everyone!!
<3!

It's spring, and I'm restless. I'm going to vomit some thoughts onto the internet for your entertainment and my catharsis.

I realized I'm changing. Not all at once like how it feels, but slowly, like a coccooned butterfly, waiting for the weather to warm. I itch to remove this skin, but it's just a little bit too early to peel away the old, and focus energy on the new. I've been looking for new sources of inspiration, through music, new aquaintances, new connections and experiences, and most of all, my dreams and day dreams. I've been living in my head a lot lately, and it feels almost like that is part of what is keeping my progress skipping - I need to act more. I kind of feel like I'm missing something major in my life, and I know what it -isn't- but I can't find what it -is- exactly.

Being exposed to new music can afford one to look at life with fresh "eyes" as it were. I have always related my life to music, and I know of many others who do the same. Music is a powerful influence, and sometimes the only companion someone has.

I feel like I've been smoking too much again recently, with how much I've been working and all the visitors Drew and I have had in the last few months, I kind of feel like the scant days I have all to myself I always WASTE by accomplishing nothing. What is the matter? My mind is willing, but my body is a weight on my willpower. This fucking body. Feels like a car that needs a tune up, diagnostic and overhaul to be honest. I've been trying to turn an eye to it, but maybe that's really my problem. Fix the vessel and the muse will follow. Or am I just talking out of my ass? (I know I do that a lot.) I want to go visit a chiropractor and a fucking masseuse.

Portland will be more than just another "dream" for me. I'm going to make it real. Fucking REAL.

School. Life. Art. Music. Friends. Shows. Laughs. Love. Creative Flow.

AltIndie. GyspyBoheme. Rock.

 

I think I need to stop this blurt now before I start sounding really insane.

I love all of you, and I miss you if you're far away. You know I do.