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My friend Matt Brown is missing and presumed dead as of this past Sunday.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2008/08/10/bc-us-kayaker-missing.html
Matt was a bicycle advocate and an all around-swell guy. He was a part of the band “Loyal Frisby” with me, between 2000 and 2002. Matt was in the middle of a bicycle tour through Canada–on his way to Portland to begin a Nursing career with his newly-earned degree–and had reached a point of rest when this seemingly innocuous afternoon of kayaking took a turn for the unexpected. Matt planned every step of his trip meticulously. He knew when he was going to be where, with every road charted and every accommodation arranged. Tricky are these souls of ours that weave the universal web we walk. Scottish poet Robert Burns comes to mind, “best laid plans of mice and men often go awry…” and Lennon, “life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans…”
My personal philosophies preclude that birth should be the beginning or that death should be the end of life. To that end, i am confident in the notion that the soul/consciousness/life-force/(call it what you like) i knew as “Matt Brown”, with an agenda borne of love, has fulfilled its purpose in this venture–has learned what it has come to learn, or taught what it came to teach. But, it does make you stop and think about the “plans” you’ve made for yourself–be they for the next 5 minutes or the next 5 years. Perhaps in this way, Matt, though “gone” can still teach us–to plan, but to remain unbound by those plans. For some, his failure to wear a life jacket will remind us that the tightrope between relative safety and adventurousness is hairline-thin. Perhaps others will find inspiration in his adventurous spirit, realize that life is too short for “should’ve, would’ve, could’ve”, and shed the fears and false-securities that prevent them from tackling those pursuits that really allow them to flourish and feel alive. Matt answered to none save himself.
As such, my thoughts turn to those who love him, and how i can help to ease their pains.
Culturally, we do little to understand and accept death, and so when it darkens our doorways, we feel the pang of loss and the tear of attachment, as though (perhaps honestly) that we have not expected this event–which has been a part of life since the dawn of time. Even my own statement, “darkens our doorways”, associates a degree of negativity with death.
Personally, i am coalescing some ideas, or “plans”, that seem interesting to me, and which have “called” me into momentum. But who can say why i am here, or for how long…? Perhaps the entire purpose of my emergence onto this plane will realize itself in a very unexpected way, at an unexpected time. What am i here to learn? Who am i here to inspire? I may be playing a supporting role in a much larger scheme. Getting to the point–for all my “plans”, for all of “our plans”, the universe will continue to spin, positrons plummeting towards electrons.
I could be dead within 5 minutes of publishing this post, for any number of unquantifiable reasons. I may not ride a motorcycle anymore, but bicyclists get hit from time-to-time. I could be the victim of a crime, in the wrong place, at the wrong time. Whatever the case, it might seem senseless, or like “a waste”. How does this make you feel? Culturally, this is a taboo subject! But it doesn’t have to be. I’m certain: there are no coincidences, and nothing is random.
These thoughts are not born of some morbid obsession with death, but of a fascination with life–for which birth and death are integral parts. I’m moving forward with my ideas, with only the best of intentions. Should i fail to create a vision for myself, i would miss the whole point of this hilarious tango–and that is to come-to-know, or to realize, myself. But I can’t do it alone–everything is relative, and accordingly, i will come to know myself best through my relationships to others. And i’m so glad you’re part of this stellar equation!
Thoughts?
Peace, and bicycle grease,
and much, much love!
Information Technology is nothing more than an attempt, by our obscured consciousnesses, to regain the kind of instant access to total knowledge, sensation, and experience that we enjoy in our true energy-based forms.
http://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.html
http://www.nasca.org.uk/Ancestor/ancestor.html
to be a butterfly
to emerge not once but
twice on this earth
at first so humbly
caterpillaring around
consuming, anticipating
chrysalis
its a fun word we don’t
get to use enough
unfolding, unwrapping
wings drying, beholding
a universally accepted beauty
fluttering — notice,
we never say flapping
proboscis, curled
for two weeks
burning the candle
at both ends
a vacation for
the soul, after a long
lifetime of work
then back to the pool
ready for human form,
again — time to grow
This universe, this atmosphere, this environment–whether its source be supernatural, natural, or technological–is nonetheless designed to manifest the results of our choices. This characteristic serves to propel us to accept the limited environment…a component critical to producing the intended results.
But, what are the intended results? An anthropological study conducted by a technologically superior being, wherein all of the elements are artificial intelligencies in a vast supercomputing array?* Or a realization of our One True Self through intentional subdivision and obfuscation?
Choices! Make them. With intention.
* statistically, we are most likely computer-generated beings
I wrote this short letter with a particular individual in mind, but realized shortly thereafter that I have written a letter also to you and to myself. For an interesting exercise, read this as though you had written it to yourself:
This morning, I feel that I AM love.
And it urges me to write this; compels me to celebrate an expanding affection for [all of] us in our Oneness; that truth that dissolves all notions of separateness and border. It is perhaps also through my relationship to you that I am most quickly learning to realize this connectedness of all beings; that we are each an individual finger on the hand of the whole.
The more “time” I spend with you, the happier I become for our growing relationship; for the potential to experience the whole of myself through you, illuminating all seven chakras. Come explore the future with me in all capacities for as long as our individual paths provide that our footsteps should sometimes occupy the same earthly soil!
Potential is just that. Shared, there is perhaps something else to be experienced: the pure giving and receiving permitted by openness, vulnerability, pridelessness, and egoic dissolution (we could perhaps afford ourselves these freedoms in all facets of life). Be not worried or fearful of permanence or expectation–my love need not be earned or returned; only received.
In giving you my love I give my love to all, and receive it from myself. Through my individual actions, the universe shall be galvanized–what is “good” and “bad” for the one is just so for the whole :o)
I am confident and creative in this notion!
I went to the downtown farmer’s market yesterday–it was a citrus symphony! I came home with four satsumas, four sunshine tangerines, one minneola tangelo, a chinese honey and a blood navel.
Mmm…a slice of my own personal heaven-on-earth!
Ahh…
taste it!
this perpetual freedom
earned from
1000 lifetimes of
sheepish blindness
happening now
i am the creator
its not that i have
a god complex
its that i’m shedding
my human one
simple, geometric
symmetrical, elemental
it is earth, the sun
their orbits
it is tao that you might see as yin and yang
it is the iris of the eye of the beholder
The Hudsucker Proxy?
…never seen it.
a symbol of no culture
a symbol of every culture
the cosmic circle
the karmic circle
the cyclical nature of life,
the universe, and everything
what do you see,
in this shape?
I haven’t written about the exit strategy much (if at all) because I really don’t want to talk it up too much, especially if I don’t go through with it. But in a nutshell it goes like this…
1. find a new home for the cats
2. ride the motorcycle for a few more months then sell it
3. sell the house
4. couch surf Gainesville for a while, still holding my job (homeless!)
5. sell the truck
6. hit the road by bicycle, touring the united states first then a flight to europe
I imagine it will take me into 2009 to get this rolling.
I’ve been realizing that I can do whatever I want and that most of the time when i feel inhibited it is not because other people are inhibiting me…rather its because of the choices I’ve made…to buy a house or a motorcycle, to go to school or choose a particular job, to buy “things” that need you to maintain the above, to take on pets, to get into this relationship or that, etc.
So I am shedding my inhibitions. Having almost nothing, needing almost nothing. For now this is my direction, which could change at any time, on a dime.
we have to fix this
are we acting from fear
or love?
