Snow Day and Free Thoughts

Well we got bitchslapped with another storm this morning making it rather dangerous for our littlest students to brave the frozen sideways sleet trek to school. We tried to delay but it never let up. So here I am with a half day to myself and I thought...You know what? I haven't just written for the sake of writing in a long time.

When I start to write for no reason, specifically because I have no reason, something usually happens. On the Phish "IT" DVD Mike Gordon and Page McConnell say that when Phish is on stage playing and they push a song to 9, 10, 14 even 19 minutes long a song and the moment is created that may have never been made if they hadn't persevered through the first 18 minutes, a special moment that will never happen again. Writing is the same way, sometimes if you just keep going you hit that moment where if you hadn't of continued you never would have gotten to that moment.

So here we are at the beginning of the song, the guitar is establishing the melody, the drum beat is steady, the bass and keys are pretty uniform and the song is recognizable, its another Radiate Warmth moment opening up right before your eyes.

You see, I feel like life is so much like a wavelength of light or sound. We specifically head in a direction with calculable speed and frequency. Our wave-life slices and up and down through space and time until it hits some immovable object and is ricocheted in a new direction. And depending on your own specific frequency, you have highs and lows in life. Some people have big sweeping waves of massive everest cresting highs and also deep deep ocean trench lows. Some people are even keel and their frequency is small and varies very little. Unlike a light wave I think we have the ability to manipulate and change our frequency size.

Andy Goldsworthy is a natural artist who uses nature to temporarily make pieces of art that will return to the nature from which they were made eventually. But in his DVD "Rivers and Tides" he is obsessed with these natural sweeping back and forth snaking lines that are found in all nature in rivers and water. So I think that Life is frequencies like this, yes, a frequency of highs and lows yes, but it is also a crazy varying wave that just follows the natural curves of the earth that we live one.

SO if life varies up and down indefinitely at a frequency that changes and in ways we might never really comprehend fully then how are we supposed to make it through this crazy thing called life? I think the best thing about waves is that they keep going, or rather coming too, but they are continual and if every time they come down they go back up then that is something you can bank on.

This is why I have such a spiritual connection to the ocean. The constant, never ending roll of waves is a truth of nature that you can see right before your eyes. You don't need god to explain why the ocean is so amazing, everyone feels it inside. Even on the smallest beach on the calmest of seas there are tiny waves.

The entire plight of life can be summarized in a wave. Even though it has been a long time in the making before it crashes on the shore and terminates it doesn't really die, it just becomes part of the whole of water that it was already a part of. We are just waves and even when we die we still remain a part of the greater thing that we were really just an extension of anyway.

Additionally, we can ride waves, we can harness nature and accelerate and enhance the experience. As much as I hate to use a surfing reference, I think I have to. Many surfers explain surfing as a spiritual practice not a sport and unless you've been out there and actually done it you'll never really get it. I've tried surfing, I got my ass kicked. Some dreadlocked Canadian in Byron Bay Australia told me that if I really wanted to get "Surfing" I needed to move somewhere with steady waves and just "surf" all day every day for a month, and that by the end of that month I would get it. I can't say I'm a ocean surfer.

But I'm a life wave surfer. Scratch that, I'm Big WAVE Life surfer. Somethings I've grown mature about and somethings I'll be infinitely immature. But one thing that I have been able to tune into as I've grown older and start listening better to is the natural frequencies and waves of my life. And when there is a big dip I know that its gonna rise again, I let myself sink down enough to really feel that low but not too far, its gonna get high again, because nature shows me it will everytime, that I have faith in, that I have seen with my eyes. No preacher need tell me about sin and right and wrong. No Guru need say the truths of the universe because they are right before our eyes. People have been making up ridiculous stories since the beginning of time to try and explain the same essential, eternal, THING that we all can simply see if we looked and we all FEEL it everyday.
SO when A Gigantic High Kick Ass Amazing Cresting Life WAVE comes towards me I turn my body around and start kicking and paddling into that big 'ol son of a bitch and body surf it till it hurdles me up on to the beach and I lay there exhausted, laughing and alive.

All this metaphor to explain the moments in life when you know something big is about to happen and you are ready for it. Thats me, thats where I'm at right now.

I know something big is happening I can feel it coming because I am a part of the whole universe and I can feel the wave coming. I am ready to be home. I am ready to be happy. I am ready to love my life and make music and art and grow my own food and dance in the grass and dirt and be with my family and friends in the sunshine and most importantly I am ready for love. And its a big wave yes, but I'm not scared for some reason. I feel like my whole life has been preparing me for the next couple of years of my life.

Laugh if you want. But 2012 is coming. Do you have your ducks in a row if everything you ever comprehended as possible in your life changes indefinitely? Are you ready for that moment? Are you with the people you want to be with if it goes down? Are you afraid of this moment? Or are you hopeful and willing? Do you inherently believe that humanity is good and in the end our existence here on this planet is for the better? I do, but I also recognize that my own belief in the goodness of humanity might be woven into my very own genetic fabric as a mechanism for me to not lose hope and keep on surviving. Belief in something better, in meaning, in love, its what makes us human. It is our greatest adaptation.

We exist and will keep on existing not because of our camouflaged fur or our razor sharp claws, but because we BELIEVE that we should. Just rest on that a minute.

So the question becomes if I am going to keep on existing because thats what we do as humans then how am I gonna live?

I don't know what other people want, but I want the things that make me feel good without hurting anyone. I like feeling good.

THESE ARE THE THINGS THAT MAKE ME FEEL GOOD:
Hugs from my brother
When my parents are happy
Falling in Love with a good woman
Dancing Barefoot with my friends
Swimming in the Ocean, a Lake, or River
Walking through the woods
Witnessing inspirational, positive, improvisational live music outdoors
Playing Music For People
Sitting on porches watching the world go by
Laying on roofs staring at the stars
Teaching people new things they never knew before (because someone taught you and you just wanna pass it along)
The smell of mountains
Creating something new and un-redo-able and never before seen
Watching Sunrises and Sunsets
Hugging Big Old Trees
Gathering berries
Eating Fruits and Vegetables
Talking with Strangers
and a good Kiss

So we've reached that moment in this song where I pushed through and got somewhere I never thought I would get when this post began, I made it to a beautiful place where I once again declared to the universe what I want. CAN YOU HEAR ME UNIVERSE? I want this list. I want these things in my life always and forever.

What do you want? What makes you feel good?

I love you friends. Ride that wave next time around for me ok?