Last of the Chivalrous

Forget the fairy tale, there’s more magic in the truth than there ever was in the old story books anyway. The beast came before the man and the man was worse, at first. The curse wasn’t of beauty or beast it was of  blindness and desire. I spent my days fighting for fantasies. It’s all I’ve known. I don’t know if I’m the trickster and fool, or the product of witch craft and alchemy. I merely know, that I am here.

For a girl, a beautiful girl,  he desired so much to be a man,

Such a silly thing, such a wonderful thing.

Shed the skin, shave the fur, and starve.

Dressed up in the finest collars,

Trapped and bound in buttons and ties,

Taught himself to walk upright.

A clown and spectacle  to the other animals.
Holding  his teeth and tucking his tongue

Neatly in his closed mouth required constant attention.

Utter a word and his teeth would gleem and all fall out,

Words too would deliver their quality,

revealing intelligence,  leading to provocation.

And it would be up with the torch pitch forks.

As quietly as he could, he listened and smirked,

Obsessing over every petal and subtlety of her way.

Her shadow and friend, watched as she’d fling ,

What a beautiful flower, and with that notion,

He coveted.

Such a silly thing, such  a little silly thing.

Fell all the more and wanted so much

To be a man.

Bearing it no more, he wished to tell,

His story and all that he had done

Just to walk next to her.

What a foolish thing, letting lips unfurl,

Giving himself away, a beast among men,

The growl in his voice unmistakable.

Sending all away, to fetch the town crier,

and rally the mob.

Last words and dying wish fell like a thunder,

She was frightened, and rightfully so,

Knowing for the first time his nature.

Let them in after him with a scream that cracked the heart.

In came the cynics and nay-sayers, all to poke and prod,

to maim and kill him if they could.

Chased him to the ends of town and treeline.

He escaped and lived,  taking with him but a flower,

a coveted memory and mad hope.

Outside the next town over, a cracked heart,

A foolish longing and undying ambition got the better of him.

To be a man, such a silly notion.

Refined his facade, learned to speak with tact and mechanism,

Meaningless words he found, made people more comfortable,

So he used those the most,

Burying his true voice and heart in his stomach,

Forgot how to growl at all.

Petals fell. Time passed.

The disguises improved,

And he was a passable and even likable gent.

Found himself another treasure-

Reciprocated love- I know of nothing greater.

But he forgot his heart, his growl, and nature,

For the ambitions of men, and she too left.

And this time, it was not but a cracking blow,

But the utter destruction of the heart,

That at once, reminded him of his nature,

The true nature of love and life,

And in this little death, he learned  mortality.

Like Lazarus – brought back to learn more of life and humanity.

By some compassionate force,

Some god that took pity on his ignorance,

Admired his ambition, passion,

and saw a capacity for more than he knew.

He felt cursed; thought the world of witches and mayhem.

The world of men was a cruel place, and he was stuck,

He forgot his home and the path to get back,

not himself, not of nature, of nowhere,

he had become of his own creation and folly.

Cursed, and without a mirror to point to and lay blame,

Only books and songs of men to keep him company,

and picked up the pen and took to paper in the language of man,

and wrote with twisted heart, to process his frustration,

What would later become legend.

But his story stretches beyond those books.

The petals poured like heart beats, and the flower shriveled to a pitiful relic.

In loneliness and solitude, he was confused by the reasoning of man

When they invented time, as if to punish themselves,

Masochistically counting every second of their lives as it slipped away,

As the lonely, heart-broken, lost and idle are prone to do.

He learned the cruelty of man, and  promptly stopped staring at clocks.

He passed the time with studies of the world; philosophy and riddles to keep his brain from hearing his heart,  but even that betrayed him. It tricked him to  reconnect with his  natural talents, meddling in magic and alchemy;

Scorching his hands and heart on more than a few times in grand taste and fine calamity. His desire for love and reckless pursuits tainted his efforts. In his frustration, he abandoned prose for paragraphs, hoping to discover in volume what eluded him in the brevity of prose and poetry.

He remembered the importance of nature, and surrendered again to the seeming chaos of it all. He Retreated to the familiar bends, hills and woods of his childhood, and deep into himself. He reflected on all that was and all he had become.

Unlocking a bit each time, he made lists, notes, and scribbled a mess of revelations sensical and important perhaps only to him:

In knowing nature, and compassion, you know yourself, and you know God.

What was thought a curse, was a cure;  a complex formula, a winding, perilous tangle of roads, trails, oceans and country side, a path leading me to exactly I need to be, here, in this moment. If pursued with integrity and authenticity, what were once thought cruel, were  but important lessons of life. 

Misadventures too are grand and to be met with smiles and laughter.

What were once thought witches, were blessed teachers and mentors. No ill ought to be wished upon them, only praise and affection. All that came  before offered opportunity for wisdom. In failure and pain, struggle, frustration and reflection, seek wisdom. Wisdom brings us closer to happiness. 

A life spent in disguises of other men is an unsatisfying one, yielding little fruit and creating an unquenchable thirst through expectation. What is true for others must not be blindly accepted by me. Authenticity, integrity, consistency in word and deed are worthy pursuits even if in perfect form are unsustainable.

Expect nothing, but do all that can be done in the moment. Let not a petal fall wasted in hope, when the hands can help deliver in the  moment.

Love of life I know well. Of intimate and romantic love, I know little, save for 673 ways to fail with spectacular form- via intensity, passion, fear, shame, and lust. Of what little truth I know, is that all matters of the heart must be pursued with the full self, virtuous and well intentioned. It is a maddening formula that escapes me; something of timing, something of mindfulness, something of magic & alchemy, something of vulnerability, something of distance, something of tension, something intimate, something attractive, all  heated to different degrees, in different amounts at various times, depending on the intended recipient; a maddening pursuit but worth while from what little I’ve tasted of it.

Meddle with magic and alchemy often. These were meant to help keep life interesting. Of love and alchemy however, be careful when mixing the two.The results can do more than merely singe the brow.

Only meddle with love when opportunity comes to you through natural course. Do not force it, do not chase it intensely.

It is more elusive than any other force and far faster than a jack rabbit. 

You must be cunning, quick, aware, and know  when to leap after it. 

Love always involves risk. If you are not afraid for your life during the pursuit, you’ll never surrender enough to let it into your life in its ripest form. 

Never cage love. It doesn’t keep well in a pen, and can’t be tamed.

Don’t dwell long in the pain of  a broken heart. Learn as much as you can, do what you must to heal and keep at it.

Not every chase must be a pursuit of love, but all should be treated with respect and compassion. The doe may feed your hunger and leave heart wanting, but do not dishonor any pursuit. Give thanks and humble prayer, even if only kept in the slight glisten of a single, sacred and hidden tear.

Cultivating compassion & mindfulness are the constant lessons for those in pursuit of a happy life. I may never know their full depth or scope, but the pursuit serves me well.

A beast, a man, both reconciled their nature. My story is not over-

‘-Now just a furry man in a collared shirt.

Let go of what’s been sold- a bad bill of goods, best let sunken costs lie.

Denying what is part of the whole, authentic self, separating the dark and the light is maddening chore. Are we not born of both light and dark? They both make up a day. My bipolar morality and path of either/or left out maybe/and, happiness and fulfillment.

The  cut in dry made it easy to rationalize behavior and blind to subtlety, you can twist and bend the light to shine on even the darkest deed. It’s a wash, and a con; a black and white romance of right and wrong, where everything is known, fixed, and sure. Surely it’s all just rigid, brittle and broken belief.

I’ve spent years hiding my spine,  shoveling sod on my thirst and desire, giving into what’s been over-prescribed as  right and good. What an addiction, if you accept what your fed, the more you pursue, the more you surrender, the less you receive. Surely the self has a place in what is right or what ought to be. I’ve built a gravel road over my dreams, making it all to easy for others to tread upon them carelessly. It’s a heavy tab, denying desire. It’s a steep price, at the cost of your pleasure and enjoyment.

Course correction courtesy of a sledge hammer and shovel.  Break em out, brush em out, throw them on the wall again. Dream again. I can only claim an honest pursuit of authenticity, honor and consistency in word and deed. Best to be real, honest, pursuing life with a child like curiosity and a list of questions. The instance you feel you’ve got all the answers, it’s all too easy to deviate and sputter out in old cycles.

The dam that divides has given way. I am undone and unleashed. The war within is won. The within is one. The resurrection of the natural self. The old is shed- caught lingering at the sleeves and ankles – discarded in excitement, prelude to many fine moments. These leaves weigh you down. Let them down. The scaffolds break away,  linear misconceptions, broken theories and simple notions that once propped me up, failed and fall away, leaving me free to move forward.

I’m unsure but exploring, and tumbling, laughing down hills. Bias surrendered, erasing the old penciled dividing lines of black and white.

Emerging from the cave, Beast and man reconciled- no longer primal animal, no Jekyll and Hyde, but passionate huntsman, dressed in the furs of what was. My desires are brought to consciousness,  and I’m accountable but not haunted.

Hiding the heart on the shelf, locking it in a jar, and walking away. My head in the clouds, feet on the ground, I’ll be playing in the park, keeping the hands busy and mind sharp-to task. I give it a day before I wonder where I put it. With any luck the dust will pile on and I’ll miss the label or forget entirely; That Pandora’s  box, the linchpin of life and universal connector, the source of saving grace and great condemnation.

I’m running away and praying, and know enough now, to pray in secret.  Keep them muffled, here buried in the rubble of ruined words. These prayers safe only to zealous reader.

Run fast.  Faster than any cage or net. Who I am is worth holding onto and surrendering to first trap set for me.

They like the sound, songs of old souls sang from the young always sell.

I can’t help but sing, but best to tell these stories on the run.

Roped and robbed I’ll be if I slow down.

An idle day, plenty to do, and I’ll get to it, but as I swab the decks, I hope for even the slightest of winds to fill the sails and point out carry this vessel to it’s next adventure. I’m lifted, light and free with plenty going for me and plenty to be thankful for. The fine crew that sails with me through life, a fleet of epics, filled to the brim with heroes in their own right. Watching the gusts fill the sails as the feeling of destiny tingles the spine, the notion that the cultivation of self-authentic, proud and whole, is leading you to new and wondrous things. I love the feeling.

As I Brush the dust off the old blog space, forgive the rusty writing. I’ve done many stupid things in my life so far and made many mistakes- in a fantastic form and living up to the Captain Backfire title, but very few of those moments do  I lived to regret. The regrets that have stuck with me though, those emotional scarring moments that evoke painful memory, I’m never in a hurry to collect.

The mistakes that will haunt me for years to come are not what you’d first guess. They’re not the epic failed relationships, the blind-sided betrayals and denied foreshadowing sights and sounds of pain and heartache that most would cite. Those enemies are great teachers and bringers of growth. The failures I cling to and consider of epic nature, are far more subtle and often smaller, and seemingly insignificant than that. The specters of things that never were due to my carelessness strike at my core. They form the kind of scars that if you look at them closely, and long enough, or run your fingers upon or mind over, you can remember and feel their pain as fresh as the day they were forged. Missed opportunities and connections, like seeing a beautiful garden you’d like to investigate and promptly driving your car through it. embarrassing, humiliating, destructive and seemingly irreparable moments of regret.

I usually know in an instant, when I’ve added to that humble collection of deep, intimate, personal and failures that will be ingrained in my psyche for years to come. I don’t keep many secrets, but I do keep certain trigger points and memories, buried under the rug, through a trap door, in a sub basement of the basement cemented over for none to see; knowing full well, the deeper I bury them, the more painful they’ll remain. Occasionally, I’m lucky/intelligent enough to bring them to light, heal and let go, but let’s be honest, we all have a box of magical painful memories stored quietly somewhere, that we wish we could ignore.

There is a poetic justice, an unsettling cruelty, to watching bridges burn, knowing full well, with torch in hand, their cause; the accidental, well-intentioned, foolish, naive, selfish, thoughtless, or unaware nature of your conduct and actions that now permanently disconnects you from something or someone you care about. For me, these are sins with no rivals. They bear all the impact and penalty of worst conscious acts without the benefit of attention, malice, or common human character flaws. Ignorance is no excuse they say. And when the gavel comes down, the decibels of compassion, pleas for mercy or forgiveness are drowned out by the howls of pain, insult, and pride. Only self-aware have compassion for sinners, and I’ve met few who eagerly raise their hands to admit to that.

While you might argue that I do not always light the fire to burn the bridges, and you may be partially right, but I cannot fall in the habit of avoiding responsibility or blame. I know I carry leaky buckets of fuel, my big moth being one of them- everywhere I roam.  Maybe throwing myself on it will put it out this time… is a newbie’s hope. I’m a disfigured professional and champion at this, you throw yourself on it, own it, and ask for forgiveness without expectation, and good thing too, because it rarely comes.

After I’ve done all that  I can to put out the fires, to no avail; I can only watch the ropes burn. Often times, all you can do is fall to your knees and plead with God, or shake some trees to stir the spirits and ask for forgiveness. Each and every time as the heat rises and burns the top layer, singing the brows, I swear that I’ll remember that smell and that light that makes my eyes molten and glow red as the light dances on the tears I try to keep from flooding over my face- as men do- building dams in their eyes to block or control the natural way of things. I swear that I’ll hold on to them for my whole life and be attentive to this with zealous pursuit.  It doesn’t stop me from an onslaught of new and different  mistakes that throw you to fire once more.

It goes with ambition, it goes with effort; no one who tries avoids the flames. Anyone who has tasted great pleasure or held great love has felt great pain and has the scars to show for it. Eventually the fires die down and the hot coals and ashes discarded to the back of your mind, the great furnace of regret, only to billow and light your skin again in symphony with all your other mistakes when fresh fuel is piled on.

And each time, what may be easily dismissed by most, what many friends and loved ones will tell me to let go and surrender, what scorches my heart and my mind the closer to both it remains, I wrestle with for a moment longer, as if to  pay attention now to the rubble, though it kills me to do so. Letting the fire linger a little longer is the closest I’ll probably get to whatever connection I had before it all went up in smoke.

Such a new thing. Why bother? I’m asked. Why trouble yourself? These questions fall from mouths that have forgotten anything they’ve spoiled prematurely- like snipping a flower at the precise moment it begins to blossom. Most cope by saying- it probably wasn’t good anyway. What a great lie.  You knew it very well could have been and had all the trappings of, else it wouldn’t hurt so much that you have to lie to yourself about it. I do so much to cultivate and prevent from doling out harm and pain, keeping the pruning sheers away from any budding beautiful connection or thing. And still, in carelessness, still I fail and pay a tab far greater than one could ever read on my face.

The fires die down, but it’s yet not over. For now here comes the cold. I notice it in the winter air, the worst time to be burned, raw and open. Upon the palms of my hands that were once held warmly, the cold pursues me. It rips through my clothes tormenting my mind. This cold serves me; a reminder, way to go asshole.

The intensity is felt from the simplest, early and young infractions. Miscommunications and utter failures that most forgive themselves for or write off those who dismiss them so quickly. I do not. It is in these small notes of carelessness that echo down timelines when left unanswered.I don’t mind owning up to, taking responsibility for my actions and faults. I accept responsibility for conscious failures. It is the unconscious ones, the moments where I did not have enough sensitivity or awareness of my surroundings, of those involved and of the moment. Absent-minded, thoughtlessness, that you might forgive in a child, is so punitive to me.

How is it that divine spirits and gods can be so forgiving and people cannot? I don’t understand that. Gods are gods, immortal, ethereal, they need not suffer a single infraction of man nor of this world. Yet there are many instances of forgiveness, retribution, and so on. I suppose, walking the earth long enough, one might realize that mistakes, great and small are ingrained in life and humanity. Why are we, with such little time on this place, bound to be so stubborn? I do not live my life that way, though I do have ever shrinking moments of scorn.

Share your thoughts- I’d love to hear them.

Disclaimer: I know- this is a long post- a really long post. Here’s the deal. If you don’t laugh twice, or at least feel like more of a bad ass for listening to Jimi, I’ll give you your money back. Skim it, scrub it hate it or love it. If you wanted a tweet you came to the wrong place.  Queue the music and bad-assery.

I’m standing next to a mountain…

…I chop it down with the edge of my hand

 As humans, we’re hard wired for achievement. Maslow  believed that self-actualization, the sense of fulfillment and personal development formed the ultimate human need. Yet… we still find ways to derail the train.

EPIC FAIL Recipie #1 Giving up or turning around because you have undefined doubts.

I don’t know about this Tommy… Okay Chucky, let’s turn around.

EPIC FAIL Recipe #2 Taking on everything at once.  

I want to take a conference call, while climbing Everest riding a cloned mammoth, and tweeting about how bad the fucking thing smells.

It’s time for yet another installment of things that don’t require a rocket scientist to figure out or understand

• Break the bigger challenges down into smaller parts; required equipment, people, path, training, discipline, and courage. You can substitute courage for a little craziness and stupidity.