Dedicated Time

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I make friends with the outdoors crew.

There’s a few of us left if you’re paying attention

A look in the eye without prying or mew

That feeling of tribe recognition.

It could be a bird or a coaxing breeze

That compels you towards a wayward stranger

Always playful, sometimes chatty - more or less

Depending on how you want to progress.

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With remembrance

That there’s a magic afoot

And within that first spark of attraction ..

Lies the dragon - and a world consumed by fire.

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Dare we chance it, and follow our instincts!?

Or perhaps at our convenience, we can dedicate fifteen minutes

Of our daily schedule - to the primal struggle.

To fuck and kill - to play and then be churned under again

So that we remain

Useful to all

In the end.

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A glimpse of this fate - in a well spoken glance

From a passing sea turtle - as she glides up the crest

Of an arching, blue wave - she shows me the grace

Of a creature at home with her mother.

The peace of a soul that is finally - at rest

The joy of needing no other.

“Use your time wisely, my friend,” she sings,

“And learn how to land that underwater backflip."


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Another year through the wormhole...

As we celebrate another turn of the spiral, I call upon the simple, sacred geometric forces that govern all life.

I believe in the law of correction. That in time, it all comes out in the wash. Eventually, equilibrium is established, and that balance is always restored.

I believe that in the course of our lives we set in motion - with our intentions, our thoughts, our words, and our actions - a kinetic wheel that returns all that we do back to us. Because we don't know where life itself started and where it may end, in the cosmic sense this circle is represented as a spiral that we all move through.

In the life of a person there is a beginning and an end, and because of the relative nature of time, at the beginning of our lives this circle moves very slowly. So slowly that we don't notice, or aren't taught, or may feel that we can afford to ignore the inevitable consequences of our actions .. But the wheel of karmic return begins to spin faster and faster as we grow older, and we feel our time slipping away, until at the very moment of death we can clearly see how everything in our lives has led inexorably to that point.

All things return to the source from where they came. We are nothing but moving energy temporarily squatting a bag of meat.

Most spiritual practices will back me up on this. One of my favorite truisms is the golden rule. 'Do unto others, as you would have them do to you." Which I would expand outward to say, "Whatever you do to others, you do to yourself." Or as they say in the ghetto, "Hurt people - hurt people."

This paradoxical appeal to our empathetic nature, simultaneously reminds us that we all wish to be treated well. Selfishly put - it's quid pro quo, a give and take, or in the negative example, an eye for an eye. All examples of a restoration of the natural balance of things; emphasized in eastern philosophies as a return to oneness, a feeling of unity with all things.

This has been described as a positioning of one's consciousness at the center of the circle. Don't be pulled too far from the truth by earthly desires and material distractions. There is a magnetic pull to truth, and we all feel the tug of it's corrective influence if we stray too far into illusion and denial.

In 2016 I will continue to hold to my truth. To seek my most centered incarnation. It's the best way I know to come out of the wash with the fabric of my soul intact.

When I think of our coming political season, I'm reminded by geometry that even the wildest pendulum must spend most of it's time in the middle in order to swing from side to side - Perpetually. That all of this bluster, may have in the end, no more importance or consequence than the next coming dog fart.

Happy New Calendar to everyone! And may we continue to prosper according to nature's plan.

-RG

Lost Toast

You've changed my mornings forever -

The way you taught me
To sprinkle chocolate
Over my fresh coffee grounds
And as the water pours through -
To stick my face
Into the hot, steamy clouds of chocolatey aroma
And breathe in deep.

This little ritual
Holds the place in my life
Where you once were.

I wonder
If you still spread
Avocado on your toast
To eat with your chocolatey coffee
Every morning -
Like I taught you.

Winter's Reminder

I go outside to listen
To the morning birds sing

But they can't be heard above
the din and whine of power motors
improving the suburban landscape around me.

Pale land owners blink
inside glowing cubes
Tapping away the days

While brown men
Carve, and clip, and blow about
the leaves with cacophonous inefficiency

Hiding the rot from dewy eyes - unprepared for winter's reminder.

Where have all the rakes gone?

Combing the yards of yesteryear
into fluffy piles of detritus
For children to jump in
and play, and toss about.

Somewhere out East
I imagine

Where time moves like treacle
And there's nothing better to do
than lean against the barn
and listen to the birds sing

As you watch the leaves fall
and feel the air around your neck
nipping colder..

Thoughts on Technology

I've been hearing a lot out there about technology and it's influence on our ability to connect with each other and the physical world around us. I say that it's not a binary choice, but rather like any tool, in how you use it.

The question is, are we prepared as a species for the pace of change that modern technological advances bring? How does it effect our humanity?

UCLA research has shown that people under a certain age are losing the ability to recognize emotions in facial expressions, and with it the ability to empathize. Have we substituted emojis for deep interaction, or really caring?

Like the discovery of fire, we are living in an age where technology will radically change the course of our evolution. Whether we learn to contain this tool, and use it appropriately, or whether our adoration of the flames will blind us to the fact that our home is burning down - remains to be seen.

Here are four great american thinkers with competing essays on the subject. "Technology - Freedom, or a Trap?" I found this to be an excellent debate, and I hope that it rages on. Our survival may depend upon it.

http://www.think-off.org/

#worldsurvival #empathyproject

Street Theater on a Blood Moon Day

Walking down Howard .. After the Faire.

I spot some pretty boy's assless chaps poking out of the ferns
In a tastefully decorated open garage.

He's being playfully flogged by the girl in the perfect leather kitty suit, and peals of chardonnay fueled laughter follow me down towards ..

The next piss soaked street corner of the housing projects
where neighbors gathered on the sidewalk pass the afternoon
grumbling matter-of-factly about the smell down the hall.

"Y'know when that 'rigo mortis' sets in, and the heat just blows you up 'til you're 'bout ready to pop?" .. "Well, that's what he be like, and nobody comin' to take him away 'cause the streets all gay."

As the murmuring agreements carry me on, I push it all
through my senses and into my head.

The Stench of
Sex and Death.
Of privilege and poverty
The sense of camaraderie
Drama and Comedy.

And I, passing by, with an ironic laugh, carry on as if nothing about this is wrong

Which is true .. After all what can I do?

Invisible and alone, with this poem, I think why?
Do we do this to ourselves. In our own little hells.

Whistling past graveyards .. Is there somewhere I stand?
With my eyes and ears open, and a pen in my hand.

My Home Town

I've lived in Santa Cruz for 25 years now - not counting 8 years off in New York - and like any long term relationship, it's had it's up and downs. Even though at times the town's flaws are grossly magnified, and the grass may look greener elsewhere, I'm trying to take responsibility for my own input to the dynamic, and I've begun to see her in a new light that illuminates the opportunities within her challenges, and even some endearing qualities to her awkward growing pains.

That being said, some changes I've seen over time have hurt me to witness, and I see a lot of good people leaving town because of them. The best way to sum it all up for me is that this place has become way more cutthroat.

I blame this on the expensive housing market and the fact that the town has a limited local economy to support the high cost of living for it's citizens. This has led to a sort of transitory residence of students, tourists, and silicon valley types that build large houses, but have to commute over the hill to pay for them.

It seems these days that only kind of people that can afford to put down roots here come from the very high end of the economic scale, and working families have been fleeing in droves to more affordable areas since the aftermath of the earthquake in 1989.

This leads to a more competitive, less altruistic environment overall. On the roads, in the work place, and in community attitudes towards the poorest members of our society. Stress and struggle for basic survival can make people do horrible things to each other, and to be fair I've been guilty of some Machiavellian moves in my early business decisions here. Experiencing the intense desperation of scarcity, I simply felt I had no choice.

It shouldn't have to be that way, and it hasn't always been. When my family moved to Santa Cruz in 1980 it was a decision prompted by something my mother experienced here while my academic parents were exploring which university towns they could relocate to. Although Santa Cruz was low on the list due to it's relative isolation and backwater reputation, my mom was charmed by the random kindness shown to her by strangers just walking around town. On her last day here, she fell on the concrete stairs and broke her ankle while attending a hippie music festival in San Lorenzo Park. Many bystanders rushed to her aid and offered her a ride to the hospital. No one would leave her side until she was stabilized and on her way to the doctor, and upon hearing her story, several in the crowd offered up their phone numbers in case we decided to move here and needed help getting set up.

Although this scene could have played out similarly today, sadly there are hardly any commercial-free music festivals in the park these days, and I can see it's teen-age-homeless-meth-head population laughing at my mom falling down the stairs, and certainly I imagine less people offering her help finding housing.

My point is that the prevailing mascot of the town has slowly and incrementally turned from one of a mellow, slightly backwards, well intentioned hippie, to that of a stressed out and ambitious LA-style go-getter that can't be bothered helping his neighbor.

Of course these are my own stereotypes, but I think long time locals that have seen these changes will back me up. I'm leaving some annoying things about the past out, like the conservative political power structure, but one could argue that today's 'progressive' status quo offers about the same diversity of opinion, and very similar results.

My personal response to the increasing expense of living here has been to level up my professional game, and to help create jobs locally that can provide a good living and a fulfilling vocation for folks who choose to stay here. I try and see the daily challenges as less of a curse, and more of a puzzle that I've got to change my perspective about if I want to enjoy solving it.

These days Santa Cruz has more economic opportunities and a growing support network for entrepreneurs. You just have to look for the silver lining in changing conditions. For instance, when I moved back here after the 90's, I was struck by the increase in traffic congestion, as well as the higher income bracket. My formerly sleepy surfer town had turned into a grinding mess of Beamers and Mercedes taking an hour to get across the city during three maddening rush hours a day.

Of course coming from Manhattan I could recognize that these were the perfect conditions for a professional bike messenger company. Santa Cruz was rapidly outgrowing it's britches and needed help managing it's now precious time.

I've been helped in my long term attitude towards my home by the ability to get away at times, and I'd advise this for any relationship that you want to sustain, even if it's only for a couple of days. Also, lately I try and concentrate more on the things I can do with my time here that I love, like gardening in my back yard, or biking up into the mountains.

As far as the long term intractable problems here. I believe they are caused and compounded by short-sighted planning by uninspired local leadership that is pushed around by the biggest players on the block like the Seaside company, McMansion developers, and a University system seemingly hell bent on endless, unjustifiable growth in a limited housing market, squeezing locals out.

Meanwhile crime statistics and police budgets continue to rise while the homeless, drugs, and gang problems remain largely unaddressed.

What can we do? For me it's about committing to the community. Not running away. Sure these problems are huge, but they are everywhere and require the same shift in all of us if we want to preserve our way of life.

We need to change our attitudes first. Take responsibility for the problems in our society and for the worst off among us, rather than hiding from and denying them. We need to love our community and forgive our neighbors for their trespasses against us. And finally, we need to be grateful for this amazing place we find ourselves in, and pledge to do our best to leave it an even better place for those that come after us.

-RG