Pop....lock.....and drop iT! (watch full size for full impact!)

What are you?????????????????????????????????????????????????

?an animal or an animal??lamina na ro lamina na?

More writings from Walley and an introduction from Meredith Monk

                                         thank you MC

As a brief refresher to anyone who may read this, Walleye is a weekly movement and writing workshop that I try to attend on a regular basis.  I usually try to post my writings from it here but it has been awhile and the writings I am posting today are from 3 different sessions.  Most of this writing was done in a stream of consciousness fashion after working through some movement exercises.  I post them as is with no editing, so the quality may vary.  Sometimes I like what I write and sometimes I don't.

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>>>---------------------------------------11/3/13------------------------------->
I am stuck.  A bridge with nothing flowing beneath it.  Boards broken where an unaware foot has pushed through.  To collapse into a dream, I must first close my eyes.  Let the water spill forth again.  The darting silver light of a fish, the slippery trickle over a pebble.  The air carrying a veil of mist across a threshold, bride like.
<<<<<<<<<------------------------------------------------------------>>>>>>>>> 
Bride like, you carry me into the underbrush.  The wild forest smell of you lulls me into a more primitive state of restfulness, deep but aware.  I have made it through another day, not yet devoured.  Before curling into the grass, I remove this skin and hang pieces of it from the antlered tips of your skull.  I am now bare in front of you, a truer version of what I call me.  I will lay here until we become one and what is left of me sinks into the moss and soil, to sleep forever.
<<<<<<<<<------------------------------------------------------------>>>>>>>>>
I awake, cradled deep within the cage of your ribs.  I have dissolved into you.  I feel your heart beat a rhythm against my head.  Your heart is my head.  My arms rise and fall with your lungs.  My arms are your lungs.  We are hungry and we are cold.  You bend your neck finding the green shoots we need to nourish us.  I allow the little ball of warmth at my center to spread outward giving us warmth.  Us, you, I.  The space between us no longer matters because it no longer exists.  There is only this warmth and nourishment.  These taut muscles always ready to spring.  The ancient rhythm of these lungs and this heart, the cold inhale and the warm exhale.  We are always dancing, always dancing.  This is all a dance.  As I come back to me and leave you for the wider world, I make an offering of my heart, it is an exchange.  I take you with me always.  I am looking at you through your eyes, as you gaze upon me with mine.  I am, you are, we are complete.  (elk)(lower back)
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>>>------------------------------------11/10/13------------------------------->
A million upon a million points of light make up what we call a day.  Gravity pulls us not so gently to the Earth, any harder and we would fold in upon ourselves.  A compass offers infinite points of possibility but there is always a point at the center whispering the word here.  The magnetic pull Northward is meaningless without the center to be pulled from.  We think with an extremity but all feeling comes from the heart filling the cavity at our very center.  It is the heart which is at the center of the million upon millions of dances that makes up a day.
<<<<<<<<<------------------------------------------------------------>>>>>>>>>
A vulture, upon noticing it's immobile prey below, places the very tip of it's wing at the center and is carried upwards in widening circles.  Tracing a spiral in the sky, a liminal space between flight and the ritual of eating, the final goal.  The outermost feather circles up and down, eyes always resting on the center of this dance.  The center means to be satiated but not first without the preparatory caressing of the wind.
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>>>------------------------------------12/1/13---------------------------------> 
a rattle, a gourd, a shoe, a lightning bolt, Illinois, Texas, California, Oregon, Washington, Grandfather, Grandmother, Mother, Father, a dance, a death, a bar of soap, some scissors, a paintbrush, the ground, the sky, a stranger.........
shaking, growing, dancing, breaking, gazing, sweating, walking, riding, sleeping, leading, holding, feeling, pulling, dancing, dying, scrubbing, cutting, making, descending, ascending.......
<<<<<<<<<------------------------------------------------------------>>>>>>>>>
I thought this gourd, drying, would make a fine rattle.  I imagined the shake of the seeds in it's shell but has will happen, death, Death, made itself known.  Rot set in and I found my dancing silent, the shaking my own.  Not yet dried or dead, my body moved through it's own slow rotting. 
<<<<<<<<<------------------------------------------------------------>>>>>>>>>
a dance.  a death.  a rattle.
Who are you stranger and why are you following us?  I shake my rattle at you, to chase you away and it falls to pieces in my scarred hand.  I can no longer shake it nor do I seem to be able to shake you.  I turn my back and you are still there.  I jump up and down and you are still there.  I sit and close my eyes, where did you go?  I paint my face yellow to blend into my surroundings and the I sleep.  When I wake I am surrounded by a circle of crumbs and ashes.  These I place in my mouth and swallow.  Where am I?
<<<<<<<<<------------------------------------------------------------>>>>>>>>>
There was an ache in my left leg that began in my heart.
(I am gathering my powers about me.)
All of this pain is beginning in my heart.
(I will destroy you.)
The ghosts were swirling about me in their dance.
(I am gathering my powers about me.)
Who are you in the shadows?
(I will destroy you.)
The traces of those I love, deceased.
(I am gathering my powers about me.)
A history of defeat.
(I will destroy you.)
<<<<<<<<<------------------------------------------------------------>>>>>>>>>
I am gathering my powers about me
I will destroy you  
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the TRUTH of things as only Richard Brautigan can speak it

“As the bruises fade, the lightning aches.

Last week, making love, you bit me.
Now the blue and dark have gone 
and yellow bruises grow toward pale daffodils,

then paler to become until my body 
is all my own and what that ever got me.”

—	Richard Brautigan, “As the Bruises Fade, the Lightning Aches” 4 mc

Death....death....DeatH

An intention of mine for this month is to spend much time thinking about and working with my fear of Death.  It is interesting because once I brought this intention in to the world, I began to notice Death everywhere around me.  Waking early to gifts of rat parts from my cat.  The Death of my grandmother's husband.  The dying of the leaves.  Books and films having much more to do with Death than I realized when I began them.


I do plan to take in much art and writing as it pertains to Death.  I have begun reading a book titled How To Fall and have other books about Death and dying, waiting to be read.

I am not sure why Death has always scared me so.  As with my other fears, I am trying to work with my fear of Death, rather than overcoming it.  I see the acceptance of Death has the ultimate plunge into and acceptance of the mystery that is life.  In my way of thinking, mystery is the only tangible thing worth of our worship.  Death is the greatest threshold that we ever cross because before we cross over, we have no idea what is on the other side and once we get to the other side, there is the possibility that we will know everything or that the knowing within us will cease.

Therefore, I am making a secret pact with Death, that will bind me to her, as if I had a choice in the matter.  The choice is to accept this final marriage or to run from it.  Either way it will happen, so I will begin to embrace all the facets of life that lead me closer towards Death.  I will celebrate each heartbreak, gray hair and aching joint and when my time comes, as it no doubt will, I will reach my hand out toward Death rather than pulling away.

“For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?
And what is to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?
Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing.
And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb.
And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.” 

----"On Death" The Prophet by Khalil Gibran

                                      Halloween 2013

When Your Life Looks Back by Jane Hirshfield
When your life looks back—
As it will, at itself, at you—what will it say?
Inch of colored ribbon cut from the spool.
Flame curl, blue-consuming the log it flares from.
Bay leaf. Oak leaf. Cricket. One among many.
Your life will carry you as it did always,
With ten fingers and both palms,
With horizontal ribs and upright spine,
With its filling and emptying heart,
That wanted only your own heart, emptying, filled, in return.
You gave it. What else could do?
Immersed in air or in water.
Immersed in hunger or anger.
Curious even when bored.
Longing even when running away.
"What will happen next?"—
the question hinged in your knees, your ankles,
in the in-breaths even of weeping.
Strongest of magnets, the future impartial drew you in.
Whatever direction you turned toward was face to face.
No back of the world existed,
No unseen corner, no test. No other earth to prepare for.
This, your life had said, its only pronoun.
Here, your life had said, its only house.
Let, your life had said, its only order.
And did you have a choice in this? You did—
Sleeping and waking,
the horses around you, the mountains around you,
The buildings with their tall, hydraulic shafts.
Those of your own kind around you—
A few times, you stood on your head.
A few times, you chose not to be frightened.
A few times, you held another beyond any measure.
A few times, you found yourself held beyond any measure.
Mortal, your life will say,
As if tasting something delicious, as if in envy.
Your immortal life will say this, as it is leaving.

Old Woman Nature by Gary Snyder

Old Woman Nature
naturally has a bag of bones
   tucked away somewhere.
   a whole room full of bones!
A scattering of hair and cartilage
   bits in the woods.
A fox scat with hair and a tooth in it.
   a shellmound
      a bone flake in a streambank.
A purring cat, crunching
   the mouse head first,
      eating on down toward the tail—
The sweet old woman
   calmly gathering firewood in the
      moon …

Don’t be shocked,
She’s heating you some soup.

It all makes sense if you really think about it.

A little bit late but....

HAPPY FALL EQUINOX!!!!!!

Writings from Walleye #4 9/15/2013

 

art by Morgaine Faye 

 

I writhe beneath your gaze, the fierceness of your black, animal eyes singeing the hair on my body.  The leaves crunch beneath me on the forest floor, my head rests on a bed of moss.  In the darkness I hear small footsteps as little lives scurry past my ears, I hear the insects as they work their way through the soil.  I open my chest to you, offering up my heart and other precious organs.  Suddenly, my mouth is flooded with the taste of iron, your muzzle stained red as I am devoured and fall further into the gentle arms of the Earth.

 

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Once, I slept as a mountain, dreaming through many thousands of years.  Pieces of me carried South with the water, pieces of me carried North with the wind.  Every cloud and star had a name that left my head upon waking.  The Sun was my day skin and the Moon my night.  Hunters made their homes deep within me.  I was never still but instead the whole of me followed gently and passively the steady tumble of the rest, through the void.

 

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The winds held us aloft until we had come to the desert. We drifted off to sleep to strange and unfamiliar bird cries, not quite a caw but something similar.  As we slept, the sands scoured our skin away, leaving only bones, the wind making instruments of us as it sang and whistled it's way through the cage of who we were.  The darkness grew and we were no longer there.  We were the blackness between, a blanket for the stars to rest in.

Dispatches from Bali.

Hello out there, I am going to start posting some photos and writing from my trip to Bali.  Some of you may have already seen these photos but for the rest of you, here you go.  They will not be posted in chronological order.

I spent yesterday, last night and the majority of today on a tiny island called Gili Air.  I had planned to stay three nights but it was quite a bit more expensive than Lombok or Bali and it was hard paying $60 for a room, when for the previous 3 nights, I had been paying $15 for a bigger room.

The island though, was quite beautiful.  I went snorkeling twice.  Well, the first time I went swimming with a mask and fins, because the snorkle I brought didn't work and I ended up with a mouth full of salt water.  I only went for about 30 minutes that time but saw a large sea turtle scavenging for food.

The second time that I went, I went for much longer and saw all kinds of amazing fish.  There were tiny blue ones that seemed to glow and others with the most beautiful and intricate patterns on their bodies.  Snorkeling always puts me in a meditative state.  Watching the fish gliding effortlessly and feeling the soothing roll of the tide, makes my fast moving brain remember to slow down.

Sadly, the coral bed there has been completely decimated and shows no signs at all of life.  It washes up on the beach in millions of tiny broken pieces.

Today, while I was killing time waiting for my boat, four small children pulled up on two small bikes.  I would guess that the smaller two were four and the bigger two were five.  They were riding two to a bike and it was funny to see the way they managed to cram their small bodies onto these tiny bikes.

Three of them stripped down and went swimming in the ocean while one of the smaller boys occupied himself making a balance beam and singing to himself.  There was something about him that was so pure and joyful and I could tell that he had an incredibly innocent spirit.

At one point a tourist was taking a photo near him.  He walked right up to the tourist, pointed at himself and said, "Photo?".  The tourist obliged and right away, he wanted to see the picture of himself.  Satisfied, he immediately went back to his play.

The other boys soon joined him.  One of the older boys got on his bike, while the others were not paying attention, and left.  The other three, noticing their friends abscence walked into the middle of the dirt road and looked up and down for him.

Realizing that he had lost his ride, the younger boy who had been swimming in the ocean, began to cry.  The older boy yelled at him but he continued to cry.  Some words were exchanged and being the industrious children that all Indonesian children seem to be, they all three clambered on the bike and away they went!

(The boy on the back of the bike, in the picture was the one who was playing alone.)

My New Mantra

M
  y

    W
       h
         o
           l
            e

              L
                i
                 f
                  e

                    I
                     s

                       T
                         h
                          u
                            n
                              d
                                e
                                  r

Randomness from my journal

To be able to hear something, it must first be speaking to you.  Speaking is the act of delivering information through sound.  Everyone, whether they realize it or not can hear a bird sing, "I am bird and I am here.".  The more you listen and the more you learn what you are hearing, the more the bird will tell you.  It will say, "I am woodpecker and I am hungry." or "I am robin and I am alone but want not to be.".

This understanding can be reached with any of the five senses.  You can learn to "hear" more with not only your ears but also your eyes, nose, mouth or skin.  There is so much hidden information contained in a kiss.  The tongue of your lover against your own, floods you with tastes, new visual perspectives should you open your eyes, the feel of the roughness of their taste buds and the coded smells of their arousal.  Learn and notice these sensations and you can read your lover as a Holy Book.

The warmth of the Sun
The cool of the rain
The taste of your tongue

These are what I need

Writings from Walleye Vol. #3 7/15/13

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There is an ache in my shoulders from breaking trees.  The muscles pulled tight from the rise and fall.  My legs still shakey with the energy of last nights tremblings.  And all this time I was a ghost, haunting familiar terrain, where I shouldn't have been.  In sleep, I have been aware of a warm, black presence that is in my heart but that I am only given seconds to caress.  Death and sleep being so similar that sometimes the threshold blurs and you can float back and forth and find a true love dwelling there.

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What would happen to a flower, if it chose not to bloom?  To not uncurl and show it's center, the truest reflection of the sun.  How would it dance with the breeze, a shy partner hiding itself in the corner of the room, hoping it's singular magnificence goes unnoticed?  A subtle shift is all it needs to open up and become that living thing it was meant to be, a golden heart at the center of a stem.

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A Three Lined Score
1.  The sun hits it's zenith and instead of continuing West, returns East.
2.  There is a zoo and it is on fire.
3.  A hummingbird sipping nectar from a flower, freezes and falls dead.

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A Sea Wall That Longs to Break
1)  Why does it want to break?
2)  What will happen when it breaks?
3)  How will the breaking impact it's surroundings?
4)  What will the wall be after it breaks and is no longer a wall?
5)  What function will it serve in it's new form?
6)  Will it miss being a wall?
7)  Does it understand that once it isn't a wall, it can never be the same wall again?
8)  Do any of these questions even matter to the wall?

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Hello from Bali!

Just kidding. 

So, I am just writing you all to share the news that I was soundly defeated
by military time.  Last night at 2:10 AM I was getting into a cab, after a long
night of dancing.  However, I should have been getting on a plane and heading
to Indonesia.

I arrived at the airport this afternoon to find that I had the wrong 2:10.  The
airline that I was going to fly on uses military time and as someone who
is A) not now nor ever going to be affiliated with the military and B) not someone
from a country that uses military time, I assumed that they meant 2:10 PM.

I am now leaving on July 15th and returning on August 13th.  The silver lining
is that I wasn't feeling quite ready to leave and now I have 10 more days to

prepare myself!

I just thought I would let you all know in case I run into you around town or
some other way make my presence known.

Oops!

 Sacred hunter

            so fast

                strike me down

       for I am not your equal

A Love Letter To Illinois Part 5

 Continuing with my exploration into one part of my family history and the place it came from, here is an email/comment my Mom posted about her memories of the story.  Since I didn't want it to disappear as a comment, I thought I'd go ahead and make an entry with what she wrote.

Allan,
I wanted to share some more stories of your Great-Grandmother. She was one feisty lady. I wish I had a photo of her. She hated her picture being taken, which I never understood why. She was tall, thin and very pretty. You spoke about the bar that she was killed in front of. I wanted to correct one part of what you wrote. The little boy she pushed out of the way was my cousin Tim, her grandson. The tavern was called Bingo’s. Yes, there was a real man called Bingo. Bingo and his wife lived above the tavern. Getting back to the night my grandmother was hit. My Aunt Joyce wanted to stop by Bingo’s to see if her boyfriend was there. They parked at the gas station across the street (the same gas station where my grandfather worked). When they got out of the gypsy wagon (that is what we called my grandfather’s vehicle, which I will tell you how it got that name later) my cousin Tim ran across the road in front of a Volkswagen Bug. My grandmother ran after him and pushed him almost out of the way, he was clipped by the side of the car. My grandmother was hit full force and thrown quite a distance. People came out of Bingo’s and picked my grandmother up and carried her into the tavern and laid her on a table over Bingo’s protests. Bingo was a family friend forever and I am not sure if he did not want them bringing my grandmother in because she was bleeding or for another reason. I do believe that was the beginning of the end for Bingo’s tavern. People carried my grandmother in over his protests.

I remember the night it happened. I was at my 5th grade roller skating party on Friday night. My friend’s mother came early and told me she needed to take us home. When I walked in the door, my parents were not there, they had been at a holiday get together at my aunt’s. Your Aunt Janet told me to hurry and get some clothes packed. She told me; “Grandma got hit by a car and she is in the hospital.” To say I was shocked is putting it mildly. My parents got home shortly after I did. We loaded up the car and left for the hospital. We went straight to the hospital and my mom and dad told us to wait in the car. The five of us kids sat there for hours not knowing what was going on. You leave five siblings from the age of 11 to 15 years of age you think something is going to happen; a fight, screwing around, anything. Nothing did. We just sat there, not saying a thing. All eyes glued on the hospital door, waiting for any bit of news. I remember my parents coming out, but not much else. What I do remember is my grandmother died on the following Sunday which was Christmas Eve. She was the age I am now, 57 years old.

Little bits and pieces I do remember is my Aunt Joyce getting hysterical and carrying on and my Aunt Mary slapping her across the face. One time when Aunt Mary was visiting us, I asked Aunt Mary why she had slapped Aunt Joyce. She told me Aunt Joyce was carrying on about it being her fault (Aunt Joyce’s) and getting dramatic so Aunt Mary slapped her and said this is not about you.

The funeral service was unbelievable. There were people lined up the sidewalk to attend the service. I knew my grandmother knew a lot of people, I just never knew how many. My grandfather, who I believe was in a state of shock, kept telling people how beautiful her corpse was. We all took it hard to say the least; however, Uncle Bob took it the hardest. My dad had to escort him out he was sobbing so hard.

I cannot tell you how much I loved my grandmother. She just made being at “the farm” the most fun and exciting time in my childhood. I will share some of these memories with you. I feel very lucky that I had the childhood I had. I wish you would have been able to know her and experience “the farm”. You would have loved every minute.

Thanks for sharing your Love Letter to Illinois with me. It made me remember, which is a good thing even if some memories are sad.

From my rotting body, flowers shall grow, and I am in them, and that is eternity.
                                                                                                                       -Edvard Munch

Bali or bust!

After months of talking about it, a sleepless, anxiety ridden night and $1,823.90 I finally have purchased my plane ticket to Bali.  I leave on July 6th, stop over in Taiwan and then arrive in Bali on July 7th.  I return on August 3rd.  That's just shy of a month that I will be spending there.

I have been quite trigger shy about this trip.  First off, this plane ticket is the second most expensive thing that I have ever purchased in my life.  It was hard to spend that much money on a plane ticket.  Secondly, every other time I have traveled out of the country, I have had either a friend, family or solid contact waiting for me on the other side.  This time, I am going it alone.  Finally, I am a bit intimidated traveling somewhere, where my language is not the main language spoken.  This is of course, probably a really important thing for every privileged person to do at some point.

The way I see it, all the fear and anxiety probably means that this will be a pretty amazing trip.  Most things that I have wanted badly to do but have felt fear around, tend to be really important and life changing.  Here's to hoping this trip turns out that way!

Rewilding made simple.

Predators in your backyard

This is a really good documentary on rewilding, which is the reintroduction of top predators to an area to the benefit of the ecosystem.

longtime ago...australia

some old photos from the claypans, alice springs, australia

When good ideas are presented in strange ways Vol.1: Rewilding

Screw cell phones!-Thanks Laura

Those of you who know me, will realize that this is the truest song in the world for me!

Blackfish Trailer

Every Sound Below by Tim Eriksen

One old new moon as sister casts a beam
This newest moon as rock casts only shadow
What speed westward could stop her being
swallowed by the hills?
Which of all the fairest sounds between this
rock and ours cast anything but memory?

Haunted is an easy word for all the moons
and every sound below

The Naming of a Stillness

This particular tree has been struck by lightning
fifteen times.  It's where my Grandfather was born
and where I will be buried.  Now, I am crawling
towards the moon, to give thanks.

Writings from Walleye Vol. 2

How long does it take the Earth to give birth to a mountain?  The rumbling and grinding of rock upon rock, pushing in a skyward direction, while at the same time pushing back towards the center.  The way that each mountain grows uniquely and slowly, all so that the Earth may again find contact with the Sun and the Moon, other heavenly bodies.  All so the Sun and Moon can rise and then fall.  A returning.


From the moment we come into the world it is good to find the space to be cradled.  Held as our bodies give motion to our oldest feelings.  The oceans and rivers that flow inside of each of us and sing us to sleep with the gentle sound of air curling into a seashell.  Maybe our hearts are the shells that know how to sing our truest songs?


Following the voices backwards through time.  Weaving a story that travels through and with your bodies.  The voices of the past and mostly of shared blood carry you forward, out of the deep sleep of the forest and towards the night sky.  Let yourself be cradled, as you were in birth, one tiny but important piece of the love and hurt, that is the birthright of us all.  These will provide you a line, so that wherever you are, you will always know the way home.


The anticipation leads the way or takes the backseat.  You will go this way or you will not.  Your hands will rise over your head or remain by your sides.  What is that tugging at your sleeve and spinning you around?  Do you know where you are, who I am?  Who are you?

The Goshawk by John Haines

 I will not walk on that road again,
it is like a story one hesitates to begin.

I found myself alone,
the fur close around my face, my feet
soft and quiet in the frost.

Then, with a cold, rushing sound,
came a shadow like the death-angel
with buffeting wings,
his talons gripping my shoulder,
the bright beak tearing and sinking...

Then, then I was falling, swept
into the deepening red sack of a voice:

"Little rabbit, you are bleeding again;
with his old fire-born passion
the Goshawk feeds on your timid heart."

The antelope are strange people ... they are beautiful to look at, and yet they are tricky. We do not trust them. They appear and disappear; they are like shadows on the plains. Because of their great beauty, young men sometimes follow the antelope and are lost forever. Even if those foolish ones find themselves and return, they are never again right in their heads.

—Pretty Shield,
Medicine Woman of the Crows
transcribed and edited by
Frank Linderman (1932)

All night I am the doe, breathing   

his name in a frozen field,
the small mist of the word
drifting always before me.

And again he has heard it  
and I have gone burning  
to meet him, the jacklight  
fills my eyes with blue fire;  
the heart in my chest
explodes like a hot stone.

Then slung like a sack
in the back of his pickup,
I wipe the death scum
from my mouth, sit up laughing  
and shriek in my speeding grave.

Safely shut in the garage,
when he sharpens his knife
and thinks to have me, like that,
I come toward him,
a lean gray witch
through the bullets that enter and dissolve.

I sit in his house
drinking coffee till dawn
and leave as frost reddens on hubcaps,
crawling back into my shadowy body.
All day, asleep in clean grasses,
I dream of the one who could really wound me.  
Not with weapons, not with a kiss, not with a look.  
Not even with his goodness.

If a man was never to lie to me. Never lie me.
I swear I would never leave him.

Louise Erdrich

Writings from Walleye Vol.1

For the last two Sundays I have been attending a really amazing writing/movement class called Walleye.  I thought today I would post my writings from this mornings Walleye.  They may not make a ton of sense out of context.  We usually do a few minutes of movement, followed by some writing, so here are my writings from today, without the movements that accompany them.

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The animal scent of my freshly washed body drifts to my nose as I follow my breath.  Rolling like a wave, swaying like a tree and then back again.  It is all there in the inhale and the exhale.  The intake and release, the push and the pull.  The intimacy of shared breath, that joins us all, plant and animal alike.
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Moving in such a way brings to mind the connectedness of my single body, the way others attributed movement and postures to ancient statues.  A solid piece of carved stone, with a story to tell.  I feel my body want to bend and pull away from the physical confines that hold it.  To bend and transform as if in metamorphosis, to become something more open, perhaps able to fly.
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Sometimes the space between the dark and the light create a wall.  On one side things are clear and from this side, nothing can be found on the other.  Crossing over this threshold brings to life other ways of seeing.  This is where the gentle monsters live.  They are monsters but they will cradle you if you let them.  You can feel warm breath down the back of your neck and fur brush against your legs.  There is a throbbing in the air here.  The frogs and the crickets sing in unison and this singing cocoons your heart.  In the dark you become animal again.  You can feel the antlers taking shape as they push through the flesh of your forehead, feel the feathers thread their way through the pores of your arms.  Here you are whole and you are held.  A nest, a den, a dwelling.  The not so gentle love of predator and prey.
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The eyes of the observer and the observed.  The two meet in flashes.  The way lightning shows bits of the terrain never before noticed.  Always followed by a calming rumble.   The body is a storm breaking open the landscape with breath and motion.  It is the dream of a place, which we never wake from
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Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front by Wendell Berry

 Manifesto:
The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

by Wendell Berry

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.

And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.

When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.

Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.

Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.

Listen to carrion -- put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.

Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.

As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go.

Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.