the moon and i seem to see eye to eye tonight. tonight i hold my breath so as not to cloud my vision.but darkness slips from the tip of my tongue. i exhale because i can't hold what's no longer mine. i try to hold the light. life is a delicate balance of holding on and letting go. i cling to what i know. i believed once i was something only if others said so. in the silence i became nothing that i knew anymore, began to relearn everything i knew, began to remember some semblance of truth (finally). you can't escape change. you can't keep holding your breath. you can't hold back the light tapping its moon-colored-fingers on the edge of your window tonight. these are things i tell myself in the absence of sleep. in this complete lack of heat, on the last night of january, walking underneath this extraordinary moon. its light reminds me of you. of the light we carry. even in the dark.

today began with the best of intentions. began with all my love. a sweet thursday turned sour. and i'm sorry this isn't light. sorry it isn't happy. it's honest. my incandescent friend Erika reminded me that all i have to do is take one step at a time. one step to make the milestone a solid place to stand. i try. today began with an idea. i bought flowers and gum. supplies to make cards to tape to student's lockers. i forgot my camera, so there's no pics to post. anyway, the turnout was good. more people are joining in. becoming interested in kindness. but today was a trying day for them too, i'm afraid. they opted to handout the gifts, and some were shunned, left unaccepted. i tried to explain that sometimes people don't know how to react to kindness because it's a stranger to them. not all efforts were in vain. i saw one girl, flower and card clutched in her hands, an undeniable grin, unabashadly happy, and unhidden. but still today was trying. trying to make things better. trying to make things right, trying to not let anger get the best of me, trying to rectify what i hadn't done right to begin with. second hour apathy won. sometimes i fail. sometimes my heart sinks like an anchor, and i feel i am trapped in the frozen lake by which i ran tonight. the full moon called me out from under the layers of fear and weariness, stella luna bathed my path with light. i'll be okay. i'll be fine. i put one foot in front of the other, made my way through the dark to find my parked car, got in and made it home for tonight. there's always tomorrow.

Once there was a woman who became a song. It wasn't intentional. But it didn't happen entirely by accident either. She was restless mostly. No matter how many hours she sat with her elbows resting on the kitchen table, staring at an empty bowl, at the bare white walls, out of the curtained window. No matter how many hours she combed the beach for shells, for something small and pale, for something to hold a soul. No matter how many miles she drove. She could seek no solace except in song. There was one song in particular. There was one song that turned her stony face into a sea. Tears came crashing upon it. There was one song in particular that left her irrevocably broken. And so she listened to it over and over. Each sound became a wave. Each wave broke every barrier she had built for some semblance of safety. And with no walls to hold the confetti her soul had become, she was swept away in the song. What an existence! Now, you can feel each moment, find meaning in memories that are not your own, feel her life touching the skin of your soul when you hear this music. Someday you will be driving alone. You will have your radio turned up, bathing the air that surrounds you in song. And there will be this one that crashes upon the shore of your soul, carresses your cheek, kisses your ear as you drive along. But you will already be at home. You will not be wandering. Not be feeling like a stranger in your life, in this existence. You will not feel alone. But you may wonder: how could I have lived my entire life without this kind of love? How could I breathe without the thought of leaving? How could I not come crumbling to the floor? And these are all such wise questions to ask, while you drive through the winter of your soul. This year there will be no silent spring. This year your soul will listen, but it will also sing, flinging love in every direction, the love of a lifetime trapped in the waves that come crashing into every ear. Here: Listen.

okay. so this thursday the English department is holding a spaghetti dinner at the basketball game against the big rival team. we are hoping to make money to buy books, so as to update our archaically sparse collection. i'm making 8 pounds of pasta and Thebestcookiesever!. and since you all are miles away and won't get to have any cookies, i'm sharing my recipe. maybe you can use them for a fundraiser in your future. so here is Thebestcookiesever! recipe: 3/4 cup granulated sugar 3/4 cup packed brown sugar 2 sticks softened butter 1/4 tsp. salt. 2 tsp. baking soda 1 tsp vanilla 1 package white chocolate chips 1-1&1/2 cups sunflower seeds 1-1&1/2 cups dried cranberries 2 large eggs (i strongly recommend cage free) 2 and 1/2 - 3 cups flour (if you want to go lowfat substitute 1 cup of applesauce for one stick of butter.) Mix together butter and sugars. Add eggs, soda, vanilla, salt, chocolate chips, sunflower seeds, and cranberries. Then add flour. Lots. Because the secret to making soft, chewy cookies is more flour. I learned this when we had a torrential snow-storm last spring break and my plans of biking every day got dumped on. buried under 18 inches of snow. so, i baked like martha stewart on crack. it's likely these cookies are as addicting as crack (who knows?!) but seriously, you should make them for yourself and share with a friend or neighbor. you just might make someone's day.

Here, or very near here is a place that i call home. a place that part of me never quite leaves. a place with which i share my soul. in this place is silence. in this place there is no sound. only the red rocks, the cobalt-blue sky, and you. sage brush permeates the air with its pungent scent and sand blown by the wind wears away any reservations you have. the desert will accept no pretense. no attempts to impress. no lies. the desert is honest. and in its simplicity, i am not the best side of me, i am the real me. i make a pilgrimage to this place every fall and every spring. the first thing to go are my socks and shoes. sometimes there are other items of clothing i lose as well. i let the wind whip my hair into tangled curls. let the sun kiss my skin. let the desert drink me in. coexist. learn to swim in the silence. learn to listen. really listen. i walk barefoot in the trickle of a stream, safe with in the unfolded arms of sandstone canyon. i know i'm not the only person to find such peace. petroglyphs surround me. men, women, animal, children. the mergence circle, a spiral, the spiral that symbolizes the journey through life, an unlinear journey, one full of adversity to accept, to overcome, to move on. i put one foot in front of another. i keep walking. i feel at peace. but the peace of this place only lasts for so long. i've been away for too long. and now i've slipped up, lost my pace. lost my footing, am losing the race. i can't quite catch up. i make valiant efforts. i don't stop. but i can see where it all leads. because i'm almost there: on my knees and bleeding. my God, what else can i do? but live. with you. as much as do for you.... sometimes it's so hard to see. i'd like to thank you for shining a light on me. giving me the kind of visions the desert does. i'm coming to terms with coming clean. it's time to simplify. so i'm making a few changes. i started yesterday: 1. bike everywhere i go. no driving except on saturday morning to take the school's recycling. 2. get rid of everything i haven't used in a year. 3. clean up this place, clean up my mind, organize. 4. speak less, listen more. speak only when necessary. 3 day vow of silence over president's day weekend. 5. plead less, pray more. 5 times a day. and resurrection of gratitude (more later). it's all about coming clean. about living with meaning beyond myself. it's like Margaret Atwood said: "I do a lot of washing. I wash everything. If I could only get this clean once, before I die. To see God, they told me, you do not go into the forest or city; not the meadow, the seashore even unless it is cold. You go to the desert. You think of sand."

Part of me.

i see you smile, lips shifiting into a shy grin, see the way the light spits daydreams for ten thousand miles. can almost take the softness out of the red-winged black bird's slick song. and let the stacatto stick in my inner ear for a while. i can hear your voice from here. i see the sun spill from the pregnant underbelly of the clouds, feel the way a desert does, awake in the first spring rain. my eyes are open. and every step is new, and my thoughts dance around dreams of you. i see how my body breaks into the rhythm of a moment shared with the wind. i can't stop now, can't sit still again. not when my soul is full of this much peace. i see the way the river slides by, slips past time and lets life get it's vivacity before it gets gone. i see this kind of love. this kind of beauty. i see how even the trees go weak in the knees and swoon in the first breath of spring, and i think that they too are in love. i think at the very least they are in life, and like it. i can't see one thing not worth fighting for. i can't see beyond a reverence so deep, that an ocean of words could never carry the gratitude i feel far enough. could never swallow in high tide the pride i feel in this life. could never wash away my love. for this.

My students have.... www.themeatrix.com will i get fired for showing this in uberconservativesmalltownamericaville?

my ears ring with bar noise. shouts and spills, unclassy dancing and glasses crashing in boasty toasts, each one outmosting the other in drunken stumbling, each one bumping into me. i am sober as a stone. my soul rolls around the floor until by chance someone kicks it out the door. i forgot to clock out, but i got to go home. so now i'm here. a cup of tea at the kitchen table. my body spent in service to those whose primary purpose is a wasted state. so much junk. so much garbage, so much to be saved. maybe this is a little selfish. i'm starting with me. shutting up and swallowing my soul for the next 3 days. i will not speak. i will just listen. and breathe. and be. maybe in the silence i will be able to finally hear the answers. Zora Neale Hurston writes "there are years that ask questions, and there are years that answer." in the static and noise, in the uncreative chaos, i've forgotten both. the answer and the question. i know only that i'm here. that i want to hear the message God has for me. that i want to hear your voices with a new kind of clarity. that i want to sink into the layers of the cold, creep into the core of all that i am and all that i will be and be thrown into the pane of fear. to shatter it's grip and elevate into a new state of grace to revel in forever.

The hardest part is not about not speaking. It's not being able to sing. In the shower, coming clean, and music so made for this moment, music that resonates within the shelter of my soul. I think in this moment i have a song trapped inside my body. I hope it sings through every molecule of me, and i have the grace to make everyone and everything around me dance in their happiness. a kind they have yet to know. Today my voice is silent. My heart is not: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bobXyYQ_XBg

Today was my first day of the silence vow. It hasn't been easy. But my inentions have been full of faith, and in a small way, I am proud. Lesson 2: To get where I need to go, to get where my soul feels at home, I had to speak when spoken to. When i did, i learned that my voice sounded sweeter to me, it asked nothing for me, and answered to all creation (because of the infinite connection for one moment to occur) Lesson 3: When other people are involved, listening is more connected with speaking than silence. If you don't respond with words, people seem to assume you aren't listening. listening has more to do with hearing, looking, paying attention, it has to do with responding to what is said, without clouding the message with your thoughts. in this way, listening is a lot like loving (loving---leaving room enough for others to grow) Lesson 4: True emotion yields sound. Laughter cannot be held back, sighs in the comfort of silence and sun, etc. Lesson 5: In the absence of sound, a smile is the best form of substitute language. In most cases a smile will suffice. Lesson 6: When there is sound, I speak too much, and don't listen enough. When there is sound, I call everyone. I'm constantly on the phone. I listen and converse with everyone. except God. except my core. except the Universe at a soulful level. I need to start every conversation here, then share with others from the absence of sound. Lesson 7: If you don't slow down and PAY ATTENTION you won't see the signs.... .and you'll also likely get a speeding ticket. (grrrrr!!!) Lesson 8: Silence speakes in different voices to people. The tone is in the intention. ____________________________________________________________________ *Today I played in God's back yard. I consider it my Home.

Day two held lessons, held so much i hadn't been listening to, but those lessons were intended for me. And so the silence goes,(day three of not speaking) and i am in a way still overflowing. so many words trapped, there were moments i felt like exploding. and couldn't. with each caged word, my heart sings. all desires are no longer buried. and song brings light to life i haven't lived. of every desire lacking freedom. my head is an outlet. my brain controls the flow of blood to every organ in my body. each vein holds the truth. beautiful or not. crimson, my desires ablaze in their undeniable fire, i sin 10,000 times in my mind. can't seem to find an end to the meanness in me. i write it down. catch each thought and place it on paper. i have an idea for a ceremony. these desires will no longer have power over me. ceremonious song: the desert does know it. and i slide on the way there, bathing in early spring mud. i've never felt so clean. my altar is made of stone. this rock has no need of me, it is free, and i burn my desires upon it. i plant gratitude under deity. i'd like to believe grace will grow from a year's worth of words sewn with love. i rise from my knees with a new kind of pride, i never knew i could feel this light. and i lift my voice in song. i sing from the silence. knowing each sound will forever spring from its sacred well. each conversation will begin in contemplation. each word i utter be wed with consciousness. each uttered noise carry the sweet sound my voice carries now that the silence is song. the music means everything. (at least to me) and: "Soul Meets Body" I want to live where soul meets body And let the sun wrap its arms around me And bathe my skin in water cool and cleansing And feel, feel what its like to be new Cause in my head there’s a greyhound station Where I send my thoughts to far off destinations So they may have a chance of finding a place where they’re far more suited than here I cannot guess what we'll discover We turn the dirt with our palms cupped like shovels But I know our filthy hands can wash one another’s And not one speck will remain I do believe it’s true That there are roads left in both of our shoes If the silence takes you Then I hope it takes me too So blue eyes I hold you near Cause you’re the only song I want to hear A melody softly soaring through my atmosphere Where soul meets body Where soul meets body Where soul meets body I do believe it’s true That there are roads left in both of our shoes If the silence takes you Then I hope it takes me too So blue eyes I hold you near Cause you’re the only song I want to hear A melody softly soaring through my atmosphere" -Deathcab for Cutie (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3m1Y_YjBIU)

Every year, I read this out loud to my students. In each class. Which is about 5 times a day. I have portions of it memorized. Yet, there are still new messages waiting for me everytime I read it, that I somehow missed in all the times that I have perused its pages. It's so full of simple wisdom, the kind we need, and the kind so often lost in everyday life, in our foolish, complicated world. It's so full of valuable lessons that my students can apply outside of the classroom, in "the real world." And every year, I am bothered by Fatima, Santiago's soul mate. Every year, I cringe at these lines: "I'm a woman of the desert, but above all I'm a woman." This is around page 127 (in my copy). It's the part in the plot where Santiago is leaving the oasis to go in search of his treasure. He goes to her tent in the middle of the night to say his goodbyes. She tells him to go in search of his treasure, and that she is a woman of the desert, a woman who will await for her warrior's return. And then she cries. Says the lines I despise. Coelho narrates the next couple paragraphs explaining that from that day on it wouldn't be the oasis she would think about, but the desert. She would look to it and be happy, be filled with pride at the thought of Santiago riding out on the sands, fighting his battles, achieving his personal legend. I'm not bothered by her being proud of Santiago for fighting for his dreams, or about her looking at the desert with happiness and peace because it holds her love. Here is what irritates me: why can't women be seen as warriors to? why do they have to wait around, sitting pretty, waiting to be rescued? why do we have to wait for our warriors, for their battles to be won? wait? girls maybe. but women? we don't, and rise above the symbolic prize that has been stereotyped in story after story since language has begun. i don't want a warrior to fight FOR me. i want a warrior who fights WITH me. for Love. for beauty. for gratitude. for every unsung hero, and every unwritten song, for every unborn dream, and every seed that breaks beneath the ground but quakes with fear to grow tall and strong. glory and honor are something i have earned over time, with my own hands, with my own mind. i don't want to fight with brute strength, i don't want to fight with force, i want my strength to be in loving, and my presence a force to be reckoned with because i walk in a state of grace. because my warrior pose is one of concentration, and my battle like balet. fine go fight your battles, go seek your treasure, go have fun. but i'm not waiting around to be rescued, i'm revived by my own revolution, and we'll meet up when the day is done. and maybe i'll think of you if a moment's rest should arise, but don't think for one second that either of us can take our eyes of the prize. the treasure is something bigger than me or you. i'm not after a personal legend. i'm after absolute Truth.

even when two of them are backwards. or even when there is nowhere to go at all. running, for me is spiritual. and i haven't been able to run for a week. the state of my feet is the reason i can't run. in my stillness i have time for silent contemplation. the state of my feet is a lot like the state of my soul... i may have run 5,000 miles already, but there is so much further to go. it's easy at first, but the farther you travel, the harder you have to work. the more pain you have to run through, the more there are days when all you can do is put one foot in front of the other. and there will come a point, when you can see where you want to go, but won't be able to unless you heal the hurt first. an injury is preventing me from running. i think it's a stress fracture. a gradual wearing away of the bone after too much constant use, after running too far too soon (16 miles last weekend). sometimes i push too hard, hard enough to hurt myself. i love the world as it is. but i have a lot to work on..... sorry for my elementary meanderings. i just needed to get this out. maybe if i expose the pain, i can heal enough to move again. (which means i might have to be brave enough to say a lot more later)

this is what we call passion. these kids in kilts lead the entire student body into the gym withthe themesong frombraveheart playing before the big game against our rivals. they didn't do it to put down the other team, but to show pride in our school. and i was proud of them, of the life they carry that oozes from every pore. but not all of them are like this. i wish it weren't so. and so this is my message to the world. the message that has been bottled up inside my soul all day. i'll roll the scroll and tie it with technology. i send it into a sea of sentient beings, some i've "met" and some i've yet to know. maybe we'll meet on dry land some day, but right now it's of some comfort to know that there are people swimming with me. that i am not entirely alone. though essentially we are. alone. we come into this world one, however true the transcendental concept of universal soul is. we leave as one. alone. and the moments in between we meet, we live, we bleed, we breathe, we fight, and love and hope. all cost is not lost, and the value is unable to be weighed. but still...what weighs on me at times is this: how do i know my ideas are ever heard? no matter how loud i shout them out. no matter how many bottles stay afloat (when on days like this my heart sinks with the stone of indifference tied to tightly to it's core). no matter how much care i put into building bridges with my words, throwing out rafts to the drowning, i still can't guarantee that i'll complete the dream of making it to the destination i've set out for. i'm not afraid of failing. but i hate this discouragement. this isn't the pretty picture i'd like to paint. but i'm not the sole creator. how do i eradicate apathy when people don't want to care. when it's cool to guard your emotions, to disregard their existence, to limit the possibilities of your existence for the possibility of peer acceptance? such is the life of a 16 year old. as a "teacher" there's only so much i can do, right? you can't help people who don't want to be helped. but. at the same time, my desire to serve is not quite satiated. then again, not everyone likes to drown in dreams, ideas, psychology, and philosphy. do i let them splash around in the shallow water, knowing they'll never grow stronger, never learn the strength in swimming through the depths of ideas? and on a less metaphorical level, in an entirely different class: Are any of you Aristotle admirers out there? Anyone familiar with Book 4, Chapter 3 of the Nicomachean Ethics? He references desert. Does he mean to desert (a verb)? or the desert (noun) as a metaphor for the pairing down of life. The chapter deals with Pride. We are connecting the themes of this chapter to Howard Roark (protagonist of Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead) I'd love to hear any insights. it seems i'm not so alone in my dreams so far. so far away from any semblance of similarity to me, however, that it's difficult to see anything but waves of days rolling by in an UNmonotonous sea.