The PAIN of facing yourself...

Ever try and do the right thing and just have it blow up in your face and reduce you to small mass of semi-intellectual garbage wondering how the hell trying to do good could ultimately rip your heart and being to shreds? Well, at least in the short term?

I digress, let me back up a bit. I have values, relationship values (I know, many of you reading this are snickering... yeah, right, E~Vol has values? "Armegeddon is upon us, save me jebus!"). Well...So much so that I carry them with me...always

1. Support
2. Honesty
3. Communication
4. Loyalty
5. Compassion
6. Patience
7. Passion
8. Friendship
9. Forgiveness

So there they are. A tough lot to deal with. I'm not sure where they came from, but when I wrote them down it seemed to encompass everything I'd learned about relationships and what it would take to deal with my counterpart to be...and myself.

She found me. I fell for her. We were work in progress, not perfect, but I had dreams, visions, she was working her way into my soul. It was an arduous journey, fraught with distance, long absences, temptation and a multitude of everything that could possibly go wrong, but I had hope, I was in love (Yes, I still believe in it). The journey lasted almost a year, at some point the communication started to break down. When I realized she was the one, I also realized that I had strayed from my values and in keeping with the rest of them, I bared my transgressions.

What happened next was something I was not prepared for. She looked me in the eye and without even blinking shoved her hand inside my chest, grabbed my heart, carefully wrapping her thumb and forefinger around the aorta and with an almost fluid and effortless motion, removed it from my being. With clinical precision our relationship was over.

Love had blinded me, but I still call it patience. Relationships take work. With the joy, fun, comraderie, closeness, sharing, laughter, passion, and bliss, it is still two separate individuals sharing a part of themselves with each other. And that was gone.

I could have sought her out. Fought for her love. Begged her to come back, but she had already gone.

I vowed never to speak to her again, never to write, nothing. Her memory would fade into the gray thoughts of lost and distant loves of a life well lived. But in her favor, she did leave a legacy. She led me down a road that I had to travel. I had to travel with patience, with purpose, and along that road I found something I had lost more than 10 years ago, the ability to let someone completely into my heart, unconditionally. And I had tasted Love again...sweet, delicious and powerful.


Art Credit: The Remorse of Orestes by William-Adolphe Bouguereau

The City of Lost Children (or possibly a city in Nevada)

"All the penguins, the centipedes, everyone applauds.
Except, even if you climb to the treetops...
It's impossible to catch the candy floss.
And so, everyone climbs to the top of the mountain...
except the giraffes who, of course, stay in one spot,
munching the clouds.

The snowflakes evaporate...
and then turn into hailstones.

In the farmyards...
the turkeys scramble towards the hailstones...
the better to peck them.
And the children's voices cry for help.
The chickens are merciless."

from The City of Lost Children

Knowledge without Love... is lifeless.

"No one can know anybody, however much he may profess to know, except the lover, because in the absence of love the inner eyes are blind. Only the outer eyes are open, which are merely the spectacles of the inner eyes. If the sight is not keen, of what use are the spectacles? It is for this reason that we admire all those whom we love, and are blind to the good qualities of those whom we do not love. It is not always that these deserve our neglect, but our eyes, without love, cannot see their goodness. Those whom we love may have bad points too, but as love sees beauty, so we see that alone in them. Intelligence itself in its next step towards manifestation is love. When the light of love has been lit, the heart becomes transparent, so that the intelligence of the soul can see through it. But until the heart is kindled by the flame of love, the intelligence, which is constantly yearning to experience life on the surface, is groping in the dark."

Hazrat Inayat Khan

Grits

I'm continually amazed by the number of people that have never had grits. Some don't even know what a 'grit' is. Somewhere americana made a left turn & left these people out of the damn kitchen. It's not like you can't find them; they're in every f&*#ing grocery store in America. Now go get some grits, dammit, so the infernal perplexing will cease. (I like mine with butter and salt)

Note: You can now also get BACON (not the canadian kind) on your pizza. Oh Yeah Baby!

Giving

"A person is apt to think, 'Why should I perform actions that bring me no return? Why should I be kind, where no kindness is shown to me, where there is even no appreciation?' In this way he commercializes his kindness: he gives in order to receive. This blindness comes upon man, and it makes him blind. He thinks, 'Why should I be grateful? There is nothing to be grateful for. If the sun shines, it is natural. If I have what I need for my living, I work for it all day;' or else, 'I belong to such a family where it is natural that everything should be provided for me.' ... When one loves one must love for the sake of love, not for a return. When one serves one must serve for the sake of service, not for acknowledgement. In everything a person does, if he does not think of reciprocity or appreciation in any manner or form, he may perhaps seem a loser in the beginning, but in the end that person will be the gainer, for he has lived in the world and yet held himself above the world; it cannot touch him."

"Furthermore, the tendency to doubt, to be depressed, the tendency towards fear, suspicion and confusion, the tendency to puzzle – where does it all come from? It all comes from the thought of getting something in return: 'will another give me back what I have given him? Shall I get the just portion back, or less?' if that is the thought behind one's acts there will be fear, doubt, suspicion, puzzle and confusion. For what is doubt? Doubt is a cloud that stands before the sun, keeping it from shining its light. So is doubt: gathering around the soul it keeps its light from shining out, and man becomes confused and perplexed. Once selflessness is developed, it breaks through the cloud saying, 'What do I care whether anyone appreciates it; I only know to give my service, and that is all my satisfaction. I do not look forward to get it back. I have given and it is finished; this is where my duty ends.' That person is blessed, because he has conquered, he has won."

-Hazrat Inayat Khan

Words from random links on that there internet thang...

I'm not sure how to describe the feeling of eating this. It was far worse than the Ultimate Bacon Sandwich. It probably compares to being electrocuted while having your wisdom teeth removed by a back alley dentist. My tongue burned with each bite from the sodium content. I was certain that I couldn't finish the entire bowl, at least not without severe intestinal repercussions. But, I knew that under no circumstance was I ever going to do this again...The last bite went down about as smoothly as a pile of broken glass, but I made it:

Once again I was left with nothing but a woozy feeling and a lot less self-respect. When will I learn?

Anonymous

Curious Exerpt from Today's Horrorscope....

"Face it, if you made every decision based solely on your feelings you'd be unemployed, broke and have several hundred children."

I see the positive and negative side of this one. So, feelings are good! right? Apparently, so was a vasectomy! and reading philosophy and persian poetry...

Nutrition Facts

Serving Size: 1 page (25kb)
Servings Per Visit: About 20
Amount Per Serving
% Daily Value *
Love 100% • Kindness 100%
Happiness 100% • Courage 100%
Friendship 100% • Audacity 100%
Creativity 100% • Action 100%
Bliss 100% • Compassion 100%
Laughter 100% • Patience 77%
Growth 100% • Generosity 100%
Authenticity 100% • Fun 100%

* Percent Daily Values are based on the experiences of E-Vol Your daily requirements may be higher or lower depending on how evolved you are.
INGREDIENTS: Pure intention of love & compassion; commitment to using greatest strengths in the greatest service to the world; passionate desire to create, to serve & to circulate wealth; lots of laughter; conscious deep breathing; a lot of hard work.

Burning Intentions and Realizations of Mislaid Expectations

Adventure, challenges, fuzzy intentions, adaptation, connections, pirates, the misunderstood power of the French, passion, dissapointment, betrayal, understanding, resolutions, insight, the magically appearing poetry of Rumi.

As I rode my bike across the Playa Saturday afternoon, I spied a beautiful woman sitting crosslegged at sunset facing the celestial burning orb as it was about to dip behind the mountains, her legs crossed, her arms outstretched and turned upright, her wrists resting on her knees, on each of her hands her thumb touched her forefinger. None of this really mattered as I raced past her, my mind reeling and heavy from the events of the day, it was the look on her face as she stared at the distant setting sun; peaceful, at ease, smiling, the world was in tune for her; that pierced my conciousness as the teetering broken cow skull on my bicycle suddenly reminded me of our mortality and the short amount of time we have to choose our endeavors and how we will make the best of our lives. I stopped pedaling, time briefly took an interest elsewhere.

For a fraction of a second I considered stopping, going back. Could I learn something from her? Would she share her secret with me? It didn't take me long to realize that I have that same peace and harmony, it's just fighting to get out, waiting for me to open the right windows and doors to let myself out and others in...Yes!...It's the walls, the ones I've put up throughout my life that have prevented my growth, personally and in relationships. I gave my soul a playa present that day; a bulldozer. I have the power to make my own world,or so I've been told. There are things within me yet untapped, or so I've been told. Live, Love, and Learn!, or so I've been told.

This is my New Year, a year of growth. The past is exactly that, the future a 'Tabula Rasa'. All wrongdoings forgiven, by myself and others. Life begins anew. Some things I shall take with me, others I shall leave behind, and yet others will follow me whereever I may go. Only now the task lies to pick the wheels and set them in motion.

There is hope, lots of it, even enough to share.

"Next Year was better!", or so I've been told...

Canto I

Midway on our life's journey, I found myself in dark woods, the right road lost.

To tell about those woods is hard - so tangled and rough and savage that thinking of it now, I feel the old fear stirring: death is hardly more bitter.

And yet, to treat the good I found there as well I'll tell what I saw, though how I came to enter I cannot well say, being so full of sleep whatever moment it was I began to blunder off the true path.

But when I came to stop below a hill that marked one end of the valley that had pierced my heart with terror, I looked up towards the crest and saw its shoulders already mantled in rays of that bright planet that shows the road to everyone, whatever our journey.

~Dante