Too all my friends and family that give a damn, I wanted to take a sec to apolagize for falling of the map. Paige and I both started new jobs and the crammed summer semester is kicking my ass, well not really, but it's much harder to keep the grades that I find acceptable. We feel like we have our blinders on with everything outside our little bubble, cause thats all we have energy for lately. I think things will be looking up by Aug. though and I'm really looking forward to sharing time with all my lovlies once again. We miss you all and will see yous soon.

I just wanted to take a sec to thank all and everyone who came to my 30th birthday celebration in body, mind, and or spirit. I had an amazing time that night and all of you guys made the pain of the big 30 virtually non-exsistant. The over flowing harvest in the cornicopia of this pic resembles how my life is over flowing with so many shining, positive, and loyal friends, and relationships due to that. Hell, someone came more than 2,000 miles to be there with me. I didn't know that I had so many good friends, it made me cry. Warm thoughts of loved ones swarming me and good cheese and wine intoxicating me are still making my day go by all the more easy it seems. So a huge thank you and a "oh my God, your going to pop me Mike" hug to all of you, especially my life partner and oh so lovely Paige, and Bronwen, and all those who came from more than 1 hour or state away. Had to be one of the best birthdays ever. I love you all.

In folding stars these dreams collapse
though forged in nuclear tides
Will is illusory in this breaking wave
Wash me under and tumble out this soul
only to cast it again from the garden
Drown in the fractal ocean that is possibility
We dance on matter that is the shimmering shadow of our dreams
in an attempt to recognize this lonely condition
How can 1 sculpt such as emotion?
How can two ever satiate?

Call me up or call me out
don't bring this burden with us
Had a dream and lost a child
this shells been blown apart
Thought out ways to deconstruct
only to sever in two
Insouciant presence with every non-action
an eternally ineffable affair
Draped across experiences arms
a much longer now
than for which I was prepared.

Thus Have I Heard.

The Bodhisattva Avalokita
While moving in the deep course of Perfect Understanding,
shed light on the Five Skandhas and found them equally empty
after his penetration, he overcame ill-being

Listen, Shariputra,
Form is emptiness, and emptiness is form.
Form is not other than emptiness, emptiness is not other than form.
The same is ture of feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness.

Listen Shariputra,
all dharmas are marked with emptiness.
They are neither produced nor destroyed,
neither defiled nor immaculate,
neither increasing nor decreasing.
Therefore in emptiness there is neither form, nor feeling, nore perception, nor mental formations, nor consciousness.
No eye, or ear, or nose, or tongue, or body, or mind.
No form, no sound, no smell, no taste, no touch, no object of mind.
No realms of elements (from eyes to mind consciousness),
no interdependent origins and no extinction of them
(from ignorrance to death and decay).
No ill-being, no cause of ill-being, no end of ill-being, and no path.
No understanding and no attainment.

Because there is no attainment,
the Bodhisattvas, grounded in Perfect Understanding,
find no obstacles for their minds.
Having no obstacles, they overcome fear,
liberating themselves forever from illusion, realizing perfect nirvana.
All Buddhas of the past, present, and future,
thanks to this Perfect Understanding,
arrive at full, right, and universal enlightenment.

Therefore one should know
that Perfect Understanding is the highest mantra, the unequaled mantra,
the destroyer of ill-being, the incorruptible truth.
A mantra of Prajnaparamita should therefor be proclaimed:

Gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha
Gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha
Gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha