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Living and Dying in 5/4 Time
Thursday December 13, 2007
If you listen close enough, you can hear the snow falling out of the sky. It is possible. I've heard the sound of snow falling. I've heard the sounds of sadness and anger. I've heard cries of anguish and pain. I've also heard sounds of laughter, love and unbounded passion.
The sounds I've heard are stored somewhere behind my eyes like a jumbled I-Pod with no earbuds. The sound of my soulmate's voice. The sound of my dogs rejoicing when I arrive home from work. The sound of traffic on the freeway behind the Morgan shack. The sound of rain beating a rhythm on the roof. The sound of machinery in the foundry. Familiar sounds. Fond sounds. Sounds that reassure me life is as it should be.
There are also moments early in my morning when I'm lost in a dreamwalk. Unfamiliar sounds. Voices I don't recognize. Sounds that eminate from places I can't quite find. I push on, ever in search of the elusive sounds I'm driven to discover.
The unfamiliar sounds, the strangers voices are all signposts on a ribbon of magic running parallel to the road I travel in life. Voices and sounds from a different dimension and a different time. Voices and sounds of lives passed and lives yet to live.
The secrets of their existence lie in the suns, the moons and the stars occupying a far and distant universe not yet discovered. A journey yet to be booked. Fare to be paid. Travel available only on that mystical mode of transportation known as the Hitchcock Railway.
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Tuesday December 11, 2007
 If there's no record of my birth and no record of my death, does that mean I've never existed? Is it like a tree falling in the forest? Must I be seen and heard if I’m to exist? Do I exist only once?
My spirit leaves tracks in time but I have no idea how or why. Genius is separated from idiocy by only a few degrees. Intelligence, existence, life and death; all are circular. Circles within circles, like the rings the magician uses so masterfully. Now it is I who has become an unwitting magician. I have set in motion a simple algebraic emotion that will eventually become the sum of my past lives, my present life and some of what is yet to come.
I am substance and I am mass. I am light and I am dark. I move with slow velocity. I leave bits and pieces of me wherever I go. Pieces of me germinate and memories are born. Some live on in timeless fashion. Some die well before their time. A celestial balance of fire and ice, the sun, the moon, the sea and the stars.
All of this served on a plate made of quicksilver by a simple artisan living life in 5/4 time and whistling a tune that has . . . . no discernable melody.
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Monday December 10, 2007
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You are a Self-Discoverer
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You're not religious, but you've created your own kind of spirituality.
Introspective and thoughtful, you tend to look inward for the divine.
You are distrusting of all forms of organized religion.
You especially dislike religious gurus and leaders, who you feel are charlatans.
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What's Your Religious Philosophy?The results of this quiz are amazingly accurate; probably more accurate than any results I've seen since I began playing around with Blog Quizzes over a year ago. I've spent most of my life slowly assembling the spirituality that resides inside me now. There are some I've met who insist I'm a lost cause and others who feel it necessary to "save me", though from what is still unclear. I've long been fascinated by the similarities of the world's recognized religions. I find both the best and the worst of the human condition mixed into the religious experience. It is, I suppose, one of life's mysteries that will never be fully understood. I am content to live as a simple man, following a simple mantra. Give back to life more than I take away, never bring harm to another, appreciate each of life's experiences for what they are and live each day like it's Thanksgiving and Christmas all in one.
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Sunday December 9, 2007
I’ve got some real fond memories of chemical toilets. I worked on plenty of projects over the years and some locations were remote. About the time we’d arrrive and begin unloading tools and equipment, a truck would pull into view loaded with a few chemical toilets. I always wondered why most of them came in the color of green. Some sort of environmental statement, I suppose. They always smelled pungent and after a few warm days baking in the sun, a chemical toilet smelled more than just pungent. In the winter months there was the simple joys of chipping ice off the toilet seat before you sat down. I’ve suffered frostbite to parts of my body that most medical manuals don’t discuss.
I can’t count the number of times someone got trapped inside as the the crew duct taped the door shut. The experience that to this day makes me grin happened one warm sunny day on a project in southern California. A powerhouse was under construction and there were chemical toilets on every floor, twelve in all. The toilets were hoisted up and down using a crane and a cable sling. The toilet on the top floor (120 feet in the air) was due to be serviced. The crane operator radioed the rigger to tie a sling around the toilet so he could put it on the ground.
This crane operator the flamboyant type that loved to do everything with plenty of pinache. Operating the crane was no exception. He pulled the throttle back, rapidly lifted the toilet, swung the boom and tapped the swing brake a little extra hard. This caused the toilet to swing wildly back and forth. Pleased with the results, he decided to do it again. Then as an encore he released the hoist brake and let the toilet freefall about 100 feet, bringing it to a stop just a few feet from the ground. He gently lowered it on down and another rigger pulled the sling free.
Much to everyone’s surprise, the toilet door burst open and a thoroughly frightened millwright crawled out . . . . on his hands and knees.
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Saturday December 8, 2007
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