Where is the lesson in this?

Honesty.

I acted wrongly and perpetuated bastard energies. Time has asked me to stop yet now the mess is mercury hot, it begs to be removed from the nearness of the sun.

Run away tiny coyote! How many more forest friends will you consume before you belch the bones of your rancid ways?

Rain dance tonight! Ancient practice revives to cleanse the pollution of clumsy creations!

You say I’m so stubborn and cruel. Well then, I am so pleased to be yours and to have mine, let’s make more things to carry this crooked ship down the depths of uselessness.

But alas! A pirate with a pen, ravaging with words, a sentence he sharpens from the blade forged by many prophesying men: ‘death to things that make us feel weak, small and tired: that keep us on our feet! When what we require is a deep enough sleep, to drum a clear beat so the people can step dangerously in time with the ticking of the tides riding high on the moon’s backside and be free!’

Okay, I’m here. I am here! What spirit has called my attention at this place and at this hour and what must I do to appease your formless brew?

Listen you say, but instead I translate it as a condition of my diminishing physique; I nourish my bones with sweet and saucy, I lick my fingers when I should be licking the soles of Buddha’s feet; “don’t bother me! Pull the reigns of your fiery chariot and pierce your own heart; the arrow draws a string with which to pull the muscle from its nest, leave mine alone!.”

“Shut up and be still, this is why you were called, not for a culinary thrill, silly human.”

‘Okay!’ what now?!?!’ distractions arise from illusive shadows and thoughts generate to flush the intelligence of five senses: I ponder something besides my knowing of this realm. But the channel has been allowed by bundles of sage and narrow icicles of wax that beg for a chance to chase darkness away in a blaze.

Dear Journey,

Don’t write with confusion; write with clarity! Even poetry demands clarity, not in words and how they are presented, but poetry requires clarity of origin: this means not right nor wrong, but that the author is clear in representing confusion, sadness; what does this mean exactly? It means to be fully aware of yourself in the moment you grant for reflection and honesty (don’t worry, no one is watching) and be true to the experience as it is, raw and organic from your center, whatever it may be in the present moment. Be certain of the source and let the words form around them and align naturally in a march of syntax and prose; this is personal poetry, this is your gift, this is what you offer the world and it is beautiful because you made the space for it and it is authentically you.

Once the words are before you, these precious gems of absolute insight and depth, after you read them, separate from them: do not own them. You mustn’t feel responsible for their impact; disassociate from the words and they will inspire you in whatever way they do; your past self intended them as a guide, maybe for you, perhaps for another. The words are not yours; they belong to a greater source when they are born from clarity and consciousness. This way you can witness their power to unite and to change, phenomena which happens when and only when they are released.

You see, words are only sounds, particles, elements: they begin as a thought that forms from ingredients that interact in our minds, we send outward this energy in waves upon which we place words linearly, one word after the other, like our understanding of time, in a sequence like we see our own lives; but round is the actual order of things, infinity is the essence of higher planes of existence; our part is finite so we experience the beginning and the end of form and function, as we ourselves have a birth and death; but circularity is truth though ambiguous within the shallow measure of our immediate awareness.

To travel distances, to be said or written and heard and read, words must hitch a ride upon waves of energy that are continuous and infinite, floating and colliding and stemming from and branching off and bumping into other waves, like cellular waves, microwaves, brain waves, ocean waves, wind waves, emotional waves, static waves: with intention we send outwards our words like a message in a bottle atop a wave of energy that we have harnessed for the moment, attracted to us by the energies we have magnetically pulled and borrowed from this dimension (in conjunction with other dimensions?). The slower the wave the more direct from source, the more rapid the frequency the more momentum and force; these are the ones that require that the borrower use caution; they can cut and slice, they can tear and infiltrate and pass and influence, hurt and harm and devastate and destroy, much like ugly words with claws in waves whispered from the mouth of a conniving magician.

These high pitched waves are coming in at frequencies beyond which we can measure with our primary sense; we can neither see them nor predict them, therefore we can only cancel them by committing to impeccability; whole truths upon which we place words of a positive nature, honest and of the deepest blue; if you don’t make magic then magic is made upon you: saying love once invalidates the perpetuation of historic hatred and restores crystals to beauty and balance. Love yourself, love your energies, love the words as they are sent outwards and beyond the scope of control, let them surf the waves and purify the atmosphere of nonsense, chaos and confusion.

Be honest, source words from source, bow before your own energies, respect divine human potential; this is service of the highest self. Tentacles-waves are like wind; it carries dust that falls onto the lashes dropping center in a tear cried from the eyes of a weeping camel: it will find the earth and one day be carried again to grace the sky with its presence: every thing which is IS something which will connect to something else: nothing is ever truly free from belonging in the sense that it will inevitably serve as an influence or impression in this stage of reality. Even dust has a history, as do we, and so as wind drives sand so must we drive our words in a caravan towards LOVE.

“Who does?” I responded candidly. I can foretell that these images will recline into the cavernous bounty of rejected truths, but while they remain at the forefront of my intellect about these photos I will do what it is that I do: write.

Death by Plastic Waste

I was oddly piqued when these images first decorated my screen: I have before seen the bodies of birds bearing internal plastics on the beaches of the bay in Berkeley, a phenomenon which prompted me to write my very first article, plastic ”. It bothered me to have been blindly bombarded with the demise of humanity in such a morbid manner as having to clean the decaying carcasses from the rocks in the sand. At first there were tears which were then dried by the stench of death: then came a moment of pondering followed by startling realization: we are impacting the earth in very obvious, very disturbing, and undeniable ways.

The difference between the Berkeley birds and the ones on the Midway Atoll in the North Pacific is the fact that the former aviary graveyard is being discovered on uninhabited lands. Humans have not settled here, nor have there ever been any attempts of harnessing the land for modern industrial/agricultural exploitation. This land is deemed ’sanctuary’, a sanctuary that has sadly become the final resting place for the offspring of thousands of Albatross flyers.

The mother birds leave the island grounds in search for meals for their offspring: the search for food is not fruitful save the finding of floating plastics which appear edible to the creatures. What is a baby bird belly to do with a bucket-load of plastic trash? The bottle cap of a soda pop is hardly digestible: with a treasure chest of industry’s finest plastic moldings nestled within their deteriorating physique, the birds succumb to death, a popular though misrepresented theme in today’s society.

I’m Sorry, Mother Nature

It’s quite beautiful actually: as time progresses and our stoic attitude persist the universe never fails to provide an increasing amount of evidence in support of change. Washed up marine life, storms increasing in violence and intensity, climactic variance, dying forests and fields, toxic rain waters, stale reefs, species extinction, and of course, diseased, sickened, obese, malnourished, under-stimulated, over-stimulated, vengeful, enraged, angry and mentally ill human beings who personally have taken it upon themselves to judge the value of life, slaughtering, abusing, neglecting and raping all the life forms of the world.

In waking dreams I imagine Mother Nature standing in a forest of battery acid half stepped in a puddle of diesel fuel with a look of confusion adorning her worried face and her arms in the air as she protests to humanity: “What more do you need? What more proof could I possibly give?”

Certainly NOT Featured On Tonight’s News

The man-made plastic island that exists in the ocean is rarely publicized, nor is the death by trash of nature’s most innocent offspring, as our primary media providers fails to communicate certain facts of the world. Instead what is advertised is static uncertainty, where underground information and discovery are ignored, complicated, over-shadowed, jumbled within the structure of middle-class normalcy. If a truth (like death by plastic, the deplorable condition of American animal farms and kill houses, the fate of an injured racehorse) does find a spotlight moment the f actuality of it is quickly denounced by the kings of control: that diabetes is incurable, that there is no such thing as global warming, that high fructose corn syrup is safe because it comes from corn are but a few examples of the false motivations of propaganda intended to propel mankind further into a state of ignorance and isolation from truth.

We are coerced into sustaining the misery and harm of our modern world despite that our habits and ways contribute to emerging trends of loss and degradation, and are generally repulsive to the courageous investigator and vomit-inducing to his staff of photographers.

Modern society is interested in sponsoring a life of extravagant waste, where every facet of existence is intended to produce wealth and riches at the expense of the environment and all her systems and cycles. Our culture is a culture of death, where every consumer choice has a value of suffering, be it that the ecosystem is damaged, an animal’s life was taken, or our own health and well being is compromised.

Our motives are inspired by the age-old western traditions of greed, lust, and desire, qualities which have successfully brought mankind into the new-era, but are still bottled and sold even though they now serve the opposite purpose: to destroy and harm our own species as well as the species of the earth and earth herself.

Do we like living in such a manner? No! We are a culture of sick people, living with chronic pains and disappointments, miseries and the unpredictability of a selfish world.

Then Why Continue The Culture of Death?

Characteristically we are all obsessed with pleasure causing elements and experiences, and vehemently opposed to painful/discomforting awareness. When we find something pleasurable we seek to hold it forever, to make it ours, to have as much of it as possible, to never let it go. Oppositely, when we are in pain we seek to fix it, to push it away, to block it out, usually by way of pharmaceutical drugs, intoxication, lies, and escape. We may have been taught the value of experience, the importance of acceptance, and the art of time, but we hardly put them into practice during the clutter and chaos of a day in the life of the average us.  

These ill behaviors further detach us from our true nature: though we have plenty opportunities for happiness presented by our unquenchable thirst for ‘things that make us feel good’, we often live our lives reaching, grabbing, pursuing the idea of such things that may or may not make us happy or satisfied. In doing so, we miss the experience entirely on account of being consumed by mindful proliferation; our thoughts are focused upon ourselves and our need for things that would make us happier: we are a ‘if I only had this, I would be this’ society of people, suffering because we feel less whole, less complete, less satiated on account of our spiraling greed and lust. ‘If I had those Nikes’, or ‘if I were married’, or ‘if I could afford this trip or had that job, or that degree, or this slice of pie’: we attach power to powerless things, allowing them to engross our attention until we absolutely have it, and then we move on to the next thing.

It’s Not You; it’s the Mold

The person who fits this mold is nearly everyone in the western world; these are the aims of a consumerist society, to raise a person from childhood to constantly feel in need of newer, nicer, bigger and better things.

That we run from pain, avoid it and suppress it another skill we’ve learned within our network of American neighbors. We have an acquired aversion to anything unpleasant or distasteful, anything that may cause fear or hesitation. This is a dangerous practice; not only have we become reliant upon producers of ‘fix-it’ drugs to ease our physical and mental pains (pains are our body’s way of expressing imbalance), but we also choose everyday to ignore the ugly truths which have emerged aggressively in our society today, thanks to the efforts of non-profit organizations and independent journalists and NPR broadcasts. We have access to solutions, but we’d rather not because it hurts us to believe in the factuality of our own dirty footprint upon the earth. “Ignorance truly is bliss”, says the man as he takes a bite from a grocery store steak.

We forget that everything in this world is impermanent, including our very lives, and that the only thing constant is change. We forget to stop and see our part in the relationships we form with the world. We forget to experience the experience, to allow our subsequent emotions to rise and retreat, to no longer sustain denial regarding our ways: instead we insist on living on the edge, fast-paced and self tortured by the acidity of our western process of thought.   

Follow the Leader

We are living in a matrix of artificiality and when something or someone stands firm and voices honest opinion free from hidden agenda and corporate promotion we are trained to follow our leaders, in our case those who own media portals, those who invest our monies, those who educate our children, those who give us good deals and bargain options, those who give us tax breaks and minimum wage increases, and I mustn’t forget to add due credit to all the Hollywood superstars with influential power.

Is it such an anarchist point of view to proclaim that our leaders are wrong? Is it such an anarchist perspective to prefer the information of underground mediums and the education of peace-seeking advocates in comparison to television broadcasts and public literature?

Welcome to Disney-Earth

The answer to all our problems is always the simplest alternative, yet perhaps because of its simplicity, or because of its lack of institutional accreditation we decline to participate in the cure.

And what do I know: maybe the path to enlightenment is marked by the death of Mother Earth and the birth of a plastic Disney-Earth where we pet mechanical farm animals and eat vegetables grown in laborities. We take walks in industrial parkways and skip metal fragments on petroleum ponds. We rejoice at the sight of the sun which is usually clouded in fogs from emissions, and we smile when memories of waterfalls and rainbows surface in our minds. Survival of the fittest has been redefined in this world to include only those beings which can withstand toxic exposure long enough to reproduce another generation: I think humans have the ability to adapt, although years of disease and pharmaceutical abuse would have us deformed and unnatural, like robots without heads we would continue to employ the factories of our kings all for a taste of ethanol-elixir#10856.

Test subjects we are now for the futuristic endeavors of our kings. New vaccines, new drugs, new foods, and new technology: these are all instruments of scientific experimentation: the weak die and the resilient bear the immunity, the antidote, the gene to be biologically carried into the new millennium, the new frontier. The rich will carry their wealth while the world crumbles around them, and they will carry the producers of that wealth along with them, the working class drones of present day society. All Hail Disney-Earth!

It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s a Revolution!

We need a resistance! If planet earth does not disown us first then we must deny them that power: we have a constitutional right to bear arms against our government, but lets not get hasty: resistance happens with the dollar, and the dollar that scars the world is the dollar spent to own something, anything bearing a corporate logo, chemically or artificially enhanced, made in another country or simply at the cost of suffering or life.

Of course at this state in our development people would first require a spiritual intervention, followed by an extended period of detox from all things unnatural and a subsequent lifelong program of recovery and rehabilitation. 

For some this is already in effect, for others it will soon come, but for most, Mother Nature has not yet provided a rock bottom: I dread the day that this event comes to pass, as I both fear and anticipate with childlike excitement that it will be the end of an era, the beginning of new times, though in which direction earth and all her creatures are destined to float in the vastness of space is entirely up to forces beyond the control of even the most brilliantly powerful king and all his psychic minions.

For now, go vegan. Buy fresh, buy local, buy organic. Don’t drink, don’t smoke…am I striking a nerve? Don’t wear clothing with fur trim, or of brand name. Don’t drive. Compost. Recycle your clothes. Donate your fast-food money. Don’t eat fast-food. Don’t bank with large corporations. Don’t invest in large financial institutions. Don’t take drugs. Don’t take pharmaceutical drugs. Exercise your body. Exercise your mind. Turn off your television. Tune out mainstream music. Take off your headphones and listen.. Engage one another. Say hello. Take free classes. Take advantage of community affairs. If you hate your job, quit. If you love your job, ask yourself why. Ask yourself why. Ask your superiors why. Question all labels. Question all advertisements. Question those who say there isn’t a need to question. Search for truth. Don’t become complacent. Don’t become lazy. Don’t accept average. Nothing should ever be good enough. Volunteer. Be the love you wish to receive. Spend time outdoors. Avoid using artificial light. Avoid Starbucks. Sleep. Rest. Activate. Explode Creativity!!!

Through education we can unplug from the society of death and plug into life and vibrancy, serenity and peace. It may not be the whole world standing hand in hand, but every person, every consumer has the power to make a difference, and it starts by first recognizing the value of your own life, and the value of the life of those innocent baby birds. 

YOU SAY YOU WANT A REVOLUTION…

Our beachfronts are littered with armies of plastic byproducts, resting amongst the decaying carcasses of black feathered birds and mutilated sharks. How odd and yet slightly comedic that on this day I should find a battered American flag buried beneath bottle tops and cigarette butts, visible to only those who are searching for a moment of understanding in an otherwise unforgivable circumstance. America the beautiful is swarmed by herds of an invading threat: ignorance sold individually in separate, plastic containers.

I’ve struggled for what seems like an eternity to make sense of my earthbound existence, and I have yet to come to a satisfying conclusion. However I have formed what I believe to be a hypothesis worth mentioning in the least:

Modern American society is an intricate construct of a poor and struggling people, aimed at the achievement of short term pleasure and false senses of fulfillment and gratification. It is encouraged to be maintained as such on behalf of two known theories of truth:

1. that a large society of individuals is best maintained when the individuals themselves are isolated, being that unity amongst individuals is made almost impossible to achieve

2. that in addition to being isolated, the individual must also be maintained in an infinite realm of ignorance regarding the truth of his own existence, and thus the individual mind should be sculpted from an early age in government funded educational institutions which are designed to stunt the individual’s natural creative resources, and guide the individual as he grows into an inevitable process of absorption into the mediocrity of his surrounding environment without a mind capable of revoking or questioning his authorities.

I began writing this in response to the despicable amount of plastic responsible for most all of the waste on the shoreline of my home community. In pondering the why’s and how’s and from where’s which flooded my thoughts regarding the waste, I was led by my own consciousness into an abyss of confrontational and uncomfortable truth: in order to arrive at an end in thoughtful understanding of the problem of plastic pollution that currently haunts our health and livelihood, as well as the health and wellbeing of all organic life with whom we share this earth, I would have to start from the beginning, indeed, from the birth of European civilization. And what an undertaking that would be, although not impossible, as Jared Diamond has proven in his magnificent published works. I am not interested in launching my investigation from such a mark. I could just as easily beg you to believe me when I say that the most honest display of human parasitic behavior initially presents itself most clearly in history with the early European growth of civilization, where populations of people flourished in response to booming agriculture and consequent industrial revolutions. Where there is power, there is destruction at whatever cost in order to preserve and maintain that power, and history shows this to be true over and over again, and over and over again we see the suffering of ‘inferior’ populations of individuals and the environment caused by the development and instantiation of the concept ‘private property’, the ideal of wealth, and the misconstrued definition of the phrase ‘pursuit of happiness’.

Following the preservation of these aspects of humanity since their introduction, we find ourselves victims of our own blind obedience to the ever increasing demand for conformity, living in the materialistic mindset that the road to better living is made of plastic and lined with kiosks operated by corporate influence and money machines. Man’s potential to exhaust all his energies and resources in order that he may someday in the future hold in his hands the final result of his soul destructive and evolutionary disruptive patterns of behavior is greater than need be said. These patterns of behavior are deeply engrained in the fiber of the individual’s being, fortified by constant fear and the threat of humiliation and disrespect. Our modern world thus resembles an assembly line, where individuals are born as they are, and molded and constructed with consistency a key priority, punishing those who attempt to flee the monochromatic parade of identical methods of thought, and keeping the rest of the population in order by means of fear of punishment. Modern societies breed individuals, drill these individuals on the subjects of compliance and boundaries of action (via lessons plans of right and wrong), offer but an introductory course in moral responsibility and compassion (the bare minimum required to function as a productive member of society), and reward them for their cooperation with low, low prices and tickets to next week’s ball game.

Private property, wealth, and the pursuit of happiness: these abstract concepts form the base of our social construct, though we may be unaware of it.  We are informally promised that when we play by the rules in this game of life, when we are ‘good’, when we work hard at our jobs and pay our taxes and subscribe to the cable company and pray to our gods that these abstract concepts will somehow manifest into tangible forms of possession that will nourish our souls and warm our hearts.

But why? I believe there are two factors that describe the necessity for a world constructed as such:

1. for the politically powerful to maintain control of large populations of individuals, and

2. to promise the wealth to the wealthy.

What would happen if we no longer, as a collective entity, cared to drive our vehicles? If it didn’t matter to us what shoes we wore, or if fast food became suddenly repulsive? If everyone were to turn off their televisions and communicate effectively with one another? If, so to speak, everyone ‘woke up’, wrestled up from beneath the layers of fear, and learned the truth of their country’s operations and management, of the network within which they were intimately related, a small program in the larger scheme, mindlessly feeding the creator by continuing productivity? What would happen? Our society might fail, it might not. But herein lays the dilemma: is it possible to achieve a level of mass awareness?

Unfortunately, in order to undermine the actuality of our modern day society, a revolution of massive proportions would be necessary, and I am sad to say that the possibility of a revolt in our time no longer exists: the collective whole has built itself a magnificent web of protection and preservation, and beyond that, and most importantly, majority society is so unknowingly bound by fear that the idea of radical change is distasteful. You see, people like their ‘things’; they like that they can work an honest job, drive an honest car, attend honest meetings, and drink beer with their fellows. They like commiserating, caring for their personal wardrobes, shopping at bargain stores, enjoying dinner at a restaurant, smoking American brand cigarettes: although modern day society has its roots in spoiled values and egoistic ideals, it bears the fruit of ‘freedom’ ripe for the picking, a minimal reward disguised as a seductive well-deserved right to claim American citizenship, wherein the individual feels in debt to his country, continuing to sponsor and support its cause.

We have freedom, to a certain extent: we have the freedom to buy, freedom to sell, freedom to choose in which capacity we will best function in order to maximize profit, which is to be paid to the beast that rests easily in its golden castle adorned with rubies and gems.

The beast I speak of is the core of the web of power, those who sit at the head of the control panel and determine the course destined to be traveled by the collective whole of individuals within its boundaries. The beast I speak of is the class of peoples who act only within the extent of their personal self interest, and who guide certain aspects of civilized society in such a way as to increase and preserve their power and wealth. They are often unknown, hiding behind friendly marketing schemes and state emblems, carefully manipulated productions boasting colorful displays of patriotism and valor, or fancy language featuring religious references, to name a few. The beast I speak of, though seemingly a ghostly apparition of the paranoid conspiracy theorist’s mind, is very, very real, and very much kept alive by an all American diet of brainwashed citizenry, national and international productivity, and loyal consumerism.

All of which I have written thus far is by no means scientific evidence in support of a concrete theory of truth. It too, is a theory of truth, and as theories go it is incomplete and flawed in many respects. I do believe, however, that most of what I have expressed is as close to the truth regarding American modern society as it gets, and there are numerous other literary resources authored by accredited intellectuals that have in them similar underlying tones and concepts. In fact, to most individuals with whom I have had the privilege to become acquainted, these views are quite common and agreed upon.

I write based solely on my informal research and education learned by merely participating as a functioning member of modern American society.

My father is a materialist, expressing emotion through the giving and revoking of expensive tangible objects, satisfying the natural human instinct to provide for oneself the comforts necessary for happiness and fulfillment through the private ownership of material goods, big and small. My father offered me the best advice he could, repeating to me what I have discovered to be the tireless middle/low class American dream: go to school, get a good job, buy a house, start a family. Ahh indeed this advice is so appropriately linked to the grand scheme: the American design for living: create an individual, program that individual through institutionalized mandatory education, plug the individual into the workforce, have that individual become tied to the system through contracts of debt, and then repeat the cycle over again.

As I sit on the AC Transit, my worst fears for the fate of humanity are realized in thought: people operating like machines, without an ounce of creativity or awareness, completely self consumed, behaving in accordance with their false beliefs, no spark of wisdom or intellect, just pure nonsense: individuals who are nothing more than producers and consumers, whose lives are unknowingly devoted to the care of the beast.

“There must be something more”, I tell myself. Those spoken words are a reassuring wave of comfort, a hand that pulls me from the grave within which I have been resting. What is that something more? I have nearly exhausted all possible hypotheses through an extensive experiment of trial and error. I believed once that engaging in a revolt against the system to which I belonged was the road to enlightenment. It wasn’t. Many hours spent alone within the confines of a cell, and a white padded cubicle, and an institution designed for the treatment of mental disease are the societal consequences of my rebellious behavior. However degrading, lonely, spiritually devastating these real experiences proved to be, they are perhaps to what I owe my relentless inquiry into the nature of existence. Having been stripped of ‘freedom’, self-will, and all material possessions in those isolated instances of incarceration and institutionalization, I had only myself and my thoughts. For some, this would have led to an endless rampage of anger and thus further civil intervention. For others it would have meant a permanent installation of irrevocable nightmarish fear and subsequent submission to the demands of daily life. For me, it spawned a euphoric understanding of myself in relation to my environment. I survived, and was better for it.”

Of course, that which induced those divine moments of self realization was not divine in essence: I lived for a long time in a haze of alcohol induced consciousness and drug influenced interactions. Chemically altering my perceptions, I thought, would transcend me far away from the misery of modern living and down a sacred path studded with anointed truth and principles for a Zen existence. Of course, as such stories go, that path revealed itself at first as a mystical and adventurous alternative to the mundane and ordinary, but as I continued the stars began to slowly dim against an increasingly cold dark sky, and as the end drew upon me, a soft whisper of a permanent and absolute escape from it all was the only voice to be heard. No, this wasn’t it either.

Alcohol and drugs is a peculiar facet of our environment. People like getting high…but why? It is no wonder why alcohol is encouraged as a recreational outlet by the ‘beast’ and his corporate minions: it is not only taxable, but it has the incredible property of turning gloom into glee, of uniting the poor souls in song and spirit, however temporary and subtle; it is a magic wand gladly consumed to avoid facing oneself honestly and nakedly. For most its a form of reward, that the individual has successfully completed yet another work week and in accordance with the repetition of his schedule allows himself to ‘unwind and relax’ by ironically squandering his individuality, so that come Monday the reality of another workweek is made sweeter by the forbearing knowledge of the inevitable drunk weekend. Perhaps people drink and drug to destroy that internal spark of universal creativity that exists within us all but which is sadly neglected by the standards of our society, a phenomenon that causes wounds that are only temporarily mended by the use of drugs and alcohol. Maybe its to quiet that feeling of hopelessness one may experience when the spiritual void expanding in every fiber of his molecular being begins to cause him bouts of self pity and regret. Or perhaps one consumes drugs and alcohol in a self destructive protest of his sickening environment and the dying world around him, which brings him to his knees like a child crying to the man in the moon.

Whatever the reason for drink and drug may be, I had attempted to utilize these substances as tools in the desperate attempt to make sense of my existence, truly desiring a life of personal discovery, which led to the eventual painstaking abandonment of all outward expectations and of all earthly obsessions, including the abuse of poisonous consumables. The individuals who choose the path of discovery rather than the one of complacency are typically those social rejects and misfits, sometimes the perfectly lost and sensitive beings who decide consciously or unconsciously to devote their lives to the search of truth in spite of western societal standards of success and growth, that they may discover happiness in its most pure and basic incarnation in a realm of colorful creativity.

And so I stand on this waterfront, appalled at the catastrophic amount of plastic reminders strewn before me, reminders of the millions of people forever committed to vacant patterns of existence, reminders of the degradation of the human spirit which wanders the elaborate highways of the modern era, and reminders of all that is damaged and lost in the preservation of the American dream.

And in this bath of sadness and helplessness I soak, allowing the muddy waters to coat the vibrancy inherent in every man and woman who believes even for a moment that he can change the fate of humanity. Change the fate of humanity…and it is on this strand of thought that perhaps one of life’s most valuable teaching’s can be learned, simply and honestly: perhaps our society has become so incredibly obsessed with the material, so deeply misguided from the natural and harmonious design for living created by forces much greater than the wealthiest man. Even though we live in a place in time where productivity is valued over creativity, where the individual in order to achieve individuality must deny the sugar coated fruits born of the American ideologies and forever filter all that passes through his senses, even though a walk through a crowded metropolitan street reeks of foul odors and toxic waste, an odorous ode to the industrial empire, even so…the individual nonetheless retains within him that special aspect of his being which connects him to his natural world. It is this special aspect that allows the individual to form entirely unique relationships with all else that lives and breathes around him. We invite animals of differing types as members of our family, we are fascinated at the wildlife at the zoo, we attend to gardens and landscapes, and we quiet our mouths and our minds as a bird soars majestically over our heads. However, the most undeniable display of the sacred characteristic of every human being is an honest desire to escape the static chaos of modern societal rituals and find a place where the pace is as gradual as the rising of the sun and where no evidence of human settlement seems invading or disruptive to the balance which bleeds a soft melody into the eyes and ears of those spiritually awakened to the point of experience. A warm candlelit bath, a walk on the delicate sand illuminated by the reflection of the moon dancing on the water, scaling the cliffside of a magnificent mountain, quiet conversation beneath the grandeur of a twinkling sky: all activities that the individual, in an effort to name the energy vibrating through the channels of his body whilst engaging, might call heaven.

This particular connect between the individual and the external is ever so important in these modern times of environmental and moral need. Indeed, a mass revolution is unlikely to headline the evening news, and the American beast is ever too healthy to retire. However, the persistent efforts of selfless advocates and activists, committed individuals and ordinary comrades who have not their own interest at heart, but that of the collective greater good, are what bring the issues of global distress out from the archives and into the mainstream flow of information exchange, sparking the births of many organized coalitions directed at education and positive progressive change.  Acting with the knowledge of the history of real forces which have driven the modern state to these devastating circumstances, or simply acting in harmony with the basic laws of existence, these individuals offer aid when and where needed without any expectation of monetary or verbal praise or profit.  Truly we have entered a period in this chapter of our current existence characterized by tones of global awareness and an undeniable need for change. Even those who prowl the avenues at dusk in name brand shoes and electronic jewelry are not blind to the armies of sidewalk trash they must conquer in order to reach their destination, and now a day at the beach seems more accurately described as a visit to the museum of the byproducts of American imperialism, featuring the sea life graveyard and the exhibit of poisonous plastic products, sponsored in part by corporate expansion and funded by a history of neglect and ignorance. The finest technology and most recent scientific discoveries may not be able to reverse the effects of global pollution, specifically the problem of plastic, and American Big Business seems to have no primary interest in yielding their waste production in favor of typically more expensive but earth friendly alternatives. But not all hope is lost, as people begin to emerge from their cocoons dressed as warriors and voiced like true leaders, intent upon ending the cycle of negligence and passivism once and for all.

And it is here where the muddy waters of the bath of pitiful indulgence are washed away, and the vibrancy and enthusiasm is returned, as I take a moment to watch the girl, a garbage picker in one hand and a pail in the other, the tan of her skin glowing through the holes in her denim overalls, the youthfulness of her face barely visible beneath the bill of her ball cap, first picking up one piece of garbage ,and then another, a beautiful representation of the human potential to make a difference in one small corner of the world. I too bend my spine so that hands may greet the earth, and rid this beachfront of at first one piece of plastic, and I realize that change truly is possible however insignificant it may seem; it begins with the simple action manufactured on behalf of the ever so popular dream of a clean inhabitable earth, a dream in which every human operates under the philosophy that we should pay retribution to the universe that spawned us all.