I was at a cafe sipping my umpteenth cup of coffee, absorbed in the literature that has come to consume the entirety of my waking life and pondering a breath of sweet Indian smoke when I opened this letter. At first, my ego was satisfied with skimming the contents quickly and returning to the comfort of my toxic mind-space, but as I settled into his words I found a sort of calm, and in reading the message, in removing my attention from myself and onto the words I was inevitably enlightened; here, before me, is the truth that people have the power to heal themselves, that no matter where you come from and what your troubles are, the very thing you desire is entirely within your means to achieve; that, like Jason, in letting go and removing yourself from the insanities all around, you discover a sort of peace of mind that comes only when you no longer seek to grasp it.

His story, indeed, symbolizes the greatest ‘becoming’ of us all; it represents the most precious lOve story ever, that is, the lOve we fOrm with Ourselves as we re-fOrm Our lOve with essence, nature:

Shed old skin however best suits your desires; but do so soon and you will become wise beyond any level the best authority could grant. By removing yourself, relieving yourself of superficial duties and unnecessary attachments you allow yourself access to the highest source of infinite power, strength, hope, and love; be humbly and daringly open, accept that life is your challenge not to win but to surrender, and flow into it with the same respect you would offer the sea if you found yourself on a surf board, on a wave, powerless and in awe of the expanse of unity that could bring even the strongest warrior to his knees.

Jason Writes:

I know you would love this amazing California beach trip. I wish you could see this Shammy. I didn’t know who to write to I just had the urge to write, so I know you would appreciate this. Excuse my poor writing I am new to this. The peacefulness that this trip has granted me greatly triumphs every possession that I have and its “ability” to assist in my happiness. This is what being free truly feels.

Right now I am sitting lying in my car somewhere south of highway 1, which by the way is just as beautiful heading south as it is heading north. I got to Santa Cruz today early morning and surfed Pleasure point for high tide. You wouldn’t believe the seaweed there. I kept getting completely tangled in it and would be absolutely destroyed by the waves when I was there. This definitely wasn’t a rookie surfs spot. The hardest thing about surfing is getting actually out to where you wait patently for waves. When there are good swells it is near impossible. It takes every bit of strength you have to battle nature at its finest. So many times you just feel overwhelmed by the ocean. As soon as you overcome the wave another one instantly attacks you. The constant pounding makes it seem like it would be so much easier to just head back in.  I personally feel that it’s a sign of respect for the ocean, almost a test. You must past the pounding waves to be allowed to ride them.  The ocean is so unforgiving to those to don’t respect it.

After a few hours in the water the low tide set in. I took a break for lunch and started driving south through Capitola. I found the most amazing sandwich place ever. Had lunch there and ended up meeting some locals who guided me to Steamers Lane. Steamers lane is a cool surf spot south of Capitola that works well at low tide, so I went there and surfed for an hour or two. The ocean bottom was hard rock. Next to coral reefs this is the most unforgiving. The most amazing part of this spot is the inaccessibility of it. The water comes up all the way to the cliff; there is little to no beach left. Definitely somewhere you don’t want to get caught. There is a large lookout over the cliff filled with people watching in awe of the surfers completely shredding the wave or completely wiping out. There were also a few surfers that never surfed this spot. I started talking to them and we completely analyzed and planned our surf (all good surfers do this).  Time really doesn’t seem to matter right now. The only way I have been able to tell is by the sun. I went to take a post surf nap in the car (much earned) and ended up passing out for about 4 hours. I woke up and it was nighttime.

Heading back to the beach it was marked with the bright lights of the Saturday night bonfires. Here I met a bunch of people from Monterrey. We exchanged stories and danced the night away, cold sand beneath my feet. Ironically it was total surf hippie music. I wish you could see the stars here. It looks like they are neatly scattered across the sky. So bright and vibrant, they will keep me company tonight. I can hear the beautiful peaceful sound of the waves crashing down in harmony as I sit here in my car and write you. That’s it for tonight. Time to catch some shuteye.

I slept like crap last night. The only place I found that I could crash was right off the freeway. It got so cold at points too. It is strange to me that on a normal day that would completely bum me out. However I had some fruit for breakfast and was instantly put in a wonderful mood. I started driving to somewhere I could surf the sunrise. I put one of a few CD’s that my friend gave me for this trip and re-discovered Missy Higgins. (I went to the concert with Shereen.  Her voice could bring peace to war. Missy’s, not Shereen’s; haha) . She is amazing.

I ended up at Carmel Beach to surf the morning. The water is so clear and blue here its amazing, perfectly contrasted with pure white sand. It looks like it could be in a movie. The water here is ice cold though and the water was more of a rolling wave (good for long boards not short), so I was not able to surf long. Afterwards I started heading down south again and stopped by a Whole Foods to grab some grub. I ended up only buying fruit (apples, mangos, bananas, and a pineapple) and tons of water. I stopped somewhere on the coast to take a nap and relax for a while. It’s still crazy to me that I have nowhere to be and I can just go as I feel. That feeling is more amazing than anything.

Furthering in driving I came across Sand Dollar beach near Big Sur.  You couldn’t believe the price of everything down here. Gas and food is crazy. I think I will have enough gas to get me to my next destination tomorrow though. I think this is going to be my camp spot tonight and I will be heading down to Santa Barbra tomorrow. I started talking to these people and they even invited me to have dinner with them at their house. We skim boarded for a while and it was amazing.  I didn’t tell you that I love skim boarding too huh. However, I decided to get a head start on tomorrow. The further south I get the more breathtaking the beaches are and the more I wish that you were here with me. You would truly appreciate this more that ever. Highway 1 goes all the way down the California coast.

I started thinking about my life as sit here overlooking the Pacific Ocean. I think I am going to have a few goals before I decide to make drastic changes.

1.Eliminate liabilities. I have discovered that possessions mean nothing in comparison to experience. On my trip I instantly want to take every hour of TV watching and video game playing back. I have no memories of doing these things. Every memory of you and I sticks out in my head so vibrant and motivates me in life.

2.Improve my health. After a few days of surfing my arms and shoulders are torn. It is seriously wearing on me. My goal is to get mavericks water-ready by next year, not during competition mode but enough where I could be out there with the best. I have been out in the water where there were huge 15+ foot waves and it is so scary. Imagine looking up and there’s 15 feet of water above your head. Even when you duck, dive or turtle roll through the wave it feels like your are being hit by the force a bomb would create.  You dive in and it’s like a sonic boom.

3.Education. I have discovered that I think I am in need of a major change. I’m thinking communications (not mass communications, there is no money in that). I want to do something I love and communication is it. Everyone loves me; they cant help it.

I can’t believe I am writing you an essay.

I’m getting more towards So Cal and the water is getting much more warm and crowded.  Everyone seems so superficial here. They definitely don’t appreciate the little things. I did catch the most epic wave today though. I rode it all the way to its end. Flying past surfers and other swimmers, it was one of the greatest feelings that I have ever had. The feeling that you are completely in harmony with the wave is breath taking. You understand each other and you are working perfectly together to create something beautiful. My heart was beating so fast after. All I wanted to do was run and yell. You should have seen the smile on my face. I don’t think it’s ever been that big.

So my album for the day is ‘The Who’. It complements the drive so nicely. Tomorrow I will be driving back to the bay and for the first time in the trip there is somewhere…

I’m down as Pismo beach and it’s just littered with people. There is nothing inviting about this place. It is kind of neat that the surf breaks due to a large pier. However it doesn’t allow for a long ride. The last thing you want to want to be is stuck between a large wood beam and a crashing wave. I don’t think I caught one wave today. There was just way too many people. So I headed in to do some homework. It is amazing that I can sit in my car, perfectly angled so I cannot see the crowded beach; just ocean, sun and sky. I wish I could do homework here every day. I can just focus. Especially no internet and phone to give me any distractions. The only regret is that there is a small part of me that wants some pillow talk at night. I can only hint upon what I see and how I feel. I think I could do a better job verbally describing it to you. Talking about this experience probably wouldn’t give it any justice either. I think showing you may be the only way.

People down here do not appreciate what I am doing, unlike the people more north who thought it was amazing. A lot of people ask me where I’m from and what I am doing.

As soon as I was ready to give up on So Cal I met this old surfer. This man was the most peaceful person I have ever met in my life. He kind of reminded me of that guy from Surfer, Dude. I went and had lunch with him and he taught me so much. Its amazing how wise he is. Here are a few quotes from the old man.

“Surfing is much like love, it always feels good, no matter how many times you’ve done it.”

“Very few people life live anymore. Life lives them.”

“Listen brother, if there is one thing I am going to teach you today is that I have never stressed one day in my life. I have lived it more

 than any other person could say. I have nothing and only that reason alone gives me everything. Live peaceful young brother.”

CRAZY right. I asked him if he had a phone number or email to exchange and he said that he would always be somewhere by the beach if I wanted to ride with him. He has no phone or email. Amazing…

Well I am heading home tomorrow so I won’t bore you anymore with this.

Live Life Shammy, Be Peaceful.

Love,

Jason

-”This is for all them girls who have ever been made to feel ugly by an even uglier man”. – Violet

 I told a man to go fuck himself today; it was after he looked me deep in my eyes and whispered those sweet sweet words. It was after we made love. It was after he revoked the meaning of every meaningful thing he had ever revealed to me. It was after he draped a cloak around his secret vulnerability and reacted like the coward who fires his gun before the bear begins to charge; it was after he looked me deep in my eyes and whispered those nasty, nasty words. Ya’ll know what I mean, no matter the actual content it was the way he said it; I mean, he said a million things and acted a hundred colorful ways but I absorbed only the base line of his poisonous message and it went something like this: “boom boom, I don’t want you in my life, boom boom, I don’t want you in my life, boom boom…”. I felt it. It hurt. I felt ugly. I felt small. I felt like runnin’ and divin’ into the coldest water to freeze the growth of sensitivity and pain, but I didn’t. I just swallowed and smiled and said, “its alright boy. You are the last brother from the tribe of indifferent men that I will ever dance with. I can say a proper goodbye now. Thank you for the challenge mister, now go fuck yourself”.

 This is gon’ be my new way, I think, makin’ it my bus’ness to know where those men come from, and tellin’ ‘em how I truly feel. Ain’t like I’m doing nothin’ wrong, I mean I ain’t hurtin’ nobody really. It ain’t my problem if he takes it personally, right? I’m just livin’ my life is all, and he should know better anyhow. Its like, what do you think is gon’ happen when you wear your selfish expectations as openly as your troubled grin? I ain’t here to please nobody! I ain’t layin’ down the right to bear myself, no way am I gon’ spread my legs kindly so he can have a taste of true power. I ain’t givin’ nothin’ to nobody that ain’t already pourin’ freely from the flow of things; why force myself further? Ain’t enough you’ve got that girl between your legs you wanna sew her up after you done, you wanna brand your name like a pretty little scar that she’ll forever wear as a reminder that she’s a missin’ a piece of her heart to you.

 I’ve been had and I’ve been a means to an end for many a mischievous man but I say enough! They made me, ya know, as a girl comin’ up in this world, tricked by every fake kiss and every false prophecy spoken from the filthy grave of his soiled dreams; I believed that love was when your name felt safe in the mouth of a well-respected man. Uh, uh, no way; and now I’ve paid my dues and I have been God-honored with the authority to love nobody but myself, and if the mosquitoes want a taste of my blood then let them have it; they’ll prick the skin of another man soon, and that will be my victory when the shaft of his cock is swollen with regret of having behaved a devil’s fool; guilt itches, my friend. Itch it long and good, watch how it changes you, I’ll wear a rosy dress to celebrate the rise and fall of your oozing fantasies, ha! I’ll bite harder than any alligator I swear, I’m tired of resting in the swamps next to other second-hand ladies; through rouge and globs of lip paint they slur from too many sips of moonshine while the moonlight shines on their tears that the water beast dries with his yellow eyes.

 I ain’t one them girls who jus’ wanna man, ya hear? I ain’t wanna sit ’round, and sip tea and talk about fancy things with lace, and whisper lyrics and batter my eyes and smell nice things and have nice things: I ain’t lookin’ for nothing from you: not acceptance nor approval, not a warm blanket or a humble bed, not a compliment or a dare, not nothin’ you can do to change me slightly, not no way for you to keep me comin’ round cause I dance to the beat of distant drums, harmonic gifts of direction granted by higher things, higher than the way you feel when you see me smile that smile that ain’t got nothin’ to do with you, not no more; I’m stronger than I seem, grace is not weak but tender like a mother lion with her cubs. Don’t you know boy? When spirits are suppressed, when they are confined, ya see, they revolt to any extreme; the spirit knows only how to be itself and it will do so under any condition, under any circumstance, whether you speak its language or not it will rise within and swell like the tides of the sea when the full moon calls. It’s like, you can take a person and you can train them and mold them and teach them how you want them to be, you can tell them that some things jus’ ain’t right and others are plain wrong, but it ain’t no use; you only gonna make a murderer, or a liar, or a rapist, or a drunk; stiflin’ energies morph and manifest in unwholesome ways when left to rot on the shelves of a restricted heart.

 So, boy, I release myself from the bonds that have held me down; turns out they were of my own makin’; but ya’ll can’t convince me to stitch them again. No way, I have a voice as strong as a million angry bees and though my soul is lyin’ on the side of a road a ruby stone in my chest has been graciously restored. So again, i”ll say it with mighty conviction, those sweet sweet words I’ll whisper in your ear; “go fuck yourself”.

Chico

Too many words

I only need a few;

modesty is a dress

I wear

on the night of

this bruised moon

Silence I wear

like the weight in my eyes

Drag the color brown;

drag it into this bruised night

My mind says to end

but with words I can pretend

that forever is fancy

and fortune is free

and love is the last mile

crossing

the distant breeze

So with fewer words

and fewer words still,

say back to me

once more, my rosy thrill

You brought me here

I am strong for it I fear;

but ride further with you still?

(The outline of this bruised moon

is where old blood rests upon window sills)

Too many words

I only need a few

I’ll say only ‘yes’

Simply and

before old blood

demands regress

So with fewer words

and fewer words until

I relax into the morning;

it asks to be still

4th Step

I know why you wear your glasses to bed: you’re afraid you wont see what’s coming when you’re asleep, that if you open your eyes and have a moment to react you may react wrongly because you cant see…I know this…I watch you sleeping, I see those eyes moving in the space on your face while you wait at the edge of dreams for a reason to engage your reflexes and then boom! Too late; the nightmare is real and blood is already pouring; if only you had been wearing your glasses…

And what diet have you consumed that has left you so bloated with fear? Who has your heart in a bind and who before has pricked it a million times with nasty needles of demented perfection? You seek approval in all forms, wanting to be wanted by all people in all ways. And when you fail to find that source of acceptance you suffer a gentle stab, you  feel it sink in and slide around, you feel it grow around your heart and change you, you feel it arrest your thoughts and turn them so that they are unfamiliar and throbbing like your pulse that sets the tone for your prize of resentment.

You will cry now, wont you? Remembering the pleasant taste of freedom, a memory vague and teasing, like the flavor of strawberry licked from the fingers of your vacant sweetheart. Why do you source the misery from which you run? Is there a place to phrase the pickled prayers of a self-anointed princess? You are nothing, you think. You have nothing and you come from people who have less still. So go, then, leave this world like you’ve wanted before; the skin of your wrists is already written with scar tissue gossip of a lonely end.

And to whom are you now attached, I wonder? From whom do you leech the vibrant energy of approval? Does he say ‘I love you?’ And what do you reply? You might sit still and soften those eyes behind the forged glass that shields your sinister intentions; so afraid to be alone you keep him with your smile all the while you silently repeat the mantra of mortal insecurity in your mind: ‘please don’t leave me, please don’t leave me, please don’t leave me….’ You’re so afraid to be alone! The form of the man is no matter so long as he craves you, cradling your virginity or catering to your finite innocence with the force of his fist; to you it is no matter. The kind one thinks of himself the answer to your history of abuse, the ill-tempered one sees you as weak and sees him a savior who violently demands recognition of his heroic cock.

Is it security you seek? Daily sessions of unconditional affirmation? Like congealed animal fat the weight of your uncertainties hangs in pockets of condensed self-pity, you roam the earth a victim of the hurt you have been prescribed by the crooked sources of power in your sick society: you believe them though all they have done is reduced you to another consumer casualty waiting to wear an American flag around the grave;  in death you’ll be as valued as the cost of your tomb. Until then, I hate the way your lips coil around the words of your favorite pop-star icon.

I know you fight it, you’re wrapped in your own skin shaking like a dying dog, a look of anger drips wet with worry and is smeared across the canvas of your nighttime portrayal. It is pain to descend into darkness, to release the demons you have all day concealed with a half-ass smile and neon bright words that defend your make-believe bliss. For you life is a thin dress of sugar which coats a swollen seed of malcontent.

What would you need to release the beast? How long until you give birth to your morbid offspring; a word or a glance or a thought or a sentence that spews like vomit from your soured insides? You deliver unto the world that with which it has you impregnated; coils of hurt, anger, hatred, and grief. Your life is a permanent gestation of a broken fetus with a broken heart; your child wears the crown of thorns long before it’s born, she is doomed to carry the burden of a thousand stubborn mistakes; thank you, mother murderer.

So what now? You’ll sleep eventually, wearing the pink frames or cuddling them close to the scabs on the knuckles of your graying hands, awaking to feed your aging addictions, one by one they surface and you place them in line, one after another, each one fulfilled only brings you closer to the next; you cherish your alcoholic itinerary and so long as you’re awake you function like a machine driven by a programmed response that has you constantly inputting random data and outputting arbitrary waste, the sad cycle of someone convinced they are deprived and only partially a person.

So you learn of things which only jumble spiritual reception and from it you produce no good action except the action to deny that divinity exists outside of dreams. You are alone, you prefer to be alone, so no one can ever get close enough to learn why it is that you wear your glasses to bed… but I know, I watch you as you sleep…

“In fairytales I have not only learned of the existence of vampires but of the possibility to transcend human-ness, of the potential to become something much more powerful…” Rasham Nassar

I was standing under the pale glow of the moon at an intersection of two barren streets wondering in which direction I should continue to walk. My red dress was all I had for defense against the slight chill of the night breeze, and without shoes upon my feet I felt vulnerable to the inevitable darkness that threatened my sense of security. I looked left, then right, forward and behind. I was waiting for some form of cosmic inspiration to motivate a decision, and just as I was about to forfeit this night’s mission to nowhere I saw a shadow move in the mist and saw from it the shape of a man emerge, walking with the breeze upon his shoulders.

What is he doing here? He’s walking towards me. I panicked, my pulse quickened as he crossed the space between us. I thought I should run but I didn’t want to initiate a chase, so I remained crippled by fear of the approaching stranger. I braced myself as he was now close enough for me to see his immense height, his flawless build and his piercing blue eyes embedded within the masculinity of his rugged face: there wasn’t any way I could, barefoot and in a dress, win the prize of my life at the mercy of this man.

‘Hi’, I said under my breath. I was shaking, nervous, a thousand thoughts raced through the space above me, and then he said

‘Have you ever danced in the arms of a stranger in the light of the moon on a summer’s night?’

‘I have to go…’

‘Don’t…its okay love. Come into my arms…’

‘Umm..really, I would like to go…thanks for the offer-’

I turned to walk away and I felt something cold upon the skin of my shoulder: it was his hand, gently keeping me from escaping this most strange of circumstances. I turned around to face him, and a single tear trickled down the blushed skin of my cheek: he wasn’t going to let me leave, and in this moment of realization I surrendered to him, for better or for worse I couldn’t resist his desire to have me.

He held me in both his arms now, and with the moon overhead and the wind tickling the fabric of my dress I felt as though the entire world was watching. We swayed in rhythm to the invisible patterns on the ground, he led and I followed. When he felt the moisture from my tears dampen the skin beneath the fabric of his shirt he lifted my chin so that his eyes penetrated my fit of despair and he said, ‘don’t cry, love’. Had he released me then I wouldn’t have gone far for the memory of my life past dissolved in his radiance.

He leaned in to kiss me, and I was pleasured by the sweet taste of his tongue, his vigorous way told me he was sexually ravenous. I could stay in this place forever, I wanted to, and he pulled away so that I could see his eyes which had fire in the pits of them, a single thread of scarlet swirls which I thought was the disfigured reflection of my dress, but I noticed red drops that painted the tips of my toes. Blood…from where? My hand found my face and then a source of warm syrup from the edge of my mouth: had he bit my lip? My eyebrows crossed and my arms tensed, and he must have sensed my sudden hesitation, because he smiled dangerously and held me firmer still as he bent down to greet the flesh of my neck with his mouth; I ignored every impulse I had to remove myself from his embrace. And then he bit me, and I was startled by the sudden pain but it seemed almost as insignificant a wound as a mosquito bite, as if he exchanged my blood for some ethereal fluid which injected me with supreme orgasmic energy. I didn’t want him to stop, and every time his teeth advanced to a deeper point within the layers of flesh on my neck I moaned with pleasure. I could hear him swallow and wished he would drink it all, drink me forever, though I was growing weak and my eyes were heavy. I looked to see if I was still standing but I couldn’t discern the clouds of fog from the patches of silver stones in the cement. Every tangible thing lost its definition and molded together so that a streetlamp looked like the tallest tree in a forest of parking meters and newspaper stands. I seemed to be waltzing with him while all the channels of life were visibly in motion, like two dancers in the center of an aggravated snow globe. Despite my deluded perception I felt the absence of his jaw and so I turned to faced him. I was curious as to why he had stopped and so I said,

‘What now?” I managed to force these words past my tired tongue.

“Love”, he said with exhaustion, as feral strands of burgundy slithered down his chin, “You will follow me still, I have come to guide you, to give you that which your subconscious has been dangerously deprived. You have been disappointed by many people before in the past. I will not disappoint you.” He held me and I wondered for how much longer I could feign composure: I wanted to fall into the abyss of this inspirational high. Because I was afraid of losing him I said what I thought he wanted to hear, and what I needed to affirm in order to retreat into sleep for the remainder of the evening; ‘I’m yours”, and with that my eyes were closed and I fell heavily into his arms. I placed one hand over the open wound on my neck for warmth until his teeth found the grooves and he began to drink from me once more.

I awoke eager to begin the journey home, and upon opening my eyes my mind opened plainly to the resolution of last night’s affair. I felt as though I were standing on a flattened image of the globe in an historic rail station; there was no longer any mystery involved in my account of all things rare and unknown. But there were no rail stations here, no pictures familiar and nothing with which to excite the shallowest of memories: I was alone, in a red dress without shoes, in a place that seemed as bleak as the day the earth was born. I had this uncanny urge to provoke the heights of my own awareness and I did this easily without the exploitation of my physical senses by concentrating my mind on the stillness.

Had I dreamed the man in the light of the moon? I felt my neck and felt reassured: indeed there had been a moment of surrender, though I didn’t feel any less whole. Where am I? I stepped into the light but I felt this knot grow inside of me: it burned as though it was too big to fit within my heart, and I feared it was either going to manifest into some form of viscous destruction or whither away like the whimpers of a scared puppy with his tail between his legs. I reclined into the shadows of my birthplace, the only attribute of this virgin immediacy that offered solace and shade. I knew only one thing as clear as the presence of bite marks on my body: I was cured of my ridiculous humanistic impulses; I could not feel them anymore. The want for life, for success, for love, for peace, for happiness; these obsessions were gone from me, and I had only curiosity and hunger in its place.

Just then I had a thought that flew erratically through my mind like the pattern of a crippled butterfly in flight, it was this: ‘when the student is ready, the teacher will always appear’. This thought caused me great delight; I had been chosen a student of the stranger in the night, to learn to be like him in ways of which I had yet to awaken, though I was already beginning to become something powerful.

I sat in a corner of this place until nightfall on the second day, waiting for him to come though not at all upset when he didn’t. I decided then, when the last rays of sun had been squandered by the victory of the moon that I would go for a walk.

Outside the air was scented with the stench of heavy machinery and the ground had heat in it still, and the sounds were baritone though rudely laudable as to thwart the steady rhythm of my stride.

I saw a man struggling at the reigns of a fleet of dogs, a woman alone and aloof trudging in high heels on her way home from work, a child sobbing for a dose of love at the hips of his indifferent mother. I saw the things man had made, the things they had broken, those things they had taken and the things they left behind. I saw them for what they were: a culture of creatively suppressed vessels passively executing a viral purpose; to feed, to multiply, to elaborate the illness and offer nothing in return.

I laughed in the absence of empathy; I could not feel sorry for them anymore, nor pity their pathetic ways. I only wanted to put them out of their misery; they would die eventually as victims of their own selfishness and greed, though I knew I had the power to spare an innocent few while the rest continued along, blind to the inevitable death of the world as it has been most popularly known.

As I walked I noticed how easy it was to refuse all manmade diversions; I was interested only in the human apart from his human things. I would do to a man what the stranger had done to me: remove all knowledge acquired by the consequence of a societal existence and replace it with a thirst for curiosity, fueled by the unconditional desire for purity and the unbiased appreciation of numerical origins.

A virtual display of truth unfolded before my mind’s eye and I began to understand my part as student; I was made to wander in the dark amongst an infinity of potentials, a place where light is unborn and where energies brew and systems work in accordance with numbers. I was elated to have discovered this fact of myself, and happy to have realized the greater mission represented that I decided I would share it with someone. And on my walk that was marked by the presence of rabid bats in the crowns of trees overhead, I found a man in a red shirt and slacks wearing holes in his shoes, looking as disenchanted and bored as ever a man was intended to seem. I walked up to him and his scent was a refreshing discord from the atmosphere around, and his eyes widened at the sight of me, and I said, ‘Have you ever danced in the arms of a stranger in the light of the moon on a summer’s night?’

‘I don’t have money, if that is what you’re after’.

‘Don’t…its okay love. Come into my arms…’

‘Umm..really, I should go…thanks for the offer-’

He made a move to flee the oddity of my approach and I found it funny that a man as spiritually penniless as he would fear the greatest offer of God from a girl in a red dress. With his back slightly turned I placed my hand upon his shoulder, gently keeping him from escaping this beautiful circumstance. He turned around to face me, and a single tear trickled down the blushed skin of his cheek: he knew I wasn’t going to let him leave, and in this moment of realization he surrendered to me, for better or for worse he couldn’t resist my desire to have him.

I held him in both arms now, and with the moon overhead and the wind tickling the fabric of my dress I knew all the world was watching. We swayed in rhythm to the invisible patterns on the ground, I led and he followed. I felt the moisture from his tears dampen the skin beneath the fabric of my dress and I lifted my chin so that my eyes penetrated his fit of uncertainty and I said, ‘don’t cry, love’. Had I released him then he wouldn’t have gone far for the memory of his life past was beginning to dissolve in this radiance.

I leaned in to kiss him, and I was pleasured by the sweet taste of his tongue: I became ravenous, and in the heat of the embrace I happened to draw blood from his lip, and I had to pull away because I felt it snake through me like a single thread of scarlet swirls in the pits of my eyes. His hand found his face and then a source of warm syrup from the edge of his mouth. His eyebrows crossed and his arms tensed, and in sensing his sudden hesitation I only smiled and held him firmer still. I bent down to greet the flesh of his neck with my mouth and I bit into him, extracting sweet drops of ethereal fluid, nursing him like one would the butt of a cigar. He was like a kitten in the grips of mother cat’s jaw, patient and willing, as though the incision from which I sipped was as insignificant a wound as a mosquito bite. I felt him quiver though not from fear, we were together exchanging supreme orgasmic energies, and he leaned into me as my teeth advanced to a deeper point within the layers of flesh on his neck all the while he spoke in the language of moans. I wanted to drink it all, drink him forever, though he was growing weak, and I was feeling bloated and lethargically craving a conclusion, and so I released his skin from my lips and gazed across the pavement when I noticed that I couldn’t discern the clouds of fog from the patches of stones in the cement. Every tangible thing lost its definition and molded together so that the protruding muffler of a steel framed station wagon looked like the striped tail of a rainforest predator. We were waltzing while all the channels of life were visibly in motion, like the fluid movements of a sorrowful conductor before the sympathetic members of his band. He must have felt the absence of my jaw because he turned to face me and said,

‘What now?”

“Love”, I said with exhaustion, as feral strands of burgundy slithered down my chin, “You will follow me still, I have given you that which your subconscious has been dangerously deprived. You have been disappointed by many people before in the past. I will not disappoint you.’ I held him and I wondered for how much longer I could feign composure: I wanted to float into the abyss of this inspirational high. ‘I’m yours ‘, he said, and his eyes closed and he fell heavily into my arms, and he placed one hand over the open wound on his neck for warmth until I laid him upon the striated particles of a park bench. I couldn’t resist the urge to violate the boundaries of his flesh, so I began to drink from him once more.

I left him only moments later, rising tall and waking the relics of midnight bound by the gravitational pull of the aqueous moon. My vision confused reality but I was seeing past the deliberate dilapidation of brick roads and chimney horns and instead was privileged to a private showing of the potentials of earth without the burden of raising mankind. My state of exhaustion was more a state of deep meditation as though I was riding alone on a crest of an ocean wave. I understood clearly how the world was mine, yet I had no desire for profit at the detriment of earth’s fine organics; I wanted only to experience its natural forces and stop those with a need to pollute the natural design.

And this was the prescription for the universe, I could only assume, that mankind would perish as the prophecies had foretold, though not in a fiery descent like in the tales of ancient kings, nor beneath a foamy lather of sea-green tides, nor in an epic battle of one man’s country before another man’s pride: no, mankind would perish as another breed of life slowly took its place. A breed of beings that were evolving, breathing the air and walking the ground as advocates for all things feared and misunderstood, leeching life from the leeches. I skipped along under the pale glow of the light of the moon, wondering in which direction I should continue to walk; I looked left, then right, forward and behind, and just when I was about to forfeit this night’s mission to nowhere I saw a shadow move in the mist and saw from it the shape of a man emerge, walking with the breeze upon his shoulders.

‘The world is ours’, he said. ‘It now belongs to all the night-time strangers thought once to exist only in the words of bedtime fairytales. I told you, love, that I would not disappoint you’. He came towards me and my mind filled with all the idealistic passions of a wild horse racing freely across the desert plains, and we stood together under the pale glow of the moon at an intersection of two barren streets.

What a rude awakening to awake to the news of nature’s ‘fury’ as we scramble to make sense of senseless acts of slaughter. In the media aftermath nature is portrayed as a problem because of repeat global episodes of unpredictability occurring in patterns of infrequency. Nature becomes our enemy, our oppressor, an obstacle to overcome, a detriment to our efforts of survival. Man vs. Nature, a concept that implies a duality, a distinct separation stressed between all things ‘man’, and all things ‘nature’.

We challenge nature, use our methods of containment, manipulation, modification, and domination. Every interaction we have with nature is one colored by this impression of it: that we see it as some devilish force pushing opposite our motives that go unquestioned and assured.

And when any such thing happens as a violent rain, a swarm of hungry microbes, an earthquake, a drought, oceanic shock waves, flooding, species endangerment, beached whales, dead dolphins, heat spells, rising water levels, melting ice, or an increase in the intensity of storms and surges we think of it as a natural dilemma, and we hang our heads and clean our messes and continue on as we have in the past. We spray the crops with contaminants, we poison the water with the byproducts of modern invention, we deplete the world of resources for our own stubborn use, we dispose of our garbage in the habitats of world’s creatures, we build fences and bridges and causeways and entire city structures across the landscapes of living nature, we suck and feed and leech the life from our planet like a virus from its host, believing that we must survive in this manner or perish, and shall anything attempt to demonstrate otherwise, should some earthly event consume our achievements and swallow our neighbors we only unite in remorse and fight the force of nature armed with the strength of 2400 years of misguided science and fueled by the false presumption that she threw the first punch.

Man vs. Nature: what a silly idea to think of man as separate from nature, as operating under a different set of principles from the very thing which spawned him! But it has been done, and now it must be undone: we are in desperate need of a revolution of thought, and our perspective of our relationship to our environment must be deconstructed and reconstructed so as to conform to the design of planet earth.

The green revolution is a disgraceful attempt to remedy this fallacy of human consciousness, targeting the sympathetic tendencies of the average person by overwhelming him with images of dying polar pups and apocalyptic repercussions of stringent denial. It has become the marketable face of corporations and policy, the hot new item on the shelf, the ‘must have’ and the ‘can’t do without’. The mission of this so called period of ‘going green’ has not the best interest of nature at heart. Rather the greedy lechery of business CEO’s and their monetary objectives are all that stand to profit. Nature is the exploited means to their end, where emotion is employed to produce empathy and regret; we are told to feel sorry for nature, to wrap our arms around her, to love her and protect her, to cuddle her creations and feel remorse for all we have done by complying with economically devious plans: heal the world by buying this product and that car, engage a quick fix to appease our justified feelings of guilt and daunting selfishness.

But this isn’t a probable solution at all, indeed there is no solution to the problem of nature because the problem isn’t nature, its mankind. And our destructive habits are but a symbol of our lack of reciprocity between man and his home planet. What must change is our way of thought. Man vs. Nature must become Man for Nature, we must revisit our history to understand the origins of our perpetual mistakes, we must identify as creatures of this planet no different than the ones perishing on our behalf, we must remember that nature is exactly that, something bigger, more powerful, and more universally profound than we. It is not to be subjected to our will and superiority but to be respected and trusted to restore its own inherent balance and beauty. We must understand that we can only truly be a positive contributor to earth by refusing to harmfully interfere, and instead vow to perform those acts which are in accordance to the laws of nature apart from our own self righteousness and egoist beliefs. Where before we have treated the symptoms of nature as though it is diseased and thus in need of a prescription remedy we need to understand the entirety of it, and in doing so we begin to see just how damaging our modern existence has become, and just how exactly to rectify our behavior.

Use the energy efficient light bubs, recycle your plastics, till your soil, treat yourself to organics: but know that these efforts are of but minimal impact in the grand scheme of it all. Nature will be fine, she may be changing, but it is mankind who needs to adapt to this change, and not nature which needs to be fixed. You cannot put a Band-Aid on the wounds of the world, though you can refuse to accept the idea that you can. All we have are our tools of submission to the truth of our parasitical collectiveness. Where most see a disaster in the current trends of nature’s explosive occurrences I see a wild animal bucking the pests from her back.

And then of course there is also the idea born from the mistrust of the supremely wealthy and the politically powerful players in the monopolistic structure of our society, where the forces of nature are in fact the forces of man; they have been harnessed, learned in laboratories in the world’s finest universities and government basements, where the most disturbing scientific research is conducted and released upon the most politically insignificant, monetarily poor, essentially helpless and morally dispensable civilizations of the world.

That we have the knowledgeable capacity to mimic and instigate natural disasters is unquestionable. Also unquestionable is the motivating consequence of such an action: to promote mass fear of our environment in an overwhelming consciousness, and subsequently urge the reliance upon those in power for answers and support who then guide the common majority in the engagement of investments in the marketable products of big business in return for security and protection from such events.

What is questionable is the audaciousness of men on earth: could they really be accountable for the deaths of thousands of innocent people and the consequent destruction of entire hometowns?

That question is not for me to answer, only to ask. My angle is not to sell or bargain information but to encourage the individual to conduct his own inquiry into the realities of his reality. In either case, whether nature be truly in and of herself reacting to years of human neglect and abuse, then she shall have her way and win her wars, and all we need do is sit back and watch our creations crumble in awe of the virtues of universal balance, and perhaps in our societies there will be born that personal humility that has been lacking for centuries on the western front. If on the contrary, the dramatic materialization of nature’s vivid episodes are purely a systemic effect of the active weapons of mankind intended to illustrate a false state of dire global circumstances, then so be it as well: in either case, again and again, from here and onward through time, let there be a light-bulb moment in the mind of every man, where he realizes either the poisonous essence of his own insignificance at the mercy of nature’s reprise, or accepts the unsettling potentials of man’s poisonous essence when the rulers of the world wield their wands and create from it the last day of life on earth.

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.