Journal: Lens

To attain true communication a universal language and sound need to be met in order to extract the lens of life that gives us the instruments to play with and the voice to sing in the orchestra of the universal.

My wife mentioned, “you’re writing is no longer so dark,” to me a few weeks back after reading one of my writings, and it kinda took me for a spin landing me here writing about it. Ever since then, here we are slowly dissecting and searching for how true that might be. Or is it an observation of her reality, and it ain’t mine?

Recently, a reading from “The Rhetorical Tradition” sent me down memory lane, the memory ended up being a page out of a book, that had a wooden anchor printed on a light-burned white paper, with a few roses bursting out from the bottom corners of the anchor, a rope wrapped it’s self around from top to bottom leaving space to showcase the beaten brown and black texture of the anchor. Written in block traditional letters above and below, “Everyone who walks into the same room, notices something different than you.” Basically, everyone who is not us looks at life from a completely different lens, than the lens we see through in each moment.

This theory came from a Philosopher named Kenneth Burke, who believes the lens we look through creates a different language even if it sounds like the same language. The terms and words being consumed are not always digested and understood the same for each person in a room. Based on the speaker or writer’s definition of the term or word being delivered can be taken out of context by the audience or individual who may be paying a listening ear.

My wife’s lens of my writing and knowing my upbringing leads to a lens of why she would use the word “dark,” after some searching, she is not wrong, it is logical. The reason for that shift is the change in my internal environment. Each letter, word, sentence, and paragraph, typed and written, every word, sentence, and story spoken have been the garden tools to trim the parts of me that no longer consumed air, and my garden, within me is now full of life. Still with lighting and thunderstorms, but understanding that the rain that comes from those clouds gives me water and the water is to help me grow when the sunlight is in my eyes.

As my heart learns how to navigate, the “dark,” that my wife means, it is no longer the only color in my paint kit, even light needs less exposure and more shadows. 

Micro-Essay: Start Up

Boom, Boom, Boom, my creative fist hammers the ground to show me a new potential business idea, and it is completely a brand new area for me. To start a co-working space. Where I live the community of people travel to and from work on one highway to get here, while others work remotely, and locally. The local area within a ten-mile radius has two coffee shops, a library, and Barnes and Noble. The closet co-working space is fifteen miles away. These places are the only few spots to find quiet outside of a home office. Over the years, my brain and heart have been working hard and learning a new craft which is to be more creative. If you have been following since before then, you know the path here turned out to be unexpected to an extent. My human design by nature is to create things, get them started, oversee them, and remove myself where I am not the manager of them anymore. Maybe that is the great thing about writing and storytelling due to their similarities. I create and move forward never being stuck on the same project over and over, again. 

Let me conduct a u-turn and get back to this idea of a co-working space. Since moving back to SoCal, my workspace is spent inside coffee shops, Barnes and Noble, a library, and sometimes outside at a park bench or panic table. Yet, there is always something missing, and this is my own space, a space that allows me to disappear mentally and into the astroplanes of creativity giving me the ability to focus more efficiently, tapping into my flow zone. The idea of renting out a spot that had a couple of offices has been orbiting inside me for a few months now, craving a place to create and separate work from home, plus it would give my wife the space to do so as well, instead of inside out bedroom where she seats in a corner and works from all day. This can be limiting for many others with similar setups who can benefit from a new environment, change of scenery, and potentially disconnect from home life completely during those blocks of work. 

A big part of my morning is spent inside a coffee shop, at times it can be limiting to a specific amount of activities that are accomplished based on being in a public setting. Podcasts are hard to perform without a quiet and private space, and meetings over zoom, google meetings, and Microsoft teams are at times a ball ache, plus it is hard to drop into a meeting and be fully invested at that moment, plus small business meetings are hard without the right tools and environment. The idea would be to build a community of like-minded individuals who want to be effective professionals and share similar values. The space is small, no more than seven-hundred square feet, and needs a pimp my crib makeover, it needs work and love. The great thing about that process of giving it work and love that it deserves, transforms energy for those who come to use it. As a person whose been working remotely for almost a decade, there are many skills, tips, and tricks that I have learned and kept. These times and experiences give me the confidence to offer classes and insights to be better high-performing individuals in their professional fields. 

One thing that has been shown to me since getting into the creative landscape is when an idea comes into you and wants to channel through you, and you choose to ignore it, or it will pick someone else. This has happened to me plenty of times and for good reason but others because I was too afraid. That isn’t the case for this idea, it would be my place to create, work from, plus offer a service to others who might need it as well. In today’s world, this type of business venture has shown to be very successful and unsuccessful.  The pattern for those who failed lacks uniqueness and heart, and if you truly know me, uniqueness runs free inside me inside my heart. 

Journal: Soft Target

Drenched in sweat from the twenty-three hundred feet of climbing, the sun casts her warmth down onto my skin after a few days of rain throughout the entire west coast. At the top of the summit, the view is clear as can be with sights in all directions, the mountain tops to the north are covered with snow, and to the west, the ocean reflects the clouds and sky canopy from above. My lungs expand and contract at a steady hundred and forty beats per minute catching myself sprinting down the mountain with style, and every step lands with intent, moving me over the mountain nest terrain. 

Barreling down the final descent to grab more water to rehydrate before heading back up for my final repeat of the day. After two ascents, an hour and twenty-two minutes passed and the goal was three ascents under the two-hour mark. Each repeat had twelve hundred feet of vertical gain in a mile and a half taking me about twenty-six minutes each so far. With the same descent and mileage back down, that took me about thirteen minutes or so. My mind is in the zone, working hard, fully invested in this training session, and putting everything into for the day. 

The first thing that my eyes fixate on is the driver-side tire where a liter of water hung out waiting for me to drink, but what my eyes missed is the pile of broken glass from my driver’s side passenger window. Right away my mind and eyes realize what has happened, my car has been broken into and my personal belongings are gone. Before continuing, my things were covered with a couple of jackets, and with tinted windows, it is hard to see inside my car. A thought ran through my head and that was to run back up the mountain for that last and finally repeat, but my heart was no longer in the session. 

At the end of the day, my things being taken didn’t hit me as hard as they did a few hours later. Things can be replaced, but not memories and objects, that hold value, and money can’t buy are what hurt the most. Being violated burned my heart a bit, never in my head did it occur to me that my things would be broken into and stolen. It made me realize that my guard was down, and a soft target for the robbers. That my things being stolen came down to my lack of attention and awareness of my surroundings, lacking the skill of being a hard target at all times. A skillset that runs through my veins to survive environments of potential risk and danger, life and death. 

Anyways, the training session ended with six miles, two-three hundred feet of climbing, and left me confident, refreshed, healthy, and with an opportunity to grow more. The break-in and stealing of my things offered me a lesson to never let my guard down and to cherish those small moments with objects that can be easily stolen or taken from you without knowing, much like death. This was a murder of my personal belongs, the grieving moment is coming to end, and the things can all be replaced, but will always hold a special place in helping me become the person that writes these words today. 

This was my positive self-talk during my training session yesterday and it had to do with life and not just racing or chasing big goals. Most people train to compete, but lately, my heart is driving me in a different direction.

Compete to train, to love, and to endure. 

Micro-Essay: Masochist

The drums beat with an open hand then a closed hand then to another open hand slap - boom, pop, boom…boom, pop, boom. My wings spread like a owl soaring high overlooking my inner heart landscape. The sun shines brighter after the looniness of darkness who ran wild and free. This action of pulling myself into another part of myself makes me a double agent when it comes to moving about the cabin of life. My fingers tap away blending into the natural sounds and smells of the coffee shop - the espresso machine firing off at its max effective rate a Ethiopia bean from the lightness of bitterness in the air.

My heart exhausted from the workload mentally this week. Always driven with passion, and grateful it is not a workload as a prostitute being taken advantage of, on the south side of town on the southwest corner of Zarzamora Street and Brady Courts in San Antonio, Texas. Exhausted by the practice of a craft that requires a lot of time inside my soul, spirit, mind, and heart. To call in our full presence and ask it to be present full time is a lot of work especially learning a new skillset, that leaves me questioning what drives me to sit and write and run? Both very selfish acts, solo adventures, that turn to a scalpel tool. Words turn to wood chips being chipped off by the scalpel onto the page that lacks blankness.

The work of an artist is exhausting and maybe that is why it becomes such a difficult endeavor, looking for the easy way out or the next best tool to complete the task, but the only tool is work. Neurologically at the most foundational level our brains look for the easier action than the harder one. To write four to five thousand words a day is an act of love no different as running for four to five hours back to back preparing for a solo act that gives no trophies or medals, and comes with very little slaps on the butt, pats on the back, and good jobs.

Now, what does comes is the fury of questions of why, a label of selfish, maybe this is a projection of the fight with myself and the page is my projection screen; another fistfight with human nature. These endeavors give love and attention to the masochist deep in my heart, a genetic blessing, one that is no longer a danger to me. Carving out the destructiveness from the eyes, ears, hands, tongue, mind, and heart. These masochistic tendencies are now creative and not a danger to myself or those around me, becoming protection and grace for my soul and spirit to offset the grit that is required to live a life of creation.

Journal: Golden Teacher

First off, let me get this off my chest cause it is applying a lot of pressure. Why the fuck do people feel that because they ask you for a service and pay you for that service and think that they can all of a sudden control you. This never made sense to me whatsoever. When two humans agree to work with each other this becomes a collaborative effort to work towards a goal. If you notice, the word I used between work and each is “with.” This connection word allows for an understanding that with is not for and for is not with. Here is how I view the two words.

With = Collaborate

For = Cooperation

These two words are the opposite of each other much like happy and sad or nice and mean or protect and control or panic and fear, and finally, emotion or logic. They are all different words and they are not synonymous. Let’s dive into a couple of other words and how the two of them are not meant to blend till they are understood separately.

Emotion = Feeling

Logic = Truth

At times these two words tend to be confusing and a ball of entanglement. Especially for someone who does not know how to navigate the feelings of emotions which then blur the firing lines of the machine guns of logic that are all around us. Here are another two words that I’ve learned to separate as well.

Control = Power over someone to influence your will over them morally and physically.

Protect = Best interest at heart to keep safe from harm or injury morally and physically.

The last decade-plus carried a lot of experiences some that when these words were used my mind and heart never could separate and they become mixed like a bad cocktail from a new bartender at Applebee’s. Here is a quick story that hit home for me and taught me a lesson to look at life a bit differently.

A friend of mine invited me to go and sit with him and a few others out in the mountains of Utah. The spot he would take me to was outside of Heber, Utah. On this small patch of land covered in red rock with a lake to the edge of the land, and in the middle of these five acres sat a big tent, a fire ring with logs as chairs direct in front of it. He used this land with his wife for a few years now to do spiritually guided journeys for professional companies in small groups. They both would be considered healers and medicine men and women, shamans of modern times, dress like normal people and you would not even know they carried the power to heal. Both of them have been doing this work for almost twenty years together.

After breaking up the golden teachers in a plastic red solo cup, then filling it up with orange juice, I start to drink and chew, which was not like anything I’d experienced in the past sour and tough. The red solo cup growing up was used to take shots of alcohol either playing beer pong, flip cup, landmines, kings cups, or power hour. Now, here I am sitting in the middle of this land in the summer of twenty-twenty, drinking out of another red solo cup, but instead of drinking the contents inside to numb myself, I am drinking it to learn how to feel. The world works in wonderful and mysterious ways.

A few hours go by, and I’ve laid on a broken wooden dock that overlooks the lake, my supersonic awareness has turned on, and everything around me is vibrating softly, catching the ants crawling to and from their homes. I walked around looking for something for places to be alone, but my buddy would find me, who also took five grams, he floated around to everyone checking in after he settle into the five-dimensional realm of psychedelics. His wife floated around with her feathers burning sage and cedar for anyone who needed to be cleared or wanted to send prays up for those they loved, she played drums and sound bowls, and she sang and played music through a speaker in the tent for anyone, she was sober, she was our sitter, someone who doesn’t take the medicine and keeps a close eye and protects them during this experience.

The wind blows lightly giving relief from the heat that came from the ground from the sun above, sitting under a small tree for shade, my friend walks over and sits next to me. A couple of minutes go by both of us staring at the dark blue-green lake with green and brown vegetation along the banks, maybe seconds go by, who knows, time doesn’t exist. He then turns and asked, “You know the difference between a successful business and those who fail?” Caught off guard at the question, still looking at the lake do nothing but be still, something I was trying to do for myself. I turn my head left and right nodding, “No.” He picks ups some grass, and starts to play it with in between his fingers, then turns and looks at me, “One leads from the heart, and the other leads with the mind.”

He goes into his experience working with all kinds of leaders, and how he was brought in to teach this to companies, bringing everyone together, to work towards one goal, and that comes with leading from the heart, and not the mind. He knew the ones that were driven by the mind and felt the ones who lived with their heart.

Too high in the moment to understand or speak, I sit crossed legged listening as he shares his stories and his growth over the years. He changed directions and dives down the use of psychedelics, “you only need enough to get into the room and once you are in, there is no need to get any higher, sometimes you might need a little more to get in but it will always be less than you think you need.”

The golden teacher was not the mushroom I took, but the person that I spent time with and listened to was the golden teacher. It gave me a lens to acknowledge that my heart is primary and the mind is secondary. Professionals lead with their hearts and rookies are driven by the mind. Life is not about cooperating, it is about collaborating with the world around you.

A recent situation set me down this path, and I am very thankful for it, it helps me stay connected to my heart and always make choices from there not the mind. A few years later, these experiences are still growing inside of me and I am beyond grateful for these types of angels who come into my life to provide light and knowledge. A five-gram golden teacher experience sent me down a path of understanding what it means to lead from the heart and not the mind. The experience was beautiful, as you can tell my memory has not skipped a beat of this time. It’s fascinating the further away from those moments, the deeper the roots dig their way further into my heart’s garden. When it comes to working with someone who pays for your time, don’t lose sight of the fact that it is not a cooperative experience, it is a collaborative experience, meaning they don’t control you or your heart.

Short-Story: Magic Mountain

Note: This is a world building scene.

The grass changes to green as the drip drops of water kiss the earth of the meadows to the west. Don’t forget all the mountain trolls and rock creatures that sleep silently out to the north. To the east raging waters of rivers and oceans ran and surged wild and free. A landscape to the south made of sand and cactus that can kill with hypothermia or heat exhaustion - if not prepared.

Zulu crouched, staring off into the distance taking in his landscape, on top of the highest mountain troll his village protected; at its apex gave sight to all four directions of his world. He picks up a pebble with his rugged fingers and missing fingernails tossing it into the air to watch brother wind hurl it west. He thinks to himself, a sign of heavy rainfall to come. The light blue sky to the west gave sunlight to the meadows preparing for the storm to come. Out to the east lines of clouds ran north and south full of water blending an undertone of dark grey to the clouds that overlayed the light blue sky overhead.

Micro-Essay - In-Between

Aww hello, dear friend, it’s only taken about twenty-four miles and five thousand feet of running, power hiking, and shuffling up and down the mountain trolls of Santee. This friend I speak of sends electoral currents down my hips, hamstrings, quads, knees, calves, ankles, and feet, right down to the end of my toes.

A feeling of pain with every step forward, a feeling of pleasure with another step forward, a change between action and reaction. Every step takes me through transitions of storytelling, the keyboard is the ground, and my feet are the fingers creating art with every step. With a strong, durable, and powerful body housing a warrior’s mind.

Tingling only intensifies as the rate of my heart beats increase, speeding up my footsteps, pulling waste from the muscles of my legs by the heart, and then pushing high amounts of oxygen back to my legs to feed my muscles. A dance on the slack rope of pain and pleasure trying to maintain a sustainable output for much longer than a marathon. For an output that will support; four times the distance of a marathon.

Pain is non-avoidable pushing the limits of life, and making living so beautiful, the opposite of breathing is numbness, getting much closer to death. Running far distances is a very selfish endeavor, no different then trying to be the best human possible: a brother, father, friend, husband, and son or the daughter, mother, sister, or wife plus the inbetweens. Story telling is about change, running far is the same for me. The change comes from the transitions between gesture and retort, life and death, positive and negative, love and hate, light and dark, hot and cold, sunshine and rain clouds, pain and pleasure. Tuning to this friend of mine again, brings new lessons, new experiences, new transitions being a teacher for all areas of life, as a husband, dad, son, brother, friend, and a soul with a spirit who craves to break bad habits of deeper genetic-make up.

Actions and reactions aren’t meant to create double negatives, and in story telling this ends the story from the start, the same with life, look at suicide it is one of the most powerful double negatives in our society today.  This action and reaction doesn’t give life a beat, no tempo, no rhyme, no harmony. This heart of mine is learning to recongize the negative and make it a positive, and when the positive turns to a negative, find ways to get back to the positive. Rinse and Repeat, transitioning between the differences of life, enjoying the infinite loop of my story.

Photos by Eric D.

Journal- A Sacred Space

A prison takes no time to build and has no depth. Crafting a sanctuary comes with a lifetime of building due to the depth that is needed to grow. Destroy the prison inside our minds and hearts, before giving the soul and spirit, a chance to create space to birth a garden of life.

Micro-Essay - Character Building

A couple of months ago, I wrote a short story about a fellow who was from another time and world, who was preparing for his biggest battle of all time and that battle wasn’t what he expected when he met a woman, who took his heart and put a spell on it.

A spell of co-dependence, a spell that made him fall deeply in love with her, with no idea of this spell put on him, he felt this is what love was supposed to be; a relationship of heartache, disappointment, and letting her down at all times.

His voice was so powerful that when he spoke and shared his truth, the words, and tone came with passion, but broke her down so deeply, that it left her with nothing but sadness and emptiness. He scattered her spirit molding her into the woman she is today.

He couldn’t take the infection of co-dependence and this spell that was never  love, he wanted it to be cut out of his heart, he wanted to disconnect from a world that he felt forced and thrown into, but he knew that deep down inside that it would not be worth the damage he would cause to those who depended on him.

It took him almost two years of denial to find his voice and recognize the spell he was under and the co-dependent relationship which formed and brought up underlying issues that he had no control over. All he knew was that he didn’t want it to affect him anymore.

He knew that for him to be successful in this battle, he must find a way to unlatch from the co-dependence of his relationship with a woman who took him by surprise. He didn’t want to live with this infection anymore, he needed to separate from this energy of disappointment.

But it ain’t disappointment in her, he is disappointed in his actions and how he let this come to be, trying to please her by being the man she wanted and needed and not being the man he knows he is and can be, and now he is realizing that the man she needs and truly wants might not be him.

He is finding this might not be what true love is, and true love isn’t a spell. True love comes with no dependence, spell, or shackles. Love comes with no boundaries, no rules, and no limitations, it follows a set of principles that keeps the energy growing forward. He is searching for right moves that will lead to this truest of love with the woman of his dream’s.

Journal - War Zone

As I start to dive deeper into the principles of writing and learning how to apply them in some fashion is a start. An interesting thing is that the book that I started after the other one I finished seems to be taking longer to get back to and move forward. I know what you’re thinking, you’ve written a book and on your second one, the answer is yes. I haven’t spoken about them as it is something that I felt would keep the stoke high when it comes to getting the work done, but that hasn’t been the case.

When I reflect, the first book took almost four and half years to complete, that is after five rewrites taking it from an idea to a few hundred words, then to a few thousand words, and finally, it no longer became about the word count. It turned into telling a story of a time in my life and when sharing it today, it retaught me a lot of lessons, ones that fuel me to keep breathing today; and still does this very moment. They turned into principles that I and my brothers used in war zones.

Book one is a non-fiction of short stories from my time down range in Afghanistan with the men who molded me into the Recon Man I am today. A lethal individual who possesses skills and crafts that no other man has to earn except for the Recon Man. A principle that is instilled into each one who has earned the right to have the Recon jack burned into their hearts, “is to always be a silent professional.” Understanding this principle took me many years of trial and error, along with embracing the person I’ve been built into, by sharing my craftsman’s and skillset when the opportunity presents itself, made me a silent professional.

Another principle connected deeply to me is based on how we carried and presented ourselves to others around us, “professionals always get the missions.” Now, this meant, that we walked and talked as a professional, and we conducted every small to larger detail in a professional manner. This could be as simple as a clean haircut and shave, meeting and going beyond the regulation in and out of uniform to point out a few, or leaving a place better than when you got it and leaving no trace. This principle meant to lead by example for others to emulate, and this then created a level of standards that each of us strived for; making us all better, as warfighters.

Almost a decade later being inactive in the gun club and operating as a Recon Man with a team. Today, as the Recon Man I am, the mission is very different, living as a family man. The environment I patrol in today gives dimension to who I am as a human being. This is why this next book I am writing is sending me down the path to learning a new craft and skill set, to learn the true aspect of the art of storytelling. No different than learning the true art of warfighting, where you learned to respect the principles and by doing so, the universe protects you in another realm of life.

Fiction brings no rules and boundaries, much like the war I experienced. Who knows, maybe the newbie in me poses a lot of ignorance and innocence to the world of true storytelling, but that same ignorance and innocence to war seem to be a skillset that helps me to not be boxed in and think linearly. It let me think and act in an undulating and critical manner using principles that allowed me to respect the landscape and variables of warfighting.

Am I tying storytelling to war? It seems like that, and to be very truthful, yes! The world is full of harsh realities, and you only know this by placing yourself in those situations.  Storytelling no matter if it is non-fiction or fiction, brings principles and patterns that we see in everyday living, bringing us to realities that someone will never be in physically, but are perfectly ok with placing themselves there mentally, and this is why the art of story-telling matters because of the emotional connection of another reality than a person’s own as they open a novel, sit and watch a film or documentary.

Learning to story tell is exciting and dangerous, it allows the writer to enter a world where in physical reality he would be sent to the loony bin for the way he speaks and thinks, but what storytelling does no matter the medium, provides an environment to think, feel, and act in such manner. This feeling brings me back to that exact feeling when I would step out of friendly lines in a ranger file, five to six paces to the teammate in front and behind me, knowing that I was required to think, feel, and act a specific way to stay alive, giving each of us the best chance to return home safely. Sometimes, when you do, not all your limbs are intact, but what is worst comes the inability to switch the psychosis off, and through storytelling, you find the switch and a positive way to channel such insanity.

Creating art with no rules or limitations, but by principles is a lesson that is being ingrained into me, giving me the space to create for those who have gone before me in the world of story-telling, again no different than when I fought a war following in the footsteps of the titans who laid the groundwork and foundation through blood, sweat, tears, hardship, and discipline.

Micro Essay-Act of Joy

“It could always be worst,” is a grouping of words that hands out proof and cause. The thirteen years younger version of myself would use this as a way to move through stressful situations that might cause an explosion of aggression. Yet, during that part of my life, that act could put either those to the left or right of me in danger of losing our lives.

For many who haven’t experienced such high levels of extreme stress due to a lack of sleep, malnutrition; plus the amount of fighting that seemed to come with no end. A constant IV dip of violence attached to my arm, melting my brain into a serial killer. A murder headspace, a space where the repercussions of such an act hold no weight and brought out joy and pleasure for killing their kind. Being this person for many years, left me with behaviors that could have turned me into a serial killer in the society we live in today.

This controlled act of flipping the switch to feel and not feel is no more a curse than a blessing in disguise. I battled and battled for years, to undisguised the blessing, uncovering, and understanding that separating war from the internal part of our being is no simple task. As it once made me a predator in a land to survive.

Today is no different, maybe the environmental variables, such as not being shot at, or having motors walked onto the position you rest and recoup at. Or late-night patrols through their land that we ransacked disturbing the peace in their lives. The danger on the fighting position used to be driven by external circumstances, by the acts of violence, put forth by another being trying to kill us. I no longer am in a place of such danger externally, a flip flop, a switch-a-roo, where the danger lays for the longest of days like the gunfights we use to be under; the danger is inside my mind.

The whole reason for this piece of art you are reading is from my examination of existence as it is today. With those close to me, my daughters, son, dogs, and wife, being fully dropped in; using pattern recognition a skill used in hunting the Taliban. Now, this skill and process puts the microscope on how I interact with the universe and see that my actions bring joy or sadness, peace or war. Realizing words can be knives just as much as they are paint brushes, behaviors can be so loving, but still, can cause harm.

The intentions during those months of hunting and murdering the Taliban were just that, to murder and get rid of the infection that causes havoc on the ecosystem. What I found later to be true is, we become the infection to those people, not the cure. Left those who step foot out in their land to be infected by anger, violence, aggression, and the lack of empathy, and compassion for anyone or anything.

Is this the reason why many of my brothers have taken their lives by their hands?

Today, instead of exploding with high amounts of animosity putting myself in danger. My veins have been purged and drained, then refilled with new ways to feel, flushing the war zone inside my head away turning me into a man of the universe, not against it, feeding me a euphoric state of living.

Journal - Click-Clack

I asked myself while my respiratory system rapidly fired like a machine gun, power hiking up the mountain, swinging my arms upward generating power forward a step at a time.

Why do I write?

What brings me to this point of putting so much time into writing?

Why am I sharing my words publicly, who cares to read them?

Another piece of me inside loves to write; making the writing even more lovable. I find myself writing every day like the ultra runner, teacher, dad, husband, son, brother, friend, and writer I am, making it a priority as the invocation to starting my day.

Loving something because you love the person who loves that something is love. It’s a practice of creating the most mesmerizing piece of art using colorful words for the universe to consume.

The ritual turns to a practice and connection with myself - tuning to a deeper level - using my fingers that click-clacking away like their paintbrushes creating art and magic.

Background Writing Music

Short Story - Sworn to Secrecy (Part 2)

Sirens scream louder and louder as they get closer and closer to the cabin. The chill of the forest showed no resistance to the police as they searched for Billy. The helicopter’s pulled off the station leaving police officers with flashlights, spotlights, and hound dogs as guides looking for any type of footprint or sign that Billy might have left.

His ability to navigate through the forest came from his time growing up following his mom to these late-night gatherings where he sat quietly from afar, taking in the sights of his mom and her new friends. Billy would watch these ladies dance and howl at the moon all night, but never did he see the claws or snots of a werewolf. He saw a group of women living in a way that gave them the power to be wild and free.

Balled up like a cocoon with a quilt staring at the fire, her hair black as the night with no moon and shined like glass as the light from the fire reflected off it. He fell in love with her at first sight from the moment their eyes met in the woods as a little boy. She casted a spell on him, one that kept them connected, powerful enough, that it left him unable to love anyone else. Never did he know her name, as she would not share such information, in his eyes, she was the warlord that stole his heart. Billy takes a deep breath trying to find air, regaining composure from his sprint through the woods, and now in shock at the sight of the lady who once wore a golden dress lined with silver. Her hand slides out from under the quilt patting the floor, signaling him to come to sit next to her, she still hasn’t said anything else to him, and without any hesitation, he slowly walks over and sits.

She looks at him, grabbing hold of his hand that rests on his crisscrossed legs, “It’s been a long time,” she squeezes his hand, digging her nails into his palm and sending a jolt of pain through his body, paralyzing him. Her fingernails inject a magic potion that sent him into a wanderlust.  His body slowly melts to the ground unable to move, she whispers into his ear, “This is for your protection.” He can feel his lungs inflate and deflate against the wooden floor of the cabin. The ceiling begins to spin, she places a blindfold over his eyes, and his world goes dark. The fire cracks and pops, sending him deeper into a trance. He can feel her energy as she walks around the cabin, the closer she gets the stronger it becomes. He starts to see memories of him and his brother on the cinema screen behind his eyelids.

Jake is running through the woods, and Billy chases him, both are barefooted jumping and ducking around tree limbs, rocks, and creeks they cross. Billy does not recognize the forest he and his brother sprint through and has no idea why they are chasing each other. Jake says nothing at all, he just keeps running, and Billy shouts, “Jake, Jake, Jake,” but he never slows down or answers him. Billy continues to run after Jake, the sky above is blue as can be, the sun shines bright, and the elephant ear leaves provide a canopy of shade giving depth to the world he is in.

Billy stops chasing Jake, he starts to look around, he sniffs the air, looking for any familiar scents, and he listens for any sounds he might recognize, but nothing comes to him. He loses sight of Jake and no longer hears his footsteps pounding against the yellow, brown, reddish gold leaves that blend into the cobblestone and roots. Billy sits and listens a bit longer and notices the trickling of water to the east of him. He gets up and starts to move towards the sound, as he gets closer, he notices the creek made of rocks and sticks. He takes a knee, cupping his hand scooping up water to drink. As he sips, unaware of his surroundings, a pair of beaten feet appear next to him, he turns and looks up, a small short man with a sun-beaten face, skin leather brown, a pair of black pants, and a gold belt buckle, dark green jacket, and black top hat swings his fist hitting Billy across the temple, knocking him out cold.

Supersonic

Ready set go…the flood gates open and the sounds of instruments playing in harmony become the hands that bucket my mind and heart into the pilot seat. As the engines begin to rumble, preparing for supersonic speeds. A sense of relaxation takes over, pulling my attention to my breathing, and the rhythm it builds, as the universe inside me comes to life.

Ever wonder what it sounds like in space?

Ever notice how loud quietness can be?

A whirlpool of sounds all around. For example, the wind blowing on a ridge line, ocean waves crashing, birds chipping off in the distance, two musicians playing their hearts out on instruments they spent hours playing and practicing, yet, for no one but themselves, the writer reading out loud making sure each word and sentence flow, to a tempo the reader can follow.

Being creative and bringing forth art is not hard, it is simple by nature, therefore, simple does not correlate to easy. See the word simple by definition can be taken out of context and used as a word with very little action when it carries more action than we tend to believe. The skill needed to complete a task can either be challenging or simple, but they both require a level of commitment, perseverance, consistent work, and dedication. The greatest artist in the world tends to carry a simplified energy to their life and an even simpler definition of what success means to them.

To paint, write, sing, make music, and bring nothing to something in this world is creation. Every single person has this magic trick, it takes believing in yourself and a level of no fucks given, even if it’s complete garbage. The point is creation and invention give life to the universe, she strives off this process: to take an imaginary idea and turn it into something real that impacts the human experiment we call reality. The act of invention and creation bears no baggage of judgment but comes with a sea full of confidence no matter the outcomes.

Take the screenwriter who writes, writes, writes, writes, and writes screenplay after screenplay, a few get picked up and made, a few are either gold or complete shit, then at times when the draft is complete, it sits in a pile waiting its turn to be the picked.  The musician who writes song after song, record after record, yet, none hit till that one song or record. Both these humans carry identical actions that are simple, they kept working, kept creating, and continued to invent nothing to something. Even if it turns to a fist fight, a sentence a day, or two-thousand words a day. The artist at that moment must let go of all judgment and emotion to that story and move on, this is true creation.

A beautiful act of human nature, a universal law of creation - inspired actions small or big towards goals. That goes from internal to external tying the creator to the universal sounds of their individuality and niche. No different than the tree growing outside, the sun that rises and sets, or the moon phases, it’s all art. The invention gives back to the universe with a return on investment that pays off long term.

Pay attention to the noises around you, it is all creation, invention, and art. A simple task that requires a constant river of vulnerability and love for yourself and the art being created. With no real end state, unless creation creases, well then, so does the sounds of the universe. Think of your ability to create and invent art as a seat in the universal symphony, playing with our instruments of creation creating harmony as one with the universe.

Short Story - Sworn to Secrecy (Part 1)

The helicopters fly high in the nighttime sky filled with a starlight canopy, the sirens explode with fury. Billy is a bit confused as his bare feet sprint from tree to tree avoiding the spotlights from overhead.

The breeze from the river sent a chill down his spine, with no jacket or shirt to keep him warm. Off in the distance, Billy hears the sound of dogs barking, WOOF, WOOF, WOOF!!! The hound dogs signal they have found a scent, informing their master.

Billy’s parents divorced when he was nine, his mom turned to selling all kinds of artifacts and goods inside a small farmers market down the road from their home to make ends meet. He noticed that she would leave at all hours of the night and return home as the sun rose. One night he stayed awake waiting for her to leave, once the front door shut, Billy jumped out of bed, fully clothed except for his shoes, he tiptoed downstairs not to wake his little brother, Jake, slipping on his boots, and closes the door behind him softly.

He stands at the stairs of the patio looking for any sign of his mom, and as he scans across the dark woody landscape. Billy sees a simmer of light directly in front of him. He jumps off the stairs and starts to shuffle, making sure his steps are light, trying not to make too much noise, and alerting his mother she is being followed.

Billy hop, skips, jumps, and quietly moves through the forest like a ninja of the night as he finds his mother, who is dancing around a fire with a group of women. Dressed in gold sparkly dresses and no shoes. He observes quietly from the tree-line edge in the shadows, he sees a woman with her hands to the sky and howling at the moon shining directly onto her leather brown skin.

The other women follow along and begin to howl throwing their hands to the sky as if they are asking for something. Billy tries to get a closer look, but steps on a branch that cracks, breaking the woman’s attention, he freezes. He then starts to morph like an octopus camouflaging himself into the landscape. The women all start to whisper and walk towards the tree line he is hiding in.

Billy notices one of the ladies has a silver lining around her gold dress that the other woman didn’t have.  He remains frozen not moving a body part, he didn’t want to get caught, but that was not his destiny. The lady with the silver lining gets on all fours to sniff the ground, her nose combs over the moist earth floor, she pops up, with a concerned voice, “A boy is near,” scanning the forest.

Billy’s mom was the only one with children living at home, as the other woman's children were grown and no longer live with them. The woman gets closer to the tree line, and his heart starts to race going from sixty beats per minute to a hundred and fifty beats per minute in a few seconds, his palms start to sweat, and he starts to breathe heavier, trying to control his reactions. He stands up and shows himself to the group of ladies, his mom's eyes widen in surprise to see Billy standing before them.

The lady with the silver lining grabs hold of Billy’s wrist and violently pulls him toward her, “Who are you, my child?” Before he can speak, his mom claims him as hers. The lady in silver lining looks at his mother, with betrayed eyes, “You know that he now has to be sworn to never speak of this night again. He must never speak of what he saw.” Billy stutters, “I…I…I…won’t say anything, I…I…I didn’t see anything, I promise.”

Billy from that day forward never spoke about what he saw, and his mom never mentioned it either. As he got older, he realize that the woman he saw that night dancing around the fire and howling at the moon are werewolves. He found a journal that shared this secret in his mom's belongings after she left with no trace, no note for her boys; she vanished. He needed to know more, he knew that there was more to this story and he needed to find out.

Now hiding in the woods running away from the law with dogs chasing him, he looks around in the dark using the flashes of light to find a place to hide, to lay low for a bit, he starts to move again, further into the woods he goes, he finds a red brick cabin, smoke coming from the chimney. He darts to the front door, and kicks the door open, as he enters, the lady with the silver lining dress from his childhood sits quietly on the floor staring at the fire, with no sign of aging, still as young as she once was when he was a teenage being sworn to secrecy. She doesn’t move or look at him, and whispers, “I’ve been expecting you.”

Laughter

It’s funny that the word “funny” is a word used by me more than my fingers and toes can count up to. In the military, we used humor as a way to move through difficult times or awkward situations by breaking the barrier with a funny joke, story, or some kind of sick remark about each other mom, sexual orientation, or dark humor to keep the energy light and flowing.

It happens plenty of times and still to this day, a good ole laugh is probably one of the most relaxing and powerful actions we can do at any time of the day no matter the situation. If you haven’t had a good laugh in a while then you might be surprised how powerful the effects can be from laughter. If you ever observe your surroundings while waiting for food or coffee and notice the amount of noise that might be around, try to listen for the sounds of laughter, usually, it finds you putting a smile on your face.

A good laugh for me can break the barrier of negative energy and becomes an antioxidant to keep negativity at bay. Did you know that there is laughing yoga, that is correct fucking laughing yoga. When you perform a downward dog, on the exhale you let out a laugh, if you are standing and reaching for the sun then perform a forward fold you let out a huge laugh, pretty much all the areas of laughter come from the exhale. This is unique cause if you think about it, it is coming from deep in the belly, someone who teaches laughing yoga would say it comes from deep in the soul.

Personally, my heart, mind, soul, and spirit love a good ole deep belly kind of laugh. You know the kind that sends the corner of your lips to your ear lobes, with your bright teeth creating a smile connecting with the inner child in you. Yea, that kind of laugh is so good. If you have children they are prime examples of this kind of laugh and let me tell you it is music to my soul, just as much as the fart that comes out sending them to laughter and covering their noses from the awful smelling gases from within us. As my buddy Ryan would say, “It always comes back to poop.”Even writing that cracks a laugh that makes me feel good inside.

The point my heart and fingers are trying to get across is simple - laugh harder and more often. Again, you might be surprised that this becomes another magic trick that changes the world around you. Laugh more with family, friends, and strangers, it is a beautiful experience for the soul and spirit.

We laugh to feel, we laugh to touch happiness, we laugh to find joy.

Regeneration

Crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch, is the sound of my trail shoes as they kiss the stone rocks with every step forward. Most would call this “flow.” A smile cracks from my soul as this flow has not disappeared, the attention is no different than running the mountains or when sitting on the floor playing with the children or tussling and picking on my wife. This crunching formed background music as the mind went down a rabbit hole of regeneration. A word that packs a lot of action but comes with no real context when used.

Regeneration is a simple process of regrowth after there has been some type of change to the organism and homeostasis. Examples are everywhere around us. Trees lose their leaves and grow them back, roads crack than fixed by man, a hurricane takes out a city and creates a rebuild, squatting three hundred pounds for five reps breaks down the muscles to grow stronger, a fire that takes out homes and forests to be regenerated back to a state of value.

Stay with me here, our life is a regenerative process with no end, it repeats over and over again. You eat food, drink water, go for runs, lift weights, have sex, draw, write, and build things. A simple task that is all part of the regeneration cycle both mentally and physically. The vegetation and flowers around me sprout with energy from the recent rains, hydrating their cells to promote photosynthesis, from the sun that shines bright, building a pigment of greens, reds, and pinks, showcasing their beautiful aesthetics and stature. A will to survive any conditioning due to faith in their regenerative system.

This human experience is similar requiring hydration, nutrients, and sun. Think about it, when you don’t have enough water or a deficit in electrolytes what happens? What about protein, carbs, fats, and micro-nutrients such as vitamins A, C, D, and Bs? The sun's ability to provide energy in ways that can heal our wounds, infections, and sadness. The wind blows onto my sweaty shirt that cools my skin helping regulate my body temperature from overheating. Even this cooling system the body uses is regenerative and energetic by nature. The mind can even regenerate from neurological dysfunction, a regenerating process called neuroplasticity. A process that aids the brain in forming and reorganizing the connections of synapses after learning or injury. All have great benefits at the micro level of our cellular regrowth processes.

This run is now my fifth of the week and creeping up on nine hours and nine-thousand feet of vertical gain and forty miles. With the amount of work completed, my spirit took me down a path of fine-tuning activities and behaviors highlighting the speed up in recovery and improvement of performance in any endeavor personal or professional. Learning how the regeneration system works can become a performance-enhancing drug. High-quality sleep, healthy nutritional habits, strong heart function, and the ability to manage acute stress stop it from turning to chronic issues. Illness, stress, pain, and injury come from some kind of improper regeneration system and practice and turn chronic when it is not fixed or working correctly.

With a full week of social media now, the regenerative process has changed not only the unconscious and conscious behaviors that had me checking my phone every second free, but the negative spiral of emotions is also gone, and in general, my energy both physically and mentally is upgraded. Regeneration is a magic trick that each of us carries and it holds the power to form new energy packed with high-quality resources that promotes regrowth. We are truly magician’s, so why not build a practice that amplifies our regeneration system changing the way life feels?

The Process of Endurance - Part 2

A sense of love rushes over me when running, maybe that’s due to the fact: deep inside my biological makeup, the cells are no longer black like the blood of my enemy. The race of life is not a race in my eyes, it is all part of the experience - a celebration - a step into uncertainty with a strong heart.

After the DNF, my spirit came out of me, not to run away but to guide me on a journey over the next few years. To teach me the meaning of true endurance - it’s not a race, not at all; racing is an environment meant to push the limits with safety nets in place. The mask worn to run ultra-marathons for the longest time came with no name, no depth, and felt as if doing these endeavors turned into a time to avoid the psychotic break in me around the corner.

Getting off the wagon and back to chasing the rush of endurance, came after the feeling of losing the activity of enlightenment, which gave me light and a tool to keep the psychosis away. Yet, the psychotic break never came during these times, no it came during a moment of deep meditation, showing me to not be afraid, of the insanity that lives within me.

The goal is to find ways to channel this craziness without harming others and the biggest one of them all, harming yourself. Thoughts, emotions, and feelings are part of life and at times they will become a tsunami of pain that slowly pull you away from who you are, and test you. The trick is to never act; in ending your life completely. To act in dishonor comes even more pain in my eyes, the ripple effect it creates from such actions, leaves a dump truck of pain and suffering on mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, family, and friends.

Life is full of pain and suffering filled with pleasure and happiness, but one is harder to achieve than the other. It doesn’t ever go away, a special gift of the unknown, an experience to use magic and manifest anything we truly believe is possible. So why not try and relieve the pain and suffering first to clear the mental landscape to provide space for happiness and pleasure to grow?

Being able to sharpen my skills as a father, husband, friend, son, and brother over the last few years seems to be a process with no end, with no final destination or a specific set of miles to be completed. No, that is not the case here and for the longest time, it ate me up inside, why? The answer is tough to sort through at the moment, the question carries more range than any ultra-marathon distance out there is today to race. See, guilt and grief look very similar on the surface but once the mask is off of them, a sphere of anger, sadness, animosity, and loneliness stands underneath. Each carries more weight at times, morphing into one massive ball of energy that snowballs the human experience into a black hole of death.

What running long distances did for me has provided the space to feel and think for myself, no one else’s guidance, no one to answer to, no one to offend, and no one to move my legs for me, they moved because of the purpose in life to keep living.

It felt like a pause over time, the pause becomes a hold, and the hold turns into nothing, losing grip of what used to be, but now fast forward four years later, and running for me is an activity not to fill the white space or occupy my mind, no, this is not the case anymore.

White space doesn’t exist in the day anymore, learning to be a true artist, holds to filling his day with details of contrast, depth, texture, and shades of various colors. The last four years have taught me to be a better human with no endpoint. Being able to channel the psychosis that lives within my heart, mind, body, soul, and spirit.

We all have this insanity, some mask it with booze, hookers, and cocaine, and some let it loose and harm themselves and others. Then you have a small group of people who take hold and use it in a manner to be successful and who learn to love this piece of themselves. To build that relationship with the alter-self a failure drill to the alter-ego needs to happen, with two to the chest and one to the head.

It feels like a cleanse these days to tie up the laces and head out for a run. By letting the heart and mind run free with no direction. A state of euphoria sets in, only happening when my heart rate increase, my body temperature raises, and my legs start to fill with blood from the undulations in terrain; sending my spirit wondering into an abyss of happiness.

My build-up and prep for previous races came with a lot of internal wars that didn’t fade away after completing such adventures, and today those internal battles are no longer the fuel to my fire. The fuel changed, what once was a spark is now something new, it morphed from hate and discontent to love and enrichment. Running continues to teach me how to feel and not just feel, but to tune into and learn to feel in every moment of this human experience.

When the time comes to suffer and face the pain of running far distances and living this human experience, the actions are now enriched with love, grace, grit, and a strong will, giving me the chance to feel in the moment, knowing this is what life is all about.

True warriors speak and write about internal - external war and love.

Tangled

Ever sit and untangle earphones that have been ran through the washer and dryer? Let me say that it almost took the best of me, it almost made me give up, and say fuck it.

Resistance’s force pulled strong this morning within me, unsure why, and not sure why. But it took almost a full hour before my fingers typed any word’s this morning. Now, this happen after a shower, putting away the dishes, drinking some high-quality h2o with lemon and sea salt - fancy yes - and meditation paired with breathing work.

Now, this is not my daily practice routine, it contains things that are in my practice to get me set up for the day and write but it seems to always change per morning depending on the energy that’s running through me. Either, a bound happens out of a bed, or a slow and chill reserving energy vibe pulls into the day. Now those two are both very very normal for me to feel, with a happy balance of them both.

This morning the reserve energy kind flowed through my being, body, mind, and heart settling in for the day to start. Saturday and Sunday look a bit similar in terms of my flow for the things that are practiced in my daily lifestyle. The experiences surrounding that practice are ever-changing; filling me with pleasant and relaxing energy.

A magical sensation fills my inside listening to Estes Tone, who takes me far away into my mind galaxies. My mind no longer stuck on the earphones being tangled as they are now being used to listen to his beautiful picking of guitar strings and sounds creating art for my soul.

It does matter it seems to untangle the things that might be causing resistance. The lesson here is that no matter how tangled you become, you can always become untangled and provide beautiful art as these earphones. In my head, they were broken and blown out from being soaked with laundry soap and high amounts of heat. Without giving up and putting my attention fully into figuring out where the wires crossed, looped, and twisted, made the process a bit smoother. Tracing the right earphone back to the middle where it twists, loops, and crosses over the left earphone to see it is wrapped around the main line that connects to the phone. A hot mess express no different than me.

When the earphones are tangled, untangle them, you might be surprised how it can show you how you handle entanglement in your life. It is not as simple as you think.

This morning writing jams

Attention to Details

Off to the races chasing thoughts first thing this morning. Ahh, running shoes!!! My damn running shoes went for a run without me, after they were left on a sidewalk by me, after my run the other day. Funny enough, after returning to my car and taking them off, a thought popped up, that it was time to get a new pair of running shoes or at least get another set. This was to offset running in the same shoe over and over again, and from past experiences, having a set of different shoes to run in would be smart.

Well, after opening the trunk door to the back of my jeep, the first thing that my eyes and mind noticed was the open spot where my shoes would lay. My heart sank a little at that moment, and in my head, another thought pops up, now I need to get a new pair and break them in. Why was that the first thought? Who knows, but they were on the way out, the sides were tearing, and my insoles had collected more miles than recommended.

Now, the funny thing, is it was more about having to build confidence in the new shoes that will aid in building a strong and healthy body that will be needed to move over one hundred and five miles with twenty-one thousand feet of climbing mountains come June. A shoe is a tool, and most tools can be used for a lifetime, unfortunately, shoes that go on our feet, do not last a lifetime. The cool thing about shoes and something that has always stuck with me in giving insight into someone's personality and how someone walks is the shoes they wear. The shoe touches and goes everywhere you go, but just like every tool, if you have the incorrect one for the task at hand, then it becomes a bit less effective and efficient in getting the job complete.

Anyways, it is time for a pair of new shoes, and a new tool, and it is time to rebuild confidence in that shoe with a long run that is built into my training schedule for today. Let’s be completely honest, getting new shoes is exciting and terrible at the same time for those who run long distances, so many unknowns come with it, and uncertainty.

The shoe for me needs to be: breathable, fit snugly, give some space to splay the foot on contact, give me good stability from the ground up, and not too little or high of a heel drop/support. These little things matter when you will be wearing them for more than hundreds of miles per month and then they need to be ready to roll for race day and in prime peak condition. If the shoe has too many miles or not enough, there are a lot of red flags that can come with it. The shoe can be: stiff from not being broken in properly, wear and tear that forms imbalance leading to blisters, foot, ankle, knee, or hip issues. The stronger the foundation the stronger everything that is supported by that foundation remains and becomes.

The beautiful thing about learning the tools of the trade in running comes with a very minimalist thought process making the only thing you have to do is move your legs giving energy to your mind's ability to wander, leading to an onset of thoughts from deep inside, that they are chewed on and digested.

Losing my shoes and misplacing them is something that stings me a little and shows me a sign of short-term memory loss and lack of attention at that moment. A skill that my instructors engrained into me during the process of becoming a Recon Marine, was never to leave a target indicator as it is a sign of a lack of attention to detail. Our standard operating procedure (SOP) for each of us was to cover and sweep the area before leaving. This SOP kept us alive, kept us invisible to the enemy - our main goal was leaving no sign or trace of our whereabouts - that made us untouchable.

Yet, mistakes are unavoidable both in the lowest and highest of stressful environments. The lesson learn from misplacing my shoes turns into a reminder that attention to details matter in every aspect of life and when it comes to misplacing tools that are valuable to you, maybe pay more attention to how they are handled and never lose sight of the tool that helps relieve pain and suffering. My trail running shoes are a tool that gives me life, and this is a reminder to keep close attention to objects and things that give me life.