the rohn report

I don’t know. It’s unknowable. People have lots of beliefs, explanations, theories but that’s ofcourse different from knowing. If it is true that we live on after we die then how long If it is true that our souls go on when we pass on then how long on and on on and on says the song featured in the podcast. My solution to that particular eternal question is to live life to the fullest every day. At...

It’s a well known myth as the story of coffee goes - one day a goat herder in Ethiopia by the name of Khaldi (this was hundreds of years ago) was out with his herd and noticed that his goats had become frisky after eating the red berries from a bush that grew nearby. So of course he tried them too, chewed on them and caught a buzz. He was the first one to figure out that coffee beans had stimulati...

Yup, I’m planting corn. Put it in on the full moon of early September, punched a little hole in the earth with my thumb and pushed them in there, an inch and a half underground. They were watered the very next day by a gentle rain. I got the seeds (technically kernels) from a neighbor who had 12 foot high corn growing in her front yard during the summer. It was spectacular. I would ride by on my b...

hymn is a poem i published in 2018 / I wrote it to finish off my book ‘ what i want to say to you 29 poems ’ / bring it home in a crescendo / show off my poetic ability / my stream of consciousness jack kerouac alan ginsberg howl type muse infused walt whitmanish voice / leaves of grass growing on my back lot / it was my hymn / we used to sing those in church / lots of them and it didn’t matter if...

Well I really don’t know what to write about. I’ve been holed up in my hermitage, my mystic cabin in the woods listening to music and imagining a better world. One where we don’t have to kill everything to have a prosperous life. Imagining might be a crucial part of building it. “Un mundo quepan muchos mundos” like it says in the current issue of Deceleration (a world in which many worlds fit). Th...

No sense in arguing the point but if you want to know the true nature of something look at its origin - where did it come from? Before it became anything else it was itself. It’s not like things start off being something they’re not and then become what they are. And so I submit to you, dear reader, the following evidence, case by case. A child’s smile, even that of a newborn, is so innocent and p...

San Antonio is a city of murals. This is the newest mural to join the tribe. It’s called ‘The Spirit Within’. You can find it downtown on the wall of the Market Square building on West Commerce across from Milam Park. It portrays a jaguar eating a taco, among other things, and evokes the spirit of this place. Especially the feminine energy. Market Square used to be the abode of the Chili Queens ba...

is what i’m trying to saysitting in the cafewith the trees and the peopleand the sky and the morning and everything and the micro-mycelium undergroundconnecting it alland the trees and the peopleand the sky and the cloudswe’re all connectedand the smallest organism of allis tying it all together is what i’m trying to saysomething like that and the cars in the streetrunning around free exhausting p...

To the Aztecs the days were gods. Yep. And the Catholics too. Each day was named for a saint. That’s why they call this place San Antonio because it was Saint Anthony’s day when they held the first mass here. On a rock by the river probably or next to the Spring which was already consecrated by the People, those who had lived here for generations beyond counting and knew the spirit of the place. I...

When I first moved to San Antonio in the mid-seventies (1970’s) it was to join up with the City of Love and Light, an association formed in the aftermath of the sixties, the Age of Aquarius and all that. The founding principle was that peace was possible in our world if people found inner peace within themselves. It was a sound idea, that I believed in and still believe in, mixed with alot of yout...

I got a phone. It’s an iphone 11 Pro Max. Not because I’m a pro, just because I need a bigger screen. These little gadgets are amazing. Mine measures 6 1/4 inches by 3 1/8 inches by 5/16 of an inch thick - barely a quarter of an inch. Smaller than a box of crayons (8 count). It weighs just under 8 ounces and stuffed into that little glass covered Pandora’s Box (along with a battery that will run f...

I’ve started to realize that I kind of live like an alien in my little space pod on planet Earth. It seems to be a theme with me lately. Aliens. I watched The Hail Mary Project . I read The Humans a novel by Matt Haig. I listened to an interview with David Bowie which I cannot now find and started watching his 1976 movie The Man Who Fell to Earth . They’re all about aliens and aliens interacting w...

We are designed for adventure. We were made for it. It’s a basic human need. In fact if we’re not having adventures of some sort or other we’re probably bored and sad. Maybe mentally ill. We have vicarious adventures on TV: sports, movies, even the stupid news is some sort of absurd adventure. But it’s not tactile, it doesn’t engage all our senses, our life doesn’t depend on it. It used to - the o...

Welcome to my private jungle. I am ensconced in a cabin at the center of a quarter acre plot in a suburban neighborhood of San Antonio. Outside my window, the cardinal, red as a flame, flits thru the branches of the hackberry looking for tasty berries. The foliage, meshed and merged into every corner of the scene sits at the center of the dweebil. What is a dweebil you might ask? An aerial view wo...

all everything is whatever it isand that’s the truthlet me be pragmatic herewe don’t know about it sometimesbut it’s still theretake music for examplesometimes you don’t hear itbut it’s still thereeverything is always everywherei think that’s what i thinkto keep the tunes going you have to be in synchit’s all about the synchn’synchand bananas also bananasif you want to make a smoothieuse a bananaa...

The act of writing is good for you. I love writing. I’m not happy unless I’m writing something. Not for long anyways. I write on a keyboard, I write on voice recorder on my phone (dictation), I tap out messages on the tiny touch screen, I write on grocery store receipts, I write on napkins occasionally but my favorite writing is by hand with my Pilot G-2 #10 ink pen on paper in my notebook. It’s l...

. . . the latest entry in the biography series featuring van Gogh, Prem Rawat, Leo Tolstoy, William Bradford, God, Lynn Margulis, Quetzalcoatl, Bad Bunny and me. I first got interested in Fela Kuti listening to the 12 episode Higher Ground podcast, Fela Kuti, Fear No Man . Man, that blew my mind. Check it out. He was a Nigerian musician/activist, revolutionary really and the originator of Afrobeat...

Welcome to the rohn report - Conversation with Sarah . She is a neighbor, a friend, an activist and a delightful and wise person. She’s very involved in the neighborhood where I live which is why I wanted to interview her. The Farmer’s Market at Charis Park here at Brees and Emporia in San Antonio and the Sunset Ridge Collective are a couple of them. We sat under the big Oaks in front of the Sunse...

and lightning does not travel in a straight line.” from ‘Chaos’ by James Gleick. Chaos theory is the idea that behind normal ordinary life is chaos, this is how the universe works, unpredictable, random, but behind the chaos is an elegant, purposeful ‘energy’ that is barely knowable but upon which all things rest. This is what I figured out: I’m kind of an oddball, an outcast but it’s ok. Everybod...

The horizon of the earth looks like a flat line until you get farther away. When you get into outer space it actually becomes a ball, a complete circle. It’s surrounded by cold, dark, empty space sprinkled with stars. Negative space it’s called in the art world. Humans (as far as we know) had never before been into outer space until cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin from the Soviet Union circled the globe in...

The Europeans initially thought well he probly won’t get elected. Then it was well, you know, how bad can it be, maybe it won’t be that bad, then it was, well it’ll be over someday. Nobody lives forever. Then it was like . . . where are we now? Phase 3? Or is it 4. And what happens next, now that he’s nuked Nato and brought the world to the edge of WWIII? “Experience is the mother of wisdom.” a fa...

Can you ascertain all that is happening in your immediate world? From birds flying by to the micro-organisms in your gut to the flow of thoughts in your brain to the clouds floating by overhead (assuming you are outside)? No. It’s pretty much impossible to be aware of everything but still the brain is receiving those signals, those sensory impulses, the light or the sound or the feeling is going i...

With the dawn comes the rain and the grumbling thunder. I’ve been waiting for this. Concentric circles fill the nature pool. The swimming fish circle and leap. By full light the rain has mostly gone, everything is placid and smooth again. The Holly trees are budding. Spring is here. Spring is here filling the air with fragrance, the Mountain Laurels are blooming, another tree with little white flo...

There is an epidemic of loneliness and isolation among the elderly. There is an epidemic of depression among the teenagers and adolescents, even suicide. There’s an epidemic of homelessness - people who can’t afford a place to live or aren’t mentally stable enough to participate in a society based on money and middle class values. And wow, yeah, these days we have an epidemic of bold face lying by...

Well if you haven’t heard about it by now . . . I guess you missed it. Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime performance was seen by 135 million people in 200 countries. It felt like a cultural revolution. The whole show was in Spanish, remarkable in itself for American television, and recognized the fact that ‘God Bless America’ includes all the countries of south, central and north America. He listed...