Musings of a Middle Aged Man

In 1972, I was a preteen and beholden to budding hormones, hero worship, and other vagaries that can be attributed to a mind and body in development. In that year and the two following, a radically different TV show crashed through network barriers to enthrall the TV watching public. The show eventually became #1 in the country. It was set in the beloved Old West, a mythologized era Americans tend...

I am utterly fascinated with the myriad ways humanity attempts to connect with the perceived spirit in the sky, the spirit of the Earth, or the universal spirit that interconnects the universe and all its beings, especially the concept of deities, either humanoid or animal or nature herself...

One of my favorite quotes says we learn by listening, not speaking. I also like the adage that proclaims we have two ears and one mouth so that we listen twice as much as we speak. In my experience, prayer is not so much listening to the still small voice of God and learning as it is requesting intercession in a challenging situation so that learning from the challenge is not necessary...

Wilderness, a word derived from the Olde English term 'wildēorness' meaning association with wild places. Wild meaning untamed or uncultivated. I am intrigued by the 'un' prefix which seems to indicate the natural state is somehow deficient because man has not brought it under his dominion, a controlling mindset cultivated by those who profess allegiance to profit at all costs. Dēo...

Willy Shakespeare associated Raven with death, doom, and evil omens. Edgar Allen Poe added to that greater association that Raven symbolized a descent into madness. These negative associations make me wonder, did Shaky and Poe ever encounter a wild raven laughing as it played on the wing - rising, falling, rollercoastering, and barrel rolling?

Little Bird, I heard your chirp in my mind's eye but was still startled when you landed on my head while I was reading of desert places and wide open spaces...

Fear is an insidious beast capable of driving the most peaceful loving individual into a barely recognizable, raving lunatic bent on inflicting pain...regardless of whether the fear is aroused by fact or fiction, truth or lies...

If I were to place a bird atop a pedestal scaled in height based on the beauty of their song, not to look up their skirts into their nether regions, the tallest of those lofty pedestals would be reserved for Cañon Wren...

I find myself drifting more and more in the direction of Buddhism precisely because the philosophy does not fixate on appeasing a central deity supposedly omni-everything but whose ego is so fragile the creating deity demands worship from the created. Buddhism is generally classified as a religion because it has a code of ethics, rituals, clergy, sacred texts, and places of worship. However, these...

I find it fascinating that a world claiming to want peace, to value peace has elected so many right-wing wannabe autocrats campaigning on hate into political office. Part and parcel, these extremists are prone to violence in word and deed...

I get that we are desperate to believe life is not a random series of arbitrary events but a carefully crafted plan where everyone contributes their unique person and abilities to the glory of a supreme deity guiding the universe to a glorious un-finality. It can all be summed in one word...fear...

Honest Abe was both revered and reviled in his day, is still revered by those who know all people are created equal and deserving of freedom from all forms of tyranny, reviled by those still blinded by the bigoted view deeming white people superior to all other races, never mind race being a human construct designed to elevate by oppression. A fact, little known outside the indigenous communities,...

How often have you heard the bigoted castigating the immigrant for not assimilating into the US culture? If you are in America, they say, you should speak American. Never mind that American is not a language. The version of English spoken in the United States is an amalgamation of languages from around the world. Spanish is the principal language of one of its territories with others having their...

Growing up, many children are fed the manipulative line that we can achieve any aspiration we desire as long as we study hard enough, dream deep enough, and work our asses off. It is a well-intentioned lie designed to motivate the child, nevermind it also massages the parent's ego...

While exploring the streets of Bogotá in Colombia and checking out the shops following a relaxing coffee house chat with our guide, we came upon a local artist with an array of oil paintings affixed to a brick wall with masking tape for sale. I marveled at all ten of his offerings but was transfixed by the largest of the lot. It depicted a couple embracing...

The thing I adore about Momaday's writing is the poetical elegance that expresses nuanced meaning in minimal words. It is a skill honed to near perfection by many of my favorite authors, a skill I have attempted to replicate but have experienced minimal success...

Perhaps the greatest emancipator for the human species is our ability to communicate complex thoughts through language, first spoken then the massive leap forward to writing be it prehistory symbols painted or carved onto red rock walls or penned onto a blank page by a poet. Words give us the unprecedented ability to reach back into the days of your and tap into the minds of our 7th-generation gra...

When it comes to free speech, I am as close to being an anarchist as one can be. I hold the 1st Amendment to the US Constitution in high reverence and consider it the most sacred of the 27 Amendments. So, it frosts my balls when books, the epitome of free speech, are banned, especially when this tyranny is supported by elected representatives sworn to uphold the Constitution against all powers, fo...

I have many almost wings...wings that started to form but were stunted and never grew beyond nubs. They are wings like those found in butcher shops plucked bare of the feathers necessary for flight, feathers that also are breathtakingly beautiful.

There are very few places I feel completely at ease such that my environment feels like a warm blanket on a cold night and I can traipse about naked without worry of being arrested. One location is tucked safely in the four walls filled with my paintings, two windows, and a single door that bounds my office bedroom but only if the door is securely latched and there is enough soothing music to drow...

I recently watched the second of two of Ken Burn's excellent war documentaries. Years ago, I watched the Vietnam documentary with rapt attention. I've seen it twice. In that war, America had her ass handed to her culminating in an ignominious escape from a rooftop via helicopters as the North Vietnamese Army closed in pretty much concluding their 30-year war for independence, 20 of these w...

I oft wonder if people shun the desert not because of its apparent barrenness and desolation but rather because they fear the lack of distracting noise, of the silence that creates space for introspection forcing them to face the desolation within themselves. People are loathe to face the demons exposed during introspection. Was it always thus?

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://davidaolson.wordpress.com/2012/08/08/who-do-you-work-for/

When understanding is beyond the ken of our mental abilities, we fabricate fantastical stories to explain the unexplainable, a vain attempt to render the unknown knowable. It is a salve to appease the fear centers for those terrified by the unfamiliar. These sensational tales...

I have danced with spirituality most of my life occasionally falling into the trap of organized religion, a steel toothed bear trap that viciously bites into the bone any time I wiggled with spiritual questions challenging the official 'truth' of the religion...