Musings of a Middle Aged Man

I have seen many animal prints in the backcountry, but never one left by Lord Bear. I have encountered Grizzly in Montana, Black Bear and Black Bear scat on the ramp to the Kuwohi observation tower in Smoky Mountains National Park. Relative to Grizz, the Black Bear looks like playthings, really, really large dog-type companions tagging along on a forest jaunt. Looks are deceiving. The Black Bear c...

When I need inspiration, respiration, a catalyst, or a spark of divinity, I must exit syphilization, stage left, and immerse myself in a comforting bath of wildness. There, the plants, animals, rocks, dirt, and insects conspire in relationship to infuse my soul with a serenity that draws from Earth's vast resources. There is no specific habitat type that anchors me. The biome can be anything f...

Numerous times, numerous seasons in my life, I have fantasized about simply walking away from my place in syphilization and taking up residence in the back country for a life of abject solitude. In that respect, I envy Jack (no middle name) Reacher's nomadic life. Off-grid. Out of society's clutches simply by boarding the next bus on the road to everywhere and nowhere. The key difference....

I was infused with the attitude of a contrarian in my genetic makeup. I have always existed at odds with the collective. Many in society would consider the trait to be a dross gift, the dregs of Santa's bag, worse even than lumps of coal in the stocking earmarked for the naughty list. However, despite the associated challenges with going against the societal grain, I consider my propensity to...

am reading a book that nauseates me, similar to the disgust I experienced when reading Nabokov's book, Lolita, which immerses in the mind of a pedophile in the process of seducing his preteen step-daughter. The book that has my attention now is set in the 1600s, in what the colonizers renamed from Wendake, 'The Island' in the Huron language, to Ontario, Canada. The book, Orenda, center...

Since my early youth, I have been enamored with words. My earliest word recollection is their arrangement into the Hardy Boys Mysteries, which I would devour whenever I could convince my mother I was in desperate need of yet another book in the series. I vividly recall the time I was reading in my bed on a summer's day when she forced me to go outside to play on "such a nice day." I...

have long believed the sign of a quality mind is the ability to change even the most strongly held beliefs when contrary evidence is presented. To do otherwise exposes a dearth of intelligence, a condition detrimental not only to the individual but also to society. Imagine a society that operates on dogma at the expense of data. What a flippin' mess that would be. Correction. A reliance on dog...

It seems to me all, but the ardent sociopaths or psychopaths are acutely aware they have a darkness dwelling within. The same applies to our bright side, which is also inaccessible to those suffering from Antisocial Personality Disorders (APD). On the whole, humans are a balance between dark and light, evil and good. A dualistic nature possessing innate capacity for both profound compassion, empat...

recently experienced what I can only account for as a eureka moment. A pure flash of clarity emerging from the business end of an incense stick, releasing a heady scent of sage mixed with sweetgrass, two sacred plants. When I inhaled deeply while purifying my energy, the prayer smoke took not only my utterances but also my vision to elevated heights. I floated out of myself on the wings of the smo...

he American mythos is embodied in the mythical Marlboro Man, ruggedness and independence, extolling the virtue of individualism, a right enshrined in our foundational documents, guaranteeing the right to pursue our own happiness. So important is the idea to our collective legend that children across the country are indoctrinated into society's collective hallucination with a daily school recit...

Possibly, the saddest twist of human existence is the failure of most individuals to recognize their inherent divine nature. Followed closely by the heartbreak of people glomming onto external concepts of the divine instead of dwelling within their personal divinity. In the West, where I am a dwelling deity, it is ingrained culturally that we are born unworthy because we are saddled with a sin nat...

Religion threatens us with the mythical gates to hell for all eternity unless we diligently adhere to the oft-conflicting commands espoused in self-proclaimed holy tomes, despite being littered with errors. Not being a theist of their ilk, I understand the threshold they fear is actually the doors of perception, exposing truths the sacred books prefer to keep hidden behind closed doors, for fear o...

Powaqa invades my dreams...conclusion

Powaqa invades my dreams...

Powaqa invades my dreams...

Powaqa invades my dreamscape...

Twenty years ago, death infiltrated my life when my father, at 73 years, was diagnosed with stage four cancer that had already spread to his brain, bones, lungs, and liver. Much too late for any real hope at a cure or much, if any, reprieve. He did endure one regimen of chemotherapy and radiation, which, if it did actually prolong his life by a few weeks or months, left him wheelchair bound then b...

Growing up without many things due to the economic realities of a large family, I splurged on stuff once I started earning money. Probably not the best use of my limited financial resources, but that is water under the proverbial bridge in a raging river from which it is not possible to claw back the money that floated away. It wasn't until later in life that I learned money invested in experi...

Having a place that feels like home provides profound psychological comfort, reduces stress and anxiety, and enhances physical as well as mental well-being. There have been places I have lived for extended periods. While some gave me a measure of comfort, I have always felt as if I were a transient, a vagabond mole burrowing into a place to lay my head temporarily, knowing it will be fleeting. Par...

As an A-Deist, I struggle with the conceptual existence of separate spiritual and physical components comprising a whole human being. Atheists tend to deny that humans have a spiritual side, along with having no place in their worldview for an immortal soul, attributing consciousness, an emergent property of complex brain activity, to electrons firing in the human mind. While I mostly agree with t...

I have spent time lying in a meadow surrounded by a circumambient blanket of color and felt a deep and abiding joy, infected as I was by the laughing and tittering of the flowers radiating ephemeral colors accompanied by heady perfumes and evanescent arias wafting from the throats of radiant birds rapturously praising the glory displayed by the flora. Alighting from flower to flower, drunk on the...

Now that I am retired and no longer obligated to occupy my mind for the benefit of a large corporation, I am free to focus on topics of personal interest or follow my mind as it wanders to and fro. Sometimes, those wanderings are drawn to a topic that elicits deep focus. My monkey mind tends to bounce between being the horse drawing the cart and the cart being drawn by the horse. I must be careful...

Beauty, it is said, lies in the eye of the beholder. I oft wonder why formal definitions of beauty tend to omit the feral in favor of the carefully coiffed, eschew the chaotic in favor of the meticulously organized, believe anarchy should bend a knee to the ordered, even if the ordered is dysfunctional. Letting the chaos reign long enough, complex patterns will emerge, a type of intricate order bo...

We spend years in school absorbing the supposed truths set out for us by authority figures...teachers, principals, school boards, and politicians who are more interested in pushing their personal agendas at the expense of an education beneficial to the sponges that are children. This aberrant conditioning runs parallel with the religious institutions that preach dogma, claiming it to be unimpeacha...

When I was raising my children, I did everything in my power to help them transcend limits, to believe there were no horizons they could not overcome as long as they worked hard, that their potential was limitless. This should not be confused with the new agey phrase, believe to achieve. That saying omits the critical strive, the third leg of the stable stool, without which the stool is a dangerou...