the rohn report

It’s darkest before the dawn. That’s what the saying says and I guess it’s true, for a condemned man anyways. But hung at the first sign of light would make it so and for the rest of us, condemned or not (and who isn’t ultimately) it’s a sign of hope and a true omen. If you’ve ever thought, while navigating this river of life, that the shoals and the rocky places were your enemies, then consider t...

The river changes daily, according to Mark Twain in his book Life on the Mississippi. He relates, in a slow, deliberate way, his adventures piloting a steamboat up and down the great river from St. Louis to New Orleans. How the slow muddy water surges and peaks, flows low in the dry season. All the subtle intonations, all the messages in the ripples and in the flat water. Every day something new a...

“The wild wind howled and the full moon shined thru holes in the billowing clouds as they passed overhead. A misty fog lay on the moors below.” That’s about all I got. The rest is hidden, occluded. I can do the words. Invective . That word appeared this morning like magic while rolling around on my back, aligning my spine with the true north and south. Maybe I’m going back to poetry. That’s how I...

For this rohn report I wanted to do a travelogue like my friend Maryann does walking around Portland, on her way to the river or down the street to the cafe for a meetup. So here it is, here’s my “Day after Christmas Urban Adventure in the Big City”. No beavers but I found a great Christmas song. When I got home from my bike ride the day before Christmas I realized that my travel bag was missing....

I started writing when I was about 10 years old, a poem for my little sister, about how she was like a spider. I don’t remember writing anything else for a while. I went thru phases. Years went by when I didn’t write anything. I don’t know what I was doing. I remember sitting in the attic of the Charles Street house in Grand Rapids, Michigan when I was 19 years old, a recent dropout from the Bapti...

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“The word ‘apocalypse’ comes from the Greek word apokálypsis, which is made up of the prefix apo- and the root kalýptein. Apo- means ‘away from’ or ‘off,’ and kalýptein means ‘to cover’ or ‘to hide’. Together, they mean ‘to uncover’ or ‘to reveal’.” Thank you AI or Aiee as I like to pronounce it, like an ancient Comanche victory yell. Another offering states, “Originating in late 14 c entury from...

what’s important is the experience not how you get there was my wise adage for the morning. I realized that while doing my yoga. Oh yeah, people have all kinds of different religions but they’re all searching for that experience. The one you can’t say what it is but only feel. Which is why there are so many religions - trying to say it. This is the golden era for American humor with shows like Kin...

I’m in the back of a van traveling down the road. The two people in the front are friends of mine. I’m in a strange sort of half awake, half dream state - like I know I’m probably dreaming but I’m enjoying it so I don’t care. We stop at an old run down gas station, it looks abandoned. I get out and walk around back. There’s a bunch of people camping out on a large concrete slab and somehow it make...

The spirit of writing hasn’t come upon me lately, no more than the rain has visited this parched terrain. The urgency to explain or declaim is missing somehow, instead I’m watching TV football and gazing out the south facing windows at the sun filled front yard. There are deep slanting shadows attached to the trees even while their leaves shine brightly. I know soon they will grow dim. Soon it wil...

The spirit of writing hasn’t come upon me lately, no more than the rain has visited this parched terrain. The urgency to explain or declaim is missing somehow, instead I’m watching TV football and gazing out the south facing windows at the sun filled front yard. There are deep slanting shadows attached to the trees even while their leaves shine brightly. I know soon they will grow dim. Soon it wil...

I’m sitting here with two books of poetry open - ‘ failure ’ by Philip Schultz and ‘ Walking to Martha’s Vineyard ’ by Franz Wright. Two white boys alright. Just finished ‘ A War with Grandpa ’, a young (very young) adult novel by Robert Kimmel Smith. Why he needs 3 names I don’t know. Maybe because there are so many Robert Smiths? Anyways, this is for my 1st grade mentoring. On the Kindle app on...

Mercury is the first planet from the sun. A little too warm for most people - average temperatures are around 330 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s like an oven. You could bake a cake in there. Earth is the third rock from the sun, so to say, having a solid core like the other inner planets. It’s comfortable, so comfortable that life was established here billions of years ago and continues to proliferate...

. . . although sometimes I feel kind of stuck. I’ve created a biosphere and a ranchito and feel responsible for the animals and plants that live here. The dragonflies darting around above the hydrilla in the old cement swimming pool (now a fish pond) and the bats that fly thru the air in the evening skimming the water, the orange and white gold fish who now are as large as small carp which I guess...

When I woke up this morning, White Tail, the yellow cat with the white tail, was on the night stand monitoring my movements, calibrating. Is he going to get up and feed us now? Dawn had not yet arrived, we were still in the realm of darkness but I could see his shape and infer his presence. He had spent the night somewhere on my bed, curled in among the sheets. When I sat up, he purred. When I pic...

Summer has dropped like a heavy beam into my front yard. It’s palpable. Hot and dry. The earth is sun baked, cracks appear. The sunflowers that grew like a forest 6 or 8 feet high now bow their heads and mourn. Their roots are shrunken and shriveled in the dirt. The microbes are screaming. I can hear them almost. Everyone is miserable which is why I’m watering the yard this morning before the sun...

1.I met a girl in the cafe reading a book. I think it was Merit, the cafe, yeah next to the bike shop. No, that’s right it was in Charis Park. She was there with her friend under the tree. Her friend was also doing something creative, oh yeah she was painting on a framed canvas. I couldn’t see what it was. Anyways I went over to where they were and said “Excuse me do you mind if I ask you what you...

cute baby with catshad to cut it offrejoin my body andmy breath surroundedby a worldlooks calm and serenebut i know beyond theblue is crazy outer spaceendless airless darkness unlessyou’re near a star or have aflashlight we are protected fromthis awesome terror by our gentle light blue sky with a few clouds floating thruwhat can be more peacefulheaven above and earthbelow and never the twainshall...

Ten years ago I made a solemn pledge to write a book, publish it and introduce it to the world. The pledge really was to myself, something I had to do to regain my own sanity or more accurately my own inner peace. I don’t think I was insane. That was the one clear thing in my mind. Otherwise I was pretty much wounded and in need of healing. Writing my book was the healing. It took me six years to...

you can trip digital switches far away on some server connected to your phone by wifi / fiber optics / satellite communications / it comes out of the sky like rain / we can ‘halloo’ from the other side of the world and say ‘have a nice day’ as if they were sitting right next to us at the cafe we can peer into the mystery of ancient archaeology and read the current news on our card shaped handheld...

From what I heard the old ancient Hebrew priests considered the name of God too holy to speak or more accurately it was unspeakable. The human tongue could not utter it. But how do you talk about something without giving it a name? The old Hebrew priests were into talking about it. So they came up with Yahweh, spelled with no consonants just YHWH. The secret name of God spelled out in a unpronounc...

What is it about politics that brings out the least cooperative, most combative part of us? We divide up into clans with our own colors, our own logos our own slogans. And then we argue and fight and strategize how to attack and defeat the other party/person whoever they may be. We could discuss the issues and find solutions in a cooperative, constructive way with benefits obvious for everyone. Th...

I got this title from fellow Substack writer, James Roberts. He writes a newsletter called Into the Deep Woods and when I saw it it was like, heck yeah, I want to write about that too. So I started right up. He’s posting from the Cambrian Mountains of Wales with its lovely dells and streams and oak forests, I’m posting from the outskirts of downtown San Antonio in what used to be a forest but is n...

It’s summer and the heat is back. The sun rolls up the overcast morning sky like a rug and by noon it’s blazing away undeterred, unfettered, indefatigable and any other descriptive word you might find that mean yikes watch out, it’s the sun blasting away in the sky with unregulated intensity. We live on the edge of the desert, well we used to live on the edge of the desert, I think we live in the...

I have a biosphere in my backyard. It’s like a miniature nature preserve, like a natural paradise. I’m proud of it. It gives me comfort and solace. The fish pond with the overhanging Willow and the deep green of the Groovy Nook with its small ponds back in the corner and the Hackberries and the big Pecan and the brown cedar fence surrounding it all are the main elements. And the Bog Filter. The Bo...