the rohn report

This podcast was originally published on May 4, 2023 but I’m sharing it again because I don’t have anything else ready and also because I love it.  The music is powerful and so sweet. The words are right in synch like it’s supposed to be. The message rings out like a clarion call on a bright morning from the hilltop overlooking the village. People scrambling around, waking up and the church bell p...

So, here’s how the story goes. I’m on my way to Theory on a Thursday morning and I notice the concrete arroyo on the side of the road. That used to be a free flowing creek, atleast in the rainy season . I say to myself. Now it’s a concrete culvert. After the ritual of the credit card and the kidding around with the baristas and the cupa cappuccino, I’m done. I’m ready to ride home, down Nacogdoche...

I’m not writing about Fiesta and I’m not writing about Earth Day. Earth Day has already happened on April 22 and Fiesta is still happening. I’m writing about . . . writing. I enjoy writing. Making marks with my pen like I’m doing now. Making marks that mean something is writing. I’m using a Pilot G-2 10 point. I like this pen but people have used a stylus (cuneiform), a quill pen (the old signers...

When I write I try to do three things: be simple, be honest and celebrate some great truth of being human. I mean otherwise what’s the point of the exercise? So when this was posted by a friend on Facebook recently it inspired me. It’s from Eduardo Galeano, an Uruguayan writer upon his receiving the Stig Dagerman Award in 2010. And it goes suchly: “May we be worthy of desperate hope. I wish we cou...

I rode my bike a few miles out west to Woodlawn Lake for the total eclipse last Monday. It was the best I could do. It wasn’t total but it was plenty dark for a couple minutes. It was weird. Twilight and sunrise don’t happen that fast and my eyes couldn’t adapt, they couldn’t quite believe what they were seeing. Basically a sunset and a sunrise all in about 20 minutes. It seemed to happen in quant...

pick a moonless cloudy nightbring some stickslittle ones and biggather some kindlingshredded tax documents from 2019work just fine put the little sticks on firstand spark it with a fire starter blow on itdon’t let it diecarefully place more larger sticks on tophopebring your intention and your aspirationto the making of the fire get a little fire goingand let the wind blow it aroundkeep the smoke...

I originally published this post on May 26, 2022. Two years ago. I just came across it recently and decided to re-publish it cause it’s really good. Well also because I didn’t have anything ready. It was an early experiment in soundtracking, trying to complement the words with the music. Music is sound. Words are sound. They merge somewhere in our brain and find a common source. I find that fascin...

It’s Spring. The equinox has just passed us by. Days continue to grow longer and warmer. My little ranchito here in the suburbs of San Antonio is fully alive and thriving. Last summer I was sitting in my office and gazing out the window at my ranchito. There had been 3 or 4 months of hot, dry — I mean very hot, very dry weather. The front yard had become a desert, totally barren. It’s like I could...

Tulum is a city of monkeys dressed up like human beings. They are grabbing at the tourist dollars like monkeys grabbing at bananas. Well that’s not really accurate, monkeys stop grabbing when they are full, the monkeys of Tulum are never full. Infact they will chop down the jungle and pave over the mangroves to get more bananas. Sorry to be so harsh, Tulum, but it’s true. Of course I lived here in...

Welcome to the rohn report reprised. This post was a deeply personal endeavor. Maybe that’s why it goes on for 28 minutes, the longest rohn report ever. I am a historical romanticist, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true or somewhere close to the truth or somewhere in the general vicinity of the truth. The point is we need to envision and imagine the people who lived here before us. We would benefi...

On account of traveling in Mexico, I’ll be offering re-runs for the next two weeks. Adam and Eve and the kids debuted 2 years ago, on March 3, 2022. I performed it for Megacorazon, the celebration of poetry that Urban 15 sponsors each April. Here it is again. So, there was a girl and a boy. Their names were Adam and Eve. They fell in love and got into a relationship. They wanted to have kids and s...

Cans and bottles and boxes and plastic encased display cards with the good stuff clearly seen inside but thoroughly protected - our products come well packaged. No one has touched it, pristine, sterile is the connotation I suppose. ‘New’ and ‘packaging’ are bound together in the modern day buying experience. You buy them both. Otherwise you wouldn’t really trust the product. If your Amazon order a...

Cars, cars, cars. Cars are everywhere. In the city they scurry about like giant insects swarming the streets, swelling the parking lots and congesting the intersections. They speed across the country on interstates and connect distant points. They contain us and define us, they give us a sanctuary and shelter. David Byrnes’ famous quote from his movie ‘True Stories’ comes to mind. “Expressways are...

Leo Tolstoy was born in 1828 in old Imperial Russia to an old aristocratic family (the Tolstoys) and grew up on the family estate 120 miles south of Moscow. They had serfs and everything. His mother died when he was two and his father died when he was seven so he was pretty much brought up by his aunt who educated him at home. Aunt Aleksandra. At the age of 16 he was off to university in Kazan, as...

I’ve been watching TV football lately. Alot. Probably more than is healthy for me. First it was the college playoffs (with my team, the Michigan Wolverines, winning it all) then the NFL playoffs started up with my team, the Detroit Lions (who are only about 50 miles from Ann Arbor the home of the Wolverines), going almost to the Super Bowl before losing to the powerful San Francisco 49ers. The gam...

it’s a great idea but i haven’t done it yet / i’m scared / sex is an unruly subject / it goes deep in the psyche / the labyrinthic forest and the clear stream / the vast sky and the soft earth / these things we knew when our sex was new / playful and friendly / virgin if i asked people they might react in unpredictable ways / like repressed or expressed or freaked out about it / traumatized or rom...

that was one of the craziest days in awhile sunday night / bitter cold moved inthe cat i was supposed to trap and go get fixeddisappearedmy pipes froze i didn’t know which one i should feel most anxiousabout :: the possibly frozen cat under my house orthe possibility of my water pipes exploding when itthaws and the ice disappears leaving a 3/4 inch gapinggap in my water pipe with water rushing out...

In ancient Egypt cats were gods. According to their public art and stuff. Here’s a statue of a cat goddess. There is a cat on this royal sarcophogus. Bas relief chiseled into stone. What’s that about? Cats were not only worshipped but when they died, they were embalmed, given their own coffin and buried in a cat cemetery. There was definitely something going on with cats back there in the old BC d...

A woman reading my poetry book in the cafe. She was writing in her notebook so I spoke to her and asked her if she was writing poetry. She said no she was writing reflections to take it to a deeper level, her understanding of herself and stuff. Yeah I do that. If someone is reading a book I’ll walk up to them and ask what they’re reading. Sincerely. Invariably they will share their book with me. G...

We did our Winter Solstice celebration in the backyard, me and Megan and Brittany. We choose our runes from the bag that Megan held in her enchanted hand. I got a straight line. That means be patient and let it unfold. That’s what I remember anyways. There are so many healing modalities that we have forgotten about or haven’t discovered yet, not just modernized medicine, the big business model. He...

Sweetly singing o'er the plains, And the mountains in reply Echoing their joyous strains Gloria, in excelsis Deo! Gloria, in excelsis Deo! I love Christmas music. Gloria, in excelsis Deo! means ‘Glory to God in the highest’. That’s what the angels said. Sing, choirs of angels. Sing in exultation. Sing, all ye citizens of Heaven above! it says in another Christmas Carol. Who were they exactly, sing...

the golden bough gold doubloonsthe golden calf we treasure allgold and now the ground islittered with it oh the green carpetoh blown fusefallen leavesdesiccating desiregoneyellow green and redrubies and emeralds and amethyst oh green caughtin the netof fire’s desirespun down into the filter bedthe bosom refugeof mother nature existence endedas a leaf and atransformation begunas dirt oh higher ones...

I live in the Terrell Heights neighborhood a few miles from downtown San Antonio. It’s a groovy place. We have our own playground/park, our own little business center, groovy curvy streets with names like Greenwich and Devonshire (where the hobbits live) and a lovely little community garden (where the gnomes live). Most of the residents (like me) live in single story residences built after the war...

‘What we want makes us more susceptible to what we don't need ’ . That’s what I realized today and decided to write about it. Kind of appropriate for the season don’t you think? We buy things to celebrate baby Jesus’ birthday. What? Black Friday is gone but the Christmas sales endure. Cyber Monday, Flash Sale. Signs decorated with Christmas decorations, red and green, proclaiming 15% off on everyt...

Once again winter comes and makes everything cold. Hey I don’t mind, I’m from Michigan where winters are arduous affairs, long they endure and when they finally give way - joy. The snow melts and the flowers come up thru the ground and appear as little fairy lamps or something, little maidens maybe. The cold isn’t very cold but it’s not warm. That’s noticeable. Stick your head out the door and fee...