BarefootBlog

Okay- Whoever left the comment on my post about Joni Mitchell, is a genius. I am guessing that I know you, otherwise you probably wouldn't be reading my blog, I don't consider myself to be that famous, but whoever you are, it was great. So major kudos to you, I loved it. Thanks. I suggest that everyone read it.

"I remember that time that you told me, you said
Love is touching souls
Surely you touched mine
Cause part of you pours out of me
In these lines from time to time"

--From "A Case of You" by Joni Mitchell

This is a great song. Diana Krall does an amazing cover of it, it took my breath away and made me cry. Absolute beauty.

"to play the blues
you gotta pay your dues"

--Crosby, Still, Nash and Young

"I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that man is immortal simply because he will endure; that when the last ding-dong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking. I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet's, the writer's, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail."
--William Faulkner (1897-1962), from his Speech of Acceptance for the award of the Nobel Prize for Literature (emphasis added)

I would like to add a personal commentary to this, but I simply can't. It is so good and complete and beautiful all on its own. All I can do is agree and emphasize. Wow.

The play, "A Man For All Seasons" is a factual account of how Sir Thomas More does not approve of King Henry IIV’s divorce and remarriage, and stands up for what is right in regards to fidelity in the face of much persecution, even death.

I was absolutely amazed at More’s ability to stand strong for what he believed no matter what. He knew that it was wrong for the king to divorce and remarry; he knew that the Catholic Church did not approve of it, and he supported the Church because he knew it to be right, and he supported it no matter what.

At one point the king sends More's own family in to where he is being held prisoner and they plead with him to please just give in and approve of the divorce and marriage so that he may live, but he cannot. Sir Thomas More had covenanted with God to obey His commandments, he had made an oath and he had to keep that covenant. He had to keep the oath and not approve of any breaking of the commandments. I quote from the introduction to the play,

“More was a very Orthodox Catholic and for him an oath was something perfectly specific; it was an invitation to God, an invitation God would not refuse, to act as a witness, to judge; the consequence of perjury was damnation, for More another perfectly specific concept. So for More the issue was simple (though remembering the outcome it can hardly have been easy)…A man takes an oath only when he wants to commit himself quite exceptionally to the statement, when he wants to make an identity [relationship] between the truth if it and his own virtue; he offers himself as a guarantee. And it works (“A Man For All Seasons”, xii, emphasis added).”

This is an amazing concept, the concept of offering oneself as the guarantee for an oath that we make. We offer ourselves, who we are, the person that we are, the life we live, the decisions we make, as a guarantee that says, “by the way I live my life I will show to you that I mean what I said and I will be good to that oath that I made.”

One of the greatest discoveries is to find out that someone loves you as you love.

At the end of his report on Buchenwald (a Nazi concentration camp during World War II), the distinguished American broadcaster Edward R. Murrow said: "I pray you to believe what I have said about Buchenwald. I have reported what I saw and heard, but only part of it. For most of it I have no words."

Biography: Photographer Simon Norfolk was born in Lagos, Nigeria in 1963. After attending the Universities of Oxford and Bristol, he studied documentary photography at Newport in Gwent. He gained experience in photojournalism by working for the far-left press during the early 1990's, in particular as staff photographer for Living Marxism from 1990-1994. As a photojournalist, he did extensive work on fascism and the far-right; anti-Racism issues; the Poll-Tax and Northern Ireland. He also covered Eastern Europe at the fall of the Berlin Wall, and protests against the Gulf War.

Norfolk gave up photojournalism in the mid-nineties and began work on his book, For Most Of It I Have No Words: Genocide, Landscape, Memory, about the landscapes and remains of the places where mass murders had taken place in the 20th century. The project took four years to complete and was published as a book in 1998. An exhibition of the work has toured throughout the UK and Europe and is presently touring in America. He is currently working on a project about the genocide of the Indians of North America.

He once said,
"I am against all those who through their greed, stupidity, arrogance, narrow-mindedness, blindness, ignorance or simple 'couldn't-give-a-tossness' are working towards, or are allowing, the world to become more crap."

Simon Norfolk would like to leave the world with a bit less crap than it had when he came into it. He believes that the aforementioned people will win in the end, but he sees it as his job to cause losses to their ranks, bewilderment to their ideology and sourness to the taste of their victory.

Shouldn't we all strive to leave this world with a little less crap than when we came into it? Shouldn't we see to it that our little corner of the world is cleared-off and swept clean of "greed, stupidity, arrogance, narrow-mindedness, blindness, ignorance, and apathy" even if it is just in ourselves? Should we not strive to leave a mark, and make a difference, and clean-up our world a little?

This is a picture of my friend Adrienne and I kayaking on the snake river last year. Nate, and Drew fell into the water and almost died of hypothermia (notice the snow in the background). I include an excerpt from Nate's description of the events,
"About a week ago I went kayaking in the snake river. The day was largely beautiful and mostly clear. We had two vehicles(an suv and a pickup) and three water crafts to transport. It took all the engineering logic we could muster together to attach one kayak to the little suv, and a canoe and a kayak to the upper side of the little pickup truck. To the road we went, a massive conglomerate of transportative means, wheels underneath us, sterns above. Many gawcked and stared at the site, a parade of vehicles forcing all who saw it to realize that we were having more fun than them. We got to the water shoved off and promptly fell over in the two feet of river. It wasn't that we couldn't float, we just didn't float right side up. After a little work on the direction of our floating skills we were well on our way to fun and excitement. As we approached the first rapids I was ready. The closer we got to it the louder I yelled things like "hoist the main sail" and "avast!" I think this yelling of commands got me and my date a little confused, it wasn't long after I gave the command that I could see that no one was doing anything with the main sail, and clearly the "avast" went ignored. (I think the main difference between a good sailor and a lilly livered land lover is the ability to recognize and then acknowledge a good "avast!") despite our lack of main sail to hoist I set about hoisting, figuring if the main sail was around somewhere. Just then it occurred to me that we should probably turn around and go backwards through the rough water. We were already about half way through the rapids so I had to work fast. It took a lot of "sailors words" and all I had in me to get us turned around but we did it. Then something dramatic happened. I forget exactly what it was- just know that after this dramatic event I was in the water, that's the important part. While I was in the water I made a new discovery - I call it liquid Ice. Its just as cold as ice, but you can drown in it. I was so ecstatic with the discovery that I made my date try it out. She thought it was really cold too. It was so cold I actually sensed the feeling leave my arms and legs in about 5 seconds time. It was great. After getting us and the kayak back on the shore the rest of the group went on ahead and my date and I drove in the truck."
As you can notice Nate is much funnier, more eloquent, and more verbose than I am. That is why I used his description to relate the event.

(click on image for larger)

Everyday a new opportunity
Everyday a new adventure
Everyday a new challenge
Another chance to prove ourselves.
To who?
Why?
To ourselves?
Prove what?
To prove that we can face life, head on.
To prove that we can take it by the horns, dangit
And learn what it is trying so hard to teach us
If we would only listen.
Everyday a gift and a joy just waiting to be found
Waiting to be experienced.
Everyday.

An admonition from Jared Orme to me, that I am passing on to all:
Fight apathy: care

So hopefully you all got to check out the Statue of Liberty thing that I put up. It is a great poem, but what excites me even more, are the possibilities that are available with that technology. It is a service called Audioblogger. So stay tuned, I definately plan on doing much more with that coolness.

I hate, absolutely hate, and I am rendering all the strength of which that word is capable; I HATE the sound of alarm clocks. I hate the actual sound itself. I hate everything that it represents. I HATE that sound. Even if I hear it mid-day while I am wide-awake, and happy to be so, that sound angers me. It breeds in me desires to become extremely violent to the source of the sound. I hate it.

"I want to sail my soul through the sunset of your eyes."

Isaac Newton is a famous scientist and mathematician who lived from 1642 to 1727. Those who have studied physics in school will know that Newton discovered the Three Laws of Motion. He worked on calculus, discovered the binomial theorem, studied white light passing through a prism, observed what is now known as Newton’s Rings, wrote rules for scientific reasoning, etc. Newton did a lot for modern science. Robert Hooke was another scientist who lived at the same time as Newton. Newton wrote Hooke a letter in 1676 in which he said,

"If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was standing on the shoulders of giants.”"

Are we not all standing on the shoulders of those great men and women who have come before us? Those people who have made a path where there was no path. Those who have and trudged forth and forged a way where there was no way. Does not the credit belong to them? I would submit to you that a large part of it does.

What can we do to forge a path for those that follow us? How can we leave our mark? What can we do to matter? What can we do today, so that tommorow, those who come after us will say, "I am so glad there was someone who came before and hammered-out the way!" What can we do?!

"And so we find ourselves exactly where we begin, day in and day out you may strive for a noble existence and wear out your life in that pursuit but what end does this serve? How should a man react when he sees the ideals that can create and lead nations of kings yield only the fruit of the futility of reality? Ideals buried in the depths of his soul, not created there, but placed by an outside power. Should man ignore the desire to adhere to the principles that he, himself, fails in at every hand? Is there really no hope derived from love or faith, honesty or integrity? Have we been endowed with nothing more than a mockery of grand sentiments, giants which stumble under the weight of practice and practicality? There are men who will tell you not to subscribe to hope, that it is only an illusion made to complicate and deceive; that he has come to an understanding of some of the workings of this world and hope should be abandoned as a myth. Many join the philosophy created of a necessity and with some degree of neutrality disguised as happiness waste their lives away. Back to where we started. Day in and Day out I strive for a noble existence and wear out my life in that pursuit, and hold on to hope and love and faith and integrity. And I know that these ideals where not born in me, but have given me breath of life. To live we must not fear dying; to love we must not fear crying, and though we fail and wear on our lives still there is hope and it is real."

Here is another small example of the genius that is my friend Nate Mecham spilling forth. Thank you Nate. Thank you for sharing your beauty. Such vast amounts of wisdom contained in such a youthful package. What a combination! Youth and wisdom! Both embodied in a soul so capable and willing and excited and eager to learn and share. This post echoes an earlier one made by me.

The following is from the autobiography of Dr. Martin Luther King. He shares the process of preparing and delivering his "I Have a Dream" speech,

"The night of the twenty-seventh I got into Washington about ten o'clock and went to the hotel. I thought through what I would say...I did not finish the complete text of my speech until about four a.m. on the morning of the twenty-eighth [the day he gave the speech]...

"I started out reading the speech and read it down to a point...and all of a sudden this thing came to me. The previous June...I had delivered a speech in Cobo Hall [Detroit], in which I used the phrase 'I have a dream.' I had used it many times before, and I just felt that I wanted to use it here. I don't know why. I hadn't thought about it before the speech. I used the phrase, at that point I just turned aside from the manuscript altogether and I didn't come back to it."

It is obvious that this man was inspired to do the things that he did. In the most difficult and discouraging days of World War II, Winston Churchill said to the people of England: “To every man there comes … that special moment when he is figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered the chance to do a special thing unique to him and fitted to his talent. What a tragedy if that moment finds him unprepared or unqualified for the work which would be his finest hour.” I believe that Dr. Kind was tapped on the shoulder, and he was ready, and he did do the task that was "unique to him and fitted for his talent."

"Whatever doesn't kill you...hurts really bad."
--N.E. Mecham

"Love always wins, and it kicked my butt."
--N.E.Mecham

"Roses are red, and so is my bleeding heart."
--J.R. Orme

Me hiking around in the Teton mountains on the Idaho/Wyoming border. This trip was part of a Field Biology class I took. It was such a beautiful day.

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
not fate (for you are my fate,my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

--e.e. cummings

Man, this guy is good! This poem may take a few readings to really appreciate, but it is very worth it. The deepest secret that is the bud of the bud, the sky of the sky of a tree called life, yeah even the very wonder that is keeping the stars apart is that "i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)." Pure eloquence. He has the ability to take what we all feel and know, and place it before us on a platter covered with emotion and rimmed with smiles. He is good.

Me running The Great Race this summer. It is the world's oldest triathalon.

"Any man who is under 30, and is not a liberal, has no heart; and any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains."
--Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

Beautiful Sir Churchill, simply great.

I am noticing that lately this blog has kinda become a place for me to put up my favorite quotes and my opinions and rantings with respect to them. I guess this is alright, however I would like to put a little more effort into putting forth my own thoughts rather than just quoting, "some saint or sage" (Emerson, "Self Reliance"). Also, I would strongly encourage the reader to leave comments to any post that they like, dislike, or about which the have any opinions. I very much want to hear your thoughts as well. Anyone can leave a comment as "Anonymous" and you can sign your name to your comments so I know who they are from. Thanks.

"What does being born mean to mostpeople? Catastrophe unmitigated...If mostpeople were to be born twice they'd improbably call it dying. You and I...can never be born enough. We are human beings;for whom birth is a supremely welcome mystery,the mystery of growing."
--e.e cummings

Happy Birthday Everyone!!!

"It's okay to feel afraid
but don't let that stand in your way."
--James Taylor

"Don't let the fear of striking out
prevent us from playing in the game."

"-how fortunate are you and i,whose home
is timelessness: we who have wandered down
from fragrant mountains of eternal now

to frolic in such mysteries as birth
and death a day(or maybe even less)"
--e.e cummings

"When the veil which now encloses us is no more, time will also be no more. Even now, time is clearly not our natural dimension. Thus it is that we are never really at home in time. Alternately, we find ourselves impatiently wishing to hasten the passage of time or to hold back the dawn. We can do neither, of course. Whereas the bird is at home in the air, we are clearly not at home in time--because we belong to eternity! Time, as much as any one thing, whispers to us that we are strangers here. If time were natural to us, why is it that we have so many clocks and wear wristwatches?"
--Neal A. Maxwell

In his essay "Self-Reliance" Ralph Waldo Emerson compares "timid and apologetic man" to the roses growing beneath his window. He says:

"These roses under my window make no reference to formere roses, or to better ones; they are for what they are; they exist with God to-day. There is no time to them. There is simply the rose; it is perfect in every moment of its existence...But man postpones or remembers; he does not live in the present, but with reverted eye laments the past, or, heedless of the riches that surround him, stands on tip-toe to forsee the future. He cannot be happy and strong until he too lives with nature in the present, above time."
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

In many late night, furious conversations with close friends I have come to have an attitude somewhat like this: In order for society to function smoothly as it does, we need time. I am glad that some of the people that surround me choose to allow much of their lives to be dictated by time, for it sure is convenient. However, I will only allow myself to so be dictated by this arbitraty, invented, mortal concept by my choosing.

"Life, for eternal us, is now; and now is much to busy being a little more than everything to seem anything, catastrophic included...Miracles are to come. With you I leave a remembrance of miracles:they are by somebody who can love and who shall be continually reborn,a human being;somebody who said to those near him, when his fingers would not hold a brush '“tie it into my hand'”-"
--e.e. cummings

Miracles happen to those who can love, to those who are continually being reborn. They happen to those great painters of their own lives who, even when their fingers are no longer able to even hold onto their brush, exclaim, "Tie it into my hand!"

Thank you Bob Dylan for this beautiful example of artistic ambiguity:

"A man in a coon-skin cap
in a pig pen
wants 11-dollar bills
you only got ten."

Let us all be in the arena of life, with our faces marred by dust and sweat and blood. May we all strive valiantly, and come up short, and err! Again and AGAIN! And occasionally know the sweet taste of victory, but oh...how sweet the taste! Let us live life in Technicolor!!!

"It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again because there is no effort without error and shortcomings, who knows the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the high achievement of triumph and who at worst, if he fails while daring greatly, knows his place shall never be with those timid and cold souls who knows neither victory or defeat."

-- Theodore Roosevelt, 26th U.S. President

We must jump into life. Head first. Get into it up to our elbows. Devour it. Life is a feast, and we must eat it with a BIG spoon. Who knows if we are going to succeed?! But just like many great men before us whose reward, "was in the effort" we too must must dive in, and find some of our reward in the effort.

If
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

--RUDYARD KIPLING

“And he said unto them,

‘If a man told God that he wanted most of all to help the suffering world, no matter the price to himself, and God answered and told him what he must do, should the man do as he is told?’

‘Of course, Master!’ cried the many. ‘It should be pleasure for him to suffer the tortures of hell itself, should God ask it!’

‘No matter what those tortures, nor how difficult the task?’

‘Honor to be hanged, glory to be nailed to a tree and burned, if so be that God has asked,’ said they

‘And what would you do,’ the Master said unto the multitude, ‘if God spoke directly to your face and said, ‘I COMMAND THAT YOU BE HAPPY IN THE WORLD AS LONG AS YOU LIVE.’ What would you do then?’” (Richard Bach, Illusions The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah 21-23)

What follows are beautiful lyrics to some songs. These words in some ways express my feelings.

"And I hold you close in the back of my mind
Feels so good but damn it makes me hurt
And I'm too scared to know how I feel about you now."
--Ryan Adams

"For you I wanna sing the happier songs
For you I wanna try to right all my wrongs
For you I'm gonna break all my bad habits
There's a golden ring and I want you to have it
There's a golden ring and I want you
For you I'm gonna sit and patiently wait
It's great if you're early but it's fine if you're late
For you I feel love and I just wanna show it
You're a beautiful girl and I want you to know it
You're a beautiful girl and I want you to know it
You're a beautiful girl and I want you to know it
It's an infinite world and I want you."
--Duncan Shiek

These songwriters have the ability to put into words and music feelings that are common to us all; feelings and emotions that we all experience. I beleive that is why we love the songs so much, because we feel them and relate to them in a very personal way.