THE STORY OF JOHNNY WHOOPER SWAN We go to school trusting our parents. We meet a teacher there who stands up front with a big desk, and a pointer. She or he trains us in an authoritative manner. We attach mentally to a life long need for authority in order to live lives successfully. Right so far? In my case, at the age of 25 I was ready to enter the practice of law where I hoped for success and a happy life finally. Very shortly, very shortly, I became anxious. There was a foreboding. I was made more uncomfortable with each experience. Law work is nothing like what I was told it would be. The system is corrupt. But I still cling to my expectation that career success is necessary to my happiness as a man. Each day my grasp of what the fuck success amounts to after all becomes more clouded, murkier. I hear songs on the airwaves and at concerts which describe my life as the life of a fool. What am I becoming? I want to rip off my business suit to run naked in the street with my hair on fire! But I am too afraid. In strange, weird (weird comes from a word meaning wise), fragmented steps I go about a journey of my own believing myself to be the first man to have failed in such a total way which journey works so as to break up my career, end a marriage, and start an entirely new way of relating with my two children whom I love deeply. Almost magically I meet a woman who is a career counselor who asserts a beautiful message that I am made to be joyful in my work everyday and at all levels. This understanding sets me on a completely new course. It is no longer a world of systems to me but an undivided one of unlimited beauty. It reminds me of a painting. A true masterpiece. I am drawn from within to learn the truth about my identity and nobody else can teach me that. From this point onward I will use thinking capacity for mastering mechanical processes and follow my heart, which includes my whole nature, which includes your whole nature and that of every human being for all the rest. I’ll go by the name Johnny Whooper Swan who does not explain itself to anyone. By my fruits shall I be known. Watch me soar!

Friday, September 21, 2018

Ride the Wind

I ride with the pride of the Spirit of the Wind
and am so happy today
to call every dog Perro Rey!

Ride with pride
Ride with pride

Ride with the pride of the Spirit of the Wind

Sunday, September 9, 2018


It's About Time


Where time bends travel in time begins
(dum dum dum dum)
Einstein said that


Trick is, to take action before any intent can form

then, not even the angels can blame you your whole life through,

in fact, everything that acts without intent gotta support gotta support

whatever you do.

I said that


I cannot show the way it is to be done; (dum dum dum dum) just say, “that is how this writing for you

was begun
(dum dum dum dum)

Should ya try to be a student of it, intent, already jelled holds a gun.
(dum dum dum dum)


So, when I die I'll take that knowledge w' me.

'Til then I'll warp time. Travel. Have fun.
(wild furious romp of notes off into the unknown)








Saturday, August 18, 2018

HISTORICAL RECORD OF UNKNOWN MAN


So, sadly, man destroyed the world he lived in without ever really knowing who he was. The question interested him so little. He was mesmerized by the wonder of everything perceived but himself, the perceiver, I mean.


Had he but known what he was, the perceiver, I mean, he would have done everything so differently. He seemed to busy himself in the process of identifying people to praise and giving them awards so as to feel their imagined glory reflected in a mirror of his mind; his chief purpose being to own or possess an essence of another since he knew not his own worth. Many forms of enslavement are in evidence. So he called the reflected image “me” and the combined population he called, “My world”. He became a lost mess. In short, he let the jackal of his mind drag him into the cave of despair and he suffered and died there.

Wednesday, July 18, 2018


Called By Name


Only a few days ago I made a new friend named Abbey. Her age is seven years. I remember Abbey when she was a baby but she cannot remember me from that earlier time. It so happened that she said to me on seeing me, “As soon as I heard your name I thought you were famous.” “Really?” I replied. Feeling a bit shaken by her proclamation of my fame I failed to ask her what she was told was my name. Next day, we were out for a walk to a store together and she brought up the subject again and again. I wondered what she meant. Then she said so brightly, “Johnny Whooperswan, I was sure you were very famous when I first heard your name.” She repeated my name several times in a hurry and each time it rang with joy from her young, little heart. I cannot say how marvelous it made me feel. Then she told me, “I am going to tell all my friends I met Johnny Whooperswan and he is very famous”, and laughed out loud.

Now she calls Johnny Whooperswan whenever she decides to call me. And the manner in which it flows from that child is music. And the best part, the reason I want to tell this story, is that I understand from the sounds in my ear when she does that Abbey does not mean by “famous” what definition is locked in my head of words. The very name to her has a real magic quality I feel when she says it. It is definitely related to music. And it makes me feel so very special. And it brings up in me a memory of a time when I myself was most strongly drawn to a sound that I could rely on to open up a door to a special place where something good lives. Somehow that search is innate to humans.

Then I heard, via Netflix, Joseph Campbell, an expert in myths from all around the Earth introduce one from India that ends up by telling that all people are in some way titled as special and we are countless in number and we arise from the belly of Vishnu with a bag of thunderbolts to serve awhile but whenever we get to feeling arrogant about it we become as one more tiny ant. In the midst of the wonder of my name spoken by Abbey with such definite purpose I like the myth very much indeed and accept its challenge for me. I been noticed. But I understand I am just an ordinary man living an ordinary life which happens to be miraculous!

Saturday, July 14, 2018


LENS TO LIFE

#1
a simple look into
elements of freedom
nameless newborns when you meet 'em
infatuated
in perfect readiness
direction anybody's guess
express yourself
exhaust expression
life fulfilled
move on

#2
document, weigh-in, age 'em
bound up
in conflict once you cage 'em
house broken
domesticated.
substitute local elements of conformity
switch off self-navigation sensibility
nothing here is rash

unexpressed

left-over hash

two meet
one has little or no preparation for it
the other has been preparing for a long time
would it surprise us to learn it is the unprepared who will last as an eternal flame in the hearts of others; the other quickly fade to dullness. Mixed-up. Flimsy. A rock sack of techniques?

The unprepared born to perfect readiness simply loves itself to death.

Thursday, July 5, 2018


How I Retired at 45 With No Capital

It was simple. I was considering my situation carefully. I had tried several careers with no feeling I was even close to enjoying my work. Once again I was penniless and out of work. I wondered whether I was just so out of whack that there was no hope for my success as a person. Mostly, I thought of that, success, as being a respected member of some group that had it together enough to feel proud of themselves for what they did that brought sufficient wealth for an enjoyable way of life, materially speaking. Honestly, I did not wish for a lot of wealth, just enough. And it was definitely more important to me to like myself when I looked in the mirror than what car was parked in my drive. Still, I was not drawn to a life of doing without expensive things. That's about as clear as I was thinking at 44. And narrow was my focus. Now, looking back, I admit it, I was stupid. And for sure my vision for some glorious victory was chained down and heavily guarded by what I thought other people thought of me. You can probably feel how little respect I had for my existence as only me without some tribe to give me the formula. Yet, when that did come, as I will reveal, it was irony, complete irony and I laughed out loud, then gave a holler for joy! The tribe was a bunch of total losers, like me, with the wisdom to understand my needs, and the formula, if you call it that, was, hey, be true to you. There were no dues or fees.

My trusted advisers implored me to run a private, very personal experiment and if I did not find what I was looking for they would refund my misery and I could go on my way. What did I have to lose? What, indeed!

Am I religious?

Life is my God.

Love is my God.

Life's love comes on a breath of wind several times every minute of my existence.

I appreciate that when I am aware. Life is in the wind I draw inside of me. To appreciate a breath is the truest, most intimate, sacred expression of the love of one's God. I appreciate my children, I do, and yet when I remember that there is something that allows me to appreciate anything at all I cannot go wrong. To remember my Lord in all things bolsters me up to bear beams of love from that Giver.

Am I religious?

I hope I have not frightened you away with language that might imply I am in some organized religious group. I am not. Am I Religious?

If it is a simple matter of appreciation for unconditional love meant for me alone which love nobody can find to destroy or steal I am.

Since my decision at 45 to run that experiment I have always had work that is gratifying.
Enough and more has been mine by simply getting serious long enough to discover my nature, what makes me tick, and live it. To live, I discovered, absolutely requires a person to be present for life. Now. Keenly aware. And there is no better feeling.

I shall stop here. I want to give enough without meddling in your affairs. It is your life you are living, not mine. Do not believe what I have written above. Find out for yourself or else there is nothing at all to be gained from my small effort.




Wednesday, July 4, 2018


The reason anyone would offer to help you copy a formula they are in possession of for how to make a million is because that person wants two million. Think about it.

Apply this metaphor to anything at all anyone offers to help you find. If you are serious about it, you are liable to find out what a fool resembles. What did your parents promise you conditionally? What did your wife or husband promise when encouraging you to marry them? What did your religious leader promise when encouraging you to join that group and become one of them? What did your boss promise? What did your coach promise? What did your doctor promise? Your lawyer? Your elected officials? Was it not bottomed in self-centered desires? You or I will treat others we are responsible for only as well as we have been treated which will have determined how well we treat ourselves. How long before we learn? Someone who cares about you will be ever so unwilling to advertise services to be rendered on your behalf. You will have to lower your ego enough to ask and receive, if you are granted that chance, with no charge or recompense of any kind expected. For that person, the joy of serving you will be payment in full. But do not imagine you are entitled to it. Not for a moment. That will not be permitted.

If a child, any child, gets the things it needs it will flourish. But how much do we know about what any human being needs? What if all that is needed is to be left to the guidance of some force that is the source of its existence absent meddling and enough room to wander about freely and the privilege to be poor of everything else if that is what it turns out the child wants? Do you get my drift? Really? I am pointing to a realm nobody in this world but that child can know about or reach into and spoil or steal from it. So, it's an important thing indeed. Most no longer have a clue what is being pointed out. And that is sad.