If a man be demented, does he know he is-

demented?

Keeping this truth in mind, let us consider ourselves

as we are now.

What if we are demented?

Those who are not will

appear to us to be crazy-

way off the norm-

as we perceive the norm (which is crazy)

No?

Time and time again we raise heroes up and

they fall down in a profound but ugly crash.

We say: what a pity he did not make it, but,

what if

we are crazy?

And, what if, for the sane man to survive among us

is to bear a burden of lonely isolation so great nobody has

yet to make it through, sanity intact.

So much anger arises in him with no friend -nobody gets me-nobody appreciates greatness-

nobody tries-everybody is sitting on their asses-that the sane man we admired

becomes a cruel and violent monster

striking hardest at those closest to him?

Dr. Jekyll met Mr. Hide, who said-

no friend cares what his friend says or does.

Only in that freedom greatness never dreamed,

hiding was!

Certainty, My Love?

Tell me I can count on having your love until death parts us. I cannot bear the thought of you giving your love to another. The uncertainty of this arrangement is killing me. I must know I have you.

Are you not content to have love for one night, this one night? Whatever gives you the concept of having me?

You are my dream come true. I want no other. Forever.

What makes you believe such a thing? Why must you think?

My parents married in a church before God and people and live together as man and wife to this day.

Do you really think I am the source of love, a fountain of it? Stop thinking. Can I determine where love chooses to go? Did I begin this feeling in you? Or me? It happened. How do things happen? You are lying. I do not believe you. You ask me for such a promise when we both know you, yourself cannot know who or when you will leave me for someone else? Nonsense.

Love is nonsense. Did you not know? It is meant to be crazy. It is crazy.

Then let us accept that as true. We must go mad to be in love. A crazy person is never held to promises. There is one love. It consumes promises and out beyond promises there is an open field. I met you there. Life in that field is far better than any other life. You have to trust me.

How can I?

If you cannot, have no truck with me.  

The superior people who conceived of the world as you presently know it must have come to despise uncertainty in any form at the same moment they conceived of superior people. Importantly, though, the real world, made before man was present on Earth to conceive of anything at all, is absolutely uncertain. That makes for a difficulty. You are living, or trying to, in a world created by the conniving minds of persons who argue against truth. What is that like? What chance do they have of bringing you home safely? Why do you even consider following?

Life is not difficult for those who understand uncertainty. It is understood by the human heart through music, dance, love, kindness, generosity and all else that stirs up passion. To make things even better when it seemed nothing else could, there is a certain peace in absolute uncertainty that surpasses all understanding. Certainty is a drag. Be like a child. It should come as no surprise that the folks who understand and embrace uncertainty make no attempt to live in the world made by the dissenters. The dissenters made up a world based upon a theory of gambling which they sold to you as a certain thing. With gambling come its rules. The house writes the rules, of course. With rules comes a strange, cold certainty all right. There will be winners and there will be many more losers.

Here's a game. Think of a serious problem, any problem. Now, state it clearly. Okay, imagine you hear an answer to be: So what? Play along and explain how important the problem is, in your mind anyway. Imagine the same answer: So what? Keep this up. Before long, you will begin to lose your concentration on the seriousness of the problem and become more involved in the process. You will find yourself wondering just how far this can be taken. Then, suddenly, it will no longer matter to you at all. Problem solved in a peculiar manner. Uncertainty dominates the landscape, your paradigm shifts, and the mind is robbed of its imagined need for certainty. Nothing has changed really, and yet, you are probably laughing.

In the West, the following statements of certainty are memorized by everybody who goes to school:

1. You are going to have to have a job when you grow up.

2. You have to have money to enjoy life.

3. You have to pay bills.

4. You have to get married to have children.

5. You have to either have a mortgage or lease from someone who does in order to live in a nice house with your family.

6. To enjoy the earth's bounty, you have to have purchasing power.

7. You have to have a country in order to live on land where it is claimed that a symbol you are supposed to love reigns as sovereign authority.

8. You owe a debt to those who have died fighting in a war to keep that imaginary country's incomprehensible sovereign power intact.

Is there any sovereign save one whose name is Love For All? None of these, not one, are remotely true in the eyes of a child. They see a big hole in each one. They are likely to grin and say something that sounds crazy to you, like, I can just change into a boat and float. Or, I can change into a rocket and go to the stars. They find it easy to escape your learned stupidity. They just pretend along with you. Why not? They probably believe you are kidding until the day you lower the boom on them and inform them the listed certainties are more real to you than a hug and a kiss and eternal bliss. And cruelty will abound at home. The cat's out of its bag at last. The family secret is: we are monsters and must kill people in this world in order to maintain our self images. That. Is. All. War. Has. Ever. Been. About.

And the last to be seen that the enemy is us on that same day when is seen the last day of war.

To Govern A Miracle Is To Kill 

A Mockingbird

The Attorney General of Texas was recently 

quoted as saying, Texas marriage laws are 

rooted in a basic reality of human life: 

procreation requires a male and a female. 

What he did not admit is the obvious truth 

that procreation is lawless behavior. 

That's right! No legislative action is 

required to make a baby nor can it be of 

interest to the child who happens then swims 

for its life, urged from within; and no make-

believe, falsely legitimized marriage ever 

will put handles upon a miracle and turn it 

into a vehicle to be driven.

Watching two cardinals prepare a nest at my 

door where she will carefully lay her eggs to 

be watched over until the miracle is 

fulfilled, it was indeed understood that 

legislation in such an arena is profane. Love 

only can nurture a family. What love arises 

from fountain pens? What justice? What, 

indeed, righteous? Honorable? Decent? 

Dignified? Or, for that matter, even relevant 

to living human beings? Ask yourself, Can I 

be reduced to writing?

SIMPLY RECONSIDER EVERY DAY

I want to suggest that as humans we reconsider now the worship, or not, of any of the named gods, whichever the case may be.

For just a moment

to go back in history

to how it all began.

If you do, now, ask yourself:

did I believe or choose not to believe because in a time of deep fear someone told me almighty God can be on my side if I follow instructions to the letter assuring me that thereafter I shall be glad I did? In other words, someone invited me to join their side in a battle between good and evil? Can it be that that which seemed an invitation to freedom was the opposite dressed as a band of chosen people proclaiming a unique concern for me and my welfare? And, whether I accepted, or refused to accept, I ask, did I then make fear my master thereafter right up to this moment? Have I become fear itself?

One can come empty of guile only when one finally sees

no power is on my side.

Is that not so?

Think about it.

Does the world's Sun not seem to go 'round to you? Time and time again? Tracing the same pattern in the sky above you blessing all living things the same without a shred of judging who is good and who is bad? Now, make the same inquiry concerning the actual food you eat, the air you breathe, and the water you drink. Does a mango ever ask: are you entitled to eat me? Do air, water, or foods nourish the good only and curse the evil ones? Who draws lines and declares, my side?

In fact, be honest, as you surely are, is there not strong evidence laid at your door daily that whatever runs the show down here does not prefer you over those you dislike most bitterly? And, does that fact cause you to doubt the very existence of any god at times or cause you to hate the idea of it it even? You may tremble if you dare.

So, now, will you consider a recommitment of your life to something that does not want you to rejoice a moment longer than your neighbor rejoices? or a perfect stranger? or all your perceived enemies? right down the list to the tiniest bug?

Only am I asking. Should this make no sense to you forget it ever came by your eye.

This happened to me is why I am asking. What I care about is a world of peace for all we humans. The rest of nature, the trees, for example, and all that live under their sway seem to have no trouble living consistently without boundary lines, real or imagined. Do you know there is a vital connection occurring as you read these words between the lizards who cavort merrily in a desert this moment and the trees living and growing in forests far away from them and probably unknown to them throughout life? Only asking.

This is not an invitation to join a goddamn thing! Maybe it's an invitation to accept, just as you are, the only thing you cannot, under any circumstance, un-join. I care not that you know my name. I am ordinary like you. Talking to me is like talking to yourself.

From Worm To Cougar and Back

There is an unbroken chain from worm to cougar and back, a priceless trove the owner of which is unknown; and I am allowed myself to be included among its treasures, or not. If not, I chase nonliving gold instead with which I hope to buy freedom from the ungraspable source of life. Either way, I serve somebody. Have you noticed churches and hospitals and yoga teachers hoarding chests of gold? Why fear life? Death? Is that it? Which way?

Coming in or going out?

The gold misers who stayed on dry land at home paid with gold for the whalers on ships with ample stores for years at sea to go and carry back the dead whales' oil to be turned back into more gold at marketplace where unknowns happen to be despised. The market bases its strength in a thesis there is not enough to gratify everybody; thus creating the appearance of finite certainty so the accountants' manipulations create a price for every commodity. And yet, uninvited guests have a way of upsetting the plans of men who marry wives. And, the weirdest of all things happening are the prayers of the misers that the Phantom who adores the Big Fish protect their erstwhile treasure from harm, bless it, and keep it safely out of the hands of other thieves than themselves. Where and from whom and how long can these fools hope to hide?

To Be Humans Again

The salt of the Earth. That is what a man who loved people called us. And it seems to me we have fallen so far from that role it staggers me to imagine how did it happen?

A truly dedicated man who was somehow still playing the role originally assigned to all of us, Salt, who was named Sebatsiao drew pictures of us with a light box which enabled him to see through a lens what most of us cannot or will no longer see to show us to us, that man, taught me something true. It was in watching a documentary of the life of this man and his loyal wife that it was possible. For more than twenty years I have been trying to understand what I saw in an hour or two one day in the studio of a stone carver in Austin. I realized then that the trade of stone mason arose at the time men slaved to build pyramids. But why? I asked myself, would any human being willingly spend their one life in such a way? And no answer came except, well, they did...and the do still.

I have slowly seen that even in the lives of very adventurous humans who go into the unknown regions of reality as brave and lonely explorers at the behest of some calling...or some kick in the pants from behind...which? Both. Depending on what is needed at the moment. Oh, yes, I did not make a complete sentence. So what? I'll continue as of it is perfectly as it should be. Even in those lives, the explorers lives, one finds a point where the trailblazer vanishes into the stone mason chain. Have you seen that? Yet?

The photographing holy man I spoke of earlier became so sick of what he drew with his camera that he could go on no more living at all, unless, he found something else to behold to take him away from the Hell he had displayed so boldly before us. And he did.

Know what that man...one man, who listened to his wife ask, why don't we replant the forest that once was your home and is now a barren wasteland, did? As impossible as the idea seemed to him and others who heard it, they began to replant trees, tiny little plants. In 15 short years it had become a magnificent green forest again. You can go to Brazil today and tour it. Or, search it on the internet with the aid of sat-il-light and look at pictures drawn with the light there that are meant to depict its glory.

The man was restored himself. He who gave so much he almost died lives as whole man, Salt Man. Not just the great forests can be restored, humans!

Johnny Smith,

traveler to this land

longing to be human being

p.s. And the new forest in Brazil? Why, that is no longer owned by Sebatsiao's family that is a dedicated public park.