A recurring dream
is exploring a red-rock pocketed
expanse of high desert sage sprawl
finding a cave to nap in
and awakening to know
where the handprints are
pressed in the sandstone.

And when I wake I see
that this is a truth within me:
a deeper feeler of things,
one who touches the tree
and instincts a story;
finds where the antlers drop
where the coyote burrowed.

And here is my kin – I realize –
where such relatives are not
taught the farce of obscurity –
the clever hiding of sensation
to be ‘polite’ in social hierarchy –

and here is where I know
that I am not alone
not tied down by any obligatory
bullshit status of false integrity
just this – the purity of what is
right in front of me
what soils my feet touch
right beneath me

and not lost – but following –
sensing the kin below
the name of things 
and this communion; it fits me
it is where I found
the timeless reality
rooted in belonging

no conversational estrangement
no fear of vulnerability
On Being

 ( an alternate/ an aside )

furthering
disservices
are misleading
with
in
differences
in nature
as only a one
sided
thing:
when
complexity
mystery
completely
mystifying
are the
unifying
strings
&
I’d rather be
without
any labeling –
and words
can’t keep up
can’t confine
the wildlings
&
what transpires
without us
is worth seeing:
as I
could care less
for the behavioral
conditionings
made for
humans, being
&
 those who
paint illusion
for acceptance
over true
belonging
&
when we
are
all
returning
to the same soils:
our commons
grounding

there has been some great need and passion and point in me to write and press words to page and for the many moons phased through my younger years I kept a sketch diary to transcribe various adventures and wayward tales ~

as I am a storyteller and never without a narrative in my head; and this has been my anchor when the swarm of thought and feeling and analysis comes filtering through, a hundred thousand fretting hertz per second, turned over and over again like the finely cut facets of a sapphire catching light to throw spectrum and cast rays into corners. Learning what is truth in the swarms of sensation has been a lifelong journey: what is the purity, distilled; learning not to fabricate a fable of false making; but rather, become the transcriber of it by following instinct as the body knows and hums with environment and our mind learns to surrender to trusting it – even for – and especially for – the times when I saw / felt things before they happened, and failed to find any literature that really touched it in the way that I could ~

so I carved my own canyons
shaped the bend of rivers to bow
brought down the moon

I am a weather storm. I am roots and I am flight.
I am all of these things, and none of these things;
one who values rest and stillness and dreaming –
time spent steering through the collective psyche –
aspiring to only write for the medicine we are needing
by not suppressing the poison that festers at our wounding.

I learned to speak up and speak out
I found ground to stand up and stand out

stepped fully into my skin
found strength to shed again
I let you go
Forgave every sin
just to make mistakes again
Felt my rage fully
came back to breathe again
ritualized in being
saw privilege entirely:
and understood finally
what is that feeling
I always had:
that something was wrong
that people were lying
just hiding their feelings
emotional gaslighting
that oppression was real
running even deeper still

In trust of the instinct
unlearning the speech
and listening to reach ~
back to the path
as it is known
and as it shall be