the weeds...

sometimes when we're just walking down a familiar path that we know should only take us a few moments or hours to get to our destination...we suddenly find ourselves being drawn off to the side into the weeds...sidetracked...way laid...drawbacks...setbacks... time passes...weeks maybe months of constantly struggling to get back...get back to at least yesterdays problems...our familiar stuggles...but no...we are out there now in the unfamiliar... definitely not in control of anything but being able to choose how we take all of this, how we live with these disappointments...how we live each second knowing we are way the heck out there...on some danged adventure in the unknown...trying our level headed best not to hurt or harm ourselves or our chances... trying to recover, remember, return to the simple path...but the universe has other plans...as we turn over every stone...follow every lead...learning the intricacies of this wilderness, our predicament and what the universe is trying to teach us...holding us by our big toe...lovingly?...we live our doubts...in our hall of mirrors...and knowing all this is not enough to return us to the path...there is progress only when there is progress...but not due to anything we may have done... but we follow through completely on everything that might be a solution...might turn the tide...might be the way back...we follow every glimmer of light...stumbling around in the weeds...

perhaps one day a moment comes when we find our way back to the path
to the safe and known...stumbling out of the woods...we realize where we are...it looks strangely familiar because we of course have never seen it from this direction before
having now unwittingly explored beyond the hinterland one might have seen from our old familiar path...before...before our unwilling journey...our apparently necessary journey into the changed for ever...that time we spent, gone, never to return...we are somehow expanded by all this ..as our familiar path of course seems strange as we hurt from our ache for it...and

we begin again on our way that should be only a few short steps away from our goal
but then our confusion and exuberance and resentment at the universe for making us go through all that...are all boiled up together in the moment of each footfall on our path...our cherished path...if we can only get there...then everything will be alright everything will go as planned everything once again becomes possible...for our happily ever after...

but if we wish to include everything becoming possible in our adventure...then everything will from time to time show up...and not always to our liking...
but then this is all conjecture because
we...you can't go home again...cant go down to the same river twice they say...
and sure enough the hall of mirrors reveals itself again and you discover that you may or may not have been on your actual path back home...but at least you have found yesterdays problems just where and how you left them..unresolved...so now that you've enjoyed the moments of exuberance thinking you have made it back...you are found back at the beginning of your problem...now what have you learned in all this time in the weeds that you can apply to the old problem that you didnt know before...
cuz maybe thats what this whole thing has been about some precious little tidbit that the universe wanted you to have...and this delay this setback was the most expeditious way for you to get the delivery...?? or the universe is just messin'with ya...wanting and waiting for us to get the joke on us...
we're immortal and none of this matters really...the universe just wanted to catch us in our moment of attachment to remind us to remember what's really important...or not...our choice really...

either way we dont move forward until we do something right...if we can only figure out like a rat in a maze which combination of jesters which prayer sequence will get the danged pellet of food to tumble down the shute...but then it isnt about all that either ...this after trying the same combination so many times because we think it's right...we think it SHOULD WORK...WE JUST WANT THE DANGED THING TO WORK ...WE JUST WANT THIS FREAKIN NIGHTMARE TO BE OVER WE JUST WANT OUR LIFE BACK...

it really doesnt matter though because like the baby in the highchair screaming for attention we dont get to go until we get it right...& looking back after we figure it out knowledge is the key...how much execution does it take to elicite the right knowledge to tumble down the shute...?

along the way of course, especially as hours turn to days turn to weeks there is plenty of time to wonder of our predicament ...to philosophize about ones life and current circumstance so like Job sitting in sackcloth in the dust and ashes of his former prosperous life surrounded by his 3 "friends" trying to figure out why this is happening... what did we do wrong to deserve gods wrath ...because god does'nt make mistakes ..if something bad is happening to us we must have done something wrong...right?...wrong

but we take our life apart anyway piece by piece...navel gazing...examining every detail that has led us to this moment of crisis...where crisis is defined as the state where something has to change, it can't remain the same..what have we to learn from this...and when we determine that we havent done anthing wrong we have tured over every stone we could in ernest with pure heart, taken advantage of every opportunity to resolve our dilema...then we can only proceed with determining what the heck is wrong with our relationship to the universe that it has to come to this....
maybe we need an upgrade to a clearer communication ...

but the thing is through our examination we realize beyond all doubt that there is no way to give up...failure is not an option ...we cant back up and there is no do over or reset button...we can not turn around we cannot retreat we can not surrender...we can not stand still here in this threshold of crisis forever...we... must... be ...born...forth...or reborn but we cant stay here and we have to move...forward..................the pressure is unbearable...yet we bear it and we use it and we center in it and slow ly inperceptably at first....there is a change...before we know it the page has turned...
leaving us with the chose of resentment or not...

oh oh what is that...is that progress...is there truely a sign of the familiar...oh is it working...is our life workign again...are we in the right flow again...is our life moving in the right direction again after all this time...and it was only that little thing after all that we didnt know about that was holding it up and voila
presto chango movement...progress...freedom

when i was in the midst of this i saw something...it was in that moment i was writing this and the computer froze and crashed for the umpteenth time over the past 3 weeks continuing to hold hostage the final cut of the movie ive just spent the last 5 months creating...every time i would try to export or burn the DVD to get the final cut of the movie out of the computer which can take up to 8- 9 hours... the computer would freeze up . .. .... . ...... .. ... .
The movie is about two previously unknown archeological sites i discovered in Big Sur,CA over the past 16 years...that i feel may be connected with the Hopi story of the survivors of the last world destruction/ purification by flood by the nephew of the great spirit at the end of the 3rd world age and their place of emergence into this the 4th world, 5 to 10 thousand years ago...
as i was composing the part about findin' ones way back to the path the computer gliched up and i had to shut it off and i thought i'd lost the first 5 paragraphs of this piece...but the next day when i opened the computer it was still there as it was when i had to shut it down...but in those 12 hours having thought i'd lost the work...a question came...


what are the weeds!

growing up and learning to grow a vegetable garden i was told weeds are those pesky little things that grow profusely without permission where we dont want them...yet

as i'm stumbling around out there trying to "get back" to the simple path...trying everything i can think of through my grief and fear and disgust and resignation...and did i mention disgust...at why this is taking place why is this necessary why can it just be easy and effortless instead of this long ordeal
why cant i just birth the movie...you see in the past 3 years i have self -published 11 books and 2 feature length movies...and this some form of last minute complications has happened with just about every one ....every
and i for one would so love for this to evolve to the harmonious rung of the spiral...

so...i'm out there in the weeds bemoaning my fate...when the computer freezes as these black lines that look like I Ching hexagrams cover the screen... blinking...on and off at some random interval...
cosmic morse code? i ache for the loss of those thoughts i just spent that time pouring myself my mind and heart into to leave some record for you who might know what i mean about all this...something said i should try to write about my insight while still in the midst of the trial...before the resolution...

so it suddenly occurs to me to look down at the weeds...
to realize what the weds are
when i was a kid getting lost in the woods was a favorite pastime
to the point where as an adult i carried on with this though now calling it bushwacking...
or scouting...as in scouting for a site for a rainbow gathering...whcich ive had the pleasure and privilege of doing several times all over the country and even in Africa...
so im very familiar with being lost in the wilderness...lost in the weeds
and
being found...finding oneself...back in the known
the weirdness of one moment being lost and two steps later feeling found...
same earth... what's changed... perception ...something inside me...head and heart
the thing is
that if you've been through it enough you know the signs of being close to being found...
and sometimes you remember in that moment of being found
to look back...to glimpse back at where you just came from...that seemingly hostile and foreboding and ominous place...that you held in your head a few moments ago as the world...
the unknown was alive and talking with you... even if you weren't enjoying it
the scarry parts were all about you as you were desperately trying to find your way back to something familiar in your jaunt off the map...
but somewhere out there in the woods or the weeds you may have seen something beautiful...the way the sunlight came through the leaves of the trees...the smell of the dampness of the grass
the deep yellow of a dandelion you ate to bolster your liver and kidneys...the flight of a wild bird singing overhead...that moment you found yourself face to face with a wild animal and you both froze and considered one another for that long moment...before the spell was broken and one or the other of you continued on your way...

the weeds are those little tiny green numbers streaming down the screen in The Matrix...each one is made up of energy...the energy of the universe...infinite, ever-present, almighy, conscious love...
the weeds and our little journey into them...our little side track...our little bump in the road...our little twilight zone episode is just the universe loving the beegeebers outta us...? ?? ?? ? ???? right?.... he types as he keeps hitting the save draft button just in case the computer...or the universe in the orm of the compute decides that now is the time the perfect time the ever perfect time for the I Ching hexagram computer freeze...

the weeds are the universe to... the weeds and our unexpected, reluctant,and unwanted journey into them are another expression of the universe taking us by the hand and leading us along the path it would have us walk that we might be the best version of ourselves...??even though it sure as Hecate doesn't feel like it at the time...but feels more like we've reached beyond our limit of frustration...to the poin tof despair...but with out being able to give up...
the weeds are the reality that is happening while we're making other plans...
the weeds and these wild forays into our wilderness are what make the safe and simple path we were trying so desparately to get back to seem so tamed, strange, and unfamiliar like a long lost pair of pants or shoes...when we actually make it back there...there...the warm and safe and as the wilderness recedes back into the missed we return to missing more of the present than that...
when we arrive back in the known the wilderness is no longer the unknown but now is joined into our map of our world...our personal landscape of the universe...horizons expanded we go on business as usual...but with a question...

the day after i realized the question of
what are the weeds...i discovered that the I Ching Hexagram computer freeze thing was being caused by the computer overheating the video card...and all i had to do was keep it cool and i'd be able to burn the DVD of the movie and carry on like every other human being...keeping it cool at certain times meant sticking a package of frozen blackberries under the computer...and another time it meant leaving the computer by an open window all night through the burning process...and at dawn a fresh DVD of my movie popped out of the computer and i sleeping on the floor next to it woke right up to that sound and put in another DVD to burn the second copy while the burning was good...

On Friday Jan 29th, three weeks, that's 21 days from the day when the computer holding my movie hostage for the ransom of patience began...on that same day, Jan 8th, i had to move out of the hotel i'd been staying in since the Autumnal Equinox, Sept. 21st...and have been air mattress surfing here in L.A. since...trying to finish the movie...so on Friday at Sunset i stood in line at the Venice Post office a hair past closing time and sent out a tested and approved copy of the DVD to amazon.com via certified mail to make it available in 2 to 4 weeks online as a digital download and a DVD.... then i walked the block and half to the beach and preformed my personal Conscious Evolution Day Global quiet Sunet/ Full Moon Rise Meditation...
at that moment the full Moon and Mars were rising together in the Leo in the east...while the Sun and Venus were setting in Aquarius in the west....strait over head was the Pleiades star cluster in Taurus ...the ocean water felt a warm greeting on my bare feet... as i meditated on my personal conscious evolution...
this is my harvest
of recent events
thank you for listening...