Knocking on the Sky

I’m a crazed writer who’s trying to make sense of this disintegrating planet. My avatar there on the left depicts me, luminaria, hanging on to reality by the fingernails. If I let go….

There are nearly seven billion people all vying for resources and attention. How are we to process this? I’ve revived this blog and changed the header from a graphic of luminaria (see below) in a graveyard to a photo I took while camping.

“Knocking on the Sky” is for me a metaphor for, Let me in to the next level, whatever that means! And in the meantime, while everything is getting stolen from us, I find comfort in the thought that (so far) they “cannot take the sky (both the actual sky and limitless potential) from me,” which I borrowed from the Firefly theme (I miss that great series!) are:

Take my love, take my land
Take me where I cannot stand
I don’t care, I’m still free
You can’t take the sky from me
Take me out to the black
Tell them I ain’t comin’ back
Burn the land and boil the sea
You can’t take the sky from me
There’s no place I can be
Since I found Serenity
But you can’t take the sky from me…

It seems clear to me that many people have been leaving the planet and that this energy of transformation is on a global consciousness level.

About eight years ago I lost my compass. Anyone seen it? That’s me up there losing my orientation as the world tilts in a billion crazy angles and fractalizes before my eyes. My special dream that humanity will somehow pull this thing off and listen to the intuitive voice that tells us to cry our eyes out, to wail and grieve until we’re soft as the rain, and then when we’re done wailing and grieving, roll up our sleeves and become like raging wind and with beating hearts repair ourselves, our communities, and the planet as if our lives depended on it…because they do. Literally.

I’m currently enrolled as a post-bac student at PSU (Portland State University) taking classes that will supposedly prepare me for grad school, toward an MA in Creative Writing. You’ve got to be crazy to write fiction nowadays. Except for the fact that fiction is a lie that tells the truth, and is therefore possibly one of the most critical endeavors one could possibly undertake.

[avatar courtesy slidewayze, just about the most awesome amateur photographer on the planet!]

What are luminaria?

Blessed are the cracked, for they let in the light.–Spike Milligan

Luminaria are candles set in sand inside brown paper bags that line entrance-ways and walkways. When lit, they give off a beautiful caramel glow in the night as they offer a path. They remind me to listen to things that really matter–my heart, my intuition, my body, and the natural world, the greatest teacher of all.I sort of ripped the header photo, so let me know if it’s yours and I’ll give credit. Anyway. the fact that it was taken in a graveyard at night in the snow seems very metaphorical to me, in this world right now.

I live in Portland. I’m garrulous, dubious, genetically skeptical, and wayward. I adore trees, forests, animals, honesty, and acerbic wit.

My psyche is bruised with every instance of injustice, cruelty, dehumanization, objectification, imposition, gentrification, authority, domination, institutions, ignorance, fearmongering, lies, privatization, and secrecy. I also die a little more each day from the incessant roar of traffic, the loss of wildlands, and the careless and oblivious treatment of what’s left of the natural world.

I support any steps taken to enact a journalistic shield law that includes bloggers. Blogging should be protected by the First Amendment.

I also support anyone and anything that helps to bring down this cancerous system that demands rapacious growth and profit at all costs, and claims to own natural “resources” and human beings. I don’t belong to any group, party, or organization, and I don’t believe in anything except life, the power of connection, and intuition.

I’m one of those wanna-be fiction writers who suffers from occasional mind lock and uses that as an excuse not to do the hard work. I have something like twenty unfinished manuscripts languishing in drawers, shelves, folders, and boxes. I figure that if I don’t write or finish a project, I can’t fail. Not good. Not good. So I’m trying to teach myself how to “write what I know,” although that directive is maddeningly ambiguous. I went to Goodwill and bought a stack of spiral notebooks for $1.50 (good deal!) and am getting down memories of people and places and attempting to form them into stories. I’m not so sure keeping notebooks is helpful. I rarely return to them to dig out “treasures” of things I didn’t want to forget. Mostly these notebooks just sit around and collect dust while my ADHD goads me on to ever-newer (unfinished) projects. Good lord.

Anyway, thanks for your visit. I encourage you to leave a comment on your way through so I can visit you.

Sincerely,

luminaria