Tag Archives: tree
2017-10-22
It may be cold outside at night and there are most definitely drawbacks to living on the road, but for all the challenges there are just as many perks and new experiences to discover. I love taking a hot shower, yet I am surprised how well am able to cope and get by without that old daily ritual. Many of my habits are stunted and new routines form. My westward horizons are uncharted and still a looming mystery to unfold, while looking back reminds me of the land covered, the towns past and seen. I never knew how easy it would be to leave it all behind. The daily newfound liberty of a nomadic crawl is ever increasingly full of continuous potential. I am ever asking myself what do I want, what do I want now, to do, to eat, to see next. It seems like I’m leaving my old life behind, though I know I carry everything with me. I am who I am because of what lies East. I know how lucky I am and I count my blessings regularly. I give many thanks and share my gratitude.
Channel your inner Mark Weathers a bit and google then visit some of your local libraries and trail-heads. My homes away from home.
Time marches down the streets of our lives
Secret gardens hidden fruits
Don’t forget to look down. Stoop down. Look at what you’re about to step on and look over to side at what is not so trodden. What is there?
what magical other place this is? So easily hidden in plain view
And how does this newness you just discovered apply?
How does it affect your imagination and link to your usual perspective?
You fly by, capture a speeding glimpse and are forever changed, if you allow it within yourself. If you are willing to let it open chains of thought, willing to let it somewhere near your heart.
The secrets are there for you to learn and share.
Their rich juices will feed your soul through osmosis.
Here are a few that I’ve found and stolen away…
For a rainy day.
Dirty V-word
Why is it that speaking about kindness toward animals generates so much backlash and vitriol?
Why is it that we so easily overlook suffering if it is not right in front of our faces?
How can we expect to expect justice and non-violence when we put violence and injustice in our mouths three times a day?
Why are we living in the past when we can be living in the future!? All it takes is starting to live with compassion and awareness for all life on Earth. That’s all. It just means we have to stop causing suffering for others, in order to drastically lessen the suffering of all. Either we end the anthropocentric causation of the Earth’s current mass extinction event, or it ends us. If we can’t be compassionate with each other, we don’t deserve longevity as a species.
The trees are speaking
What whispers will spill,
from between the cracks in the bark?
What creaks and moans,
bends in the wind,
grows tall in the dirt and snow.
Greetings of fruit to bear
shade from the heat during the Summer months,
shade from the Sun’s far reaching rays.
What ways do you grow?
What fruit do you bear?
Who do you cast a shadow upon,
as the sunlight feeds us all…
We are still walking here
Overhead wisp
Woosh! Flying high in the sky, sometimes if you listen.
Drifting slower than you or I, way out of reach.
Big like our imaginations, crawling by.
Capturable, in a way.
Like a breath.
accidentally stepped on
Oh I’m sorry! I didn’t see you down there,
I must not have been listening out for you. Are you OK?
Pardon me, but what if you accidentally killed something that mattered to you?
maybe you’re just walking down a path, up a hill
and something jumps in your way, underfoot or
in your face.
Now that it’s dead, what do you do?
You made it out alive and you get
to sleep in your bed tonight
Sometimes at the foot of my bed at night I think to myself
Sometimes I declare my motives to myself
Sometimes before I fall asleep, I wake up
and see the light. and then I can’t sleep.
The black collarless cat
I have heard tale about black cats crossing your path. I have heard tale about witches’ familiars and known a few prankster, predator spirits myself. I know the black cat is a symbol with a long history of feline heroic individuals, and I know the black cat has it tougher than ever in this modern human world of blind violence and fearful hateful superstitions. Many humans treat the other animals in their life with blind contempt and confinement. Roadkill, and nobody cares.
The powerful, dark smell of fresh asphalt.
The inconvenient truth that auto-accidents kill and maim countless lives while some lives matter more than countless others. Our ways of transportation must involve killing less innocents. It’s not ok that a little kid has to lose his beloved pet for the same reason it’s not ok for all the other lil animals to lose their lives because humans haven’t figured out how to speed around safely. The self driving cars of the future will go along way to shifting this paradigm. The roads will start to look like train tracks with bridges for wildlife crossing.
Some animals in this life are free from their cages. Some roam the streets in a larger, harsher cage within a cage. The cage of random local human made happenstance within the happenstance of the nature of all life on Earth.
The boxer dog debated for a while but barked loud and furious at me after I said hello. Having it his way, I crossed the the road to avoid it and its invisible fence. Another boxer maybe the first one’s mum ran up, looked around and just seemed to want to calm the first dog down. The second never barked or payed me much attention at all. I crossed the road to the pedestrian right of way right after the medium loud dog. And then I crossed the road back again because a few houses down opposite the aggressive dogs, I saw a black cat guarding a house. I looked at its way must have maybe meowed. It probably meowed too after seeing me and came trotting down the hill right toward me from about 40 yard plus. Naturally I walk to intercept and pause on the shoulder of the road by the mailbox of the house the cat came from. We greeted each other like old friends. And had some nice gentle scratches and rubdowns. No collar, but very well mannered. She even came to me when I started calling her back from her careless and idle wandering onto the fresh black asphalt. I stayed with her for just a couple minutes and took her photo. A car passed by and as I was petting her, to hold her close, I also held her down with gentle force in the direction that she flinched when the car passed by. And then I immediately let go, and resumed passive petting/grooming. But then I wanted to leave and continue my long walk to the grocery store and then home. But no, she wouldn’t leave me alone. Meowing some but mostly just following in my foot prints with her silent steps she kept after me. The cat kept following me and as I stopped to pet it and give in yet again to it’s amazing persistent cuteness then I saw another neighborhood solo pedestrian like me coming toward us. Sure enough the cat continued to follow me and harass me with the cutest of meows and beckons for attention. She followed me for about two full houses down the street toward the direction out of the suburban network of stand alone ranch style houses. The other local neighborhood walker past by and she said she thought the cat belonged to me. I told her it was not mine, but I don’t think the cat knows this either. I told her that I knew about people warning about black cats crossing your path, but then asked her what does it mean when they won’t stop following you? …when they won’t stop giving you lots of cute face bumps and tail whips, meows and purrs.
I started walking off a bit with the human lady and the cat must have taken it as a sign and so left me, venturing across the road and into another yard. After wishing each other happy Halloween, I let the nice older woman in a cute red vest get some distance from me while I slowed and watched back for the black cat. A minute or two later, I looked back and saw her again, walking the the side of the road toward me, from a good distance. I stopped, she walked forward for a while but then turned right and went up some drive way, probably about 5 to 7 houses down from where I first saw her. I gave a loud meow goodbye and watched her stop for a second and move her head to hear, saying that she heard. I couldn’t her meow, but I know how she feels and what she says. I had never seen her before and I’ll never see her again, probably. I hope she’s ok. -mark weathers 2014-10-29
some leaves grow from the central husk of the tree itself.
Happy Halloween to you!
<3
Mark