I have figured them out.

I just discovered the secret of the universe.
Sorry, Sir Isaac Newton but the answer was not in the apple.
It was in the tree.
You see, trees have ever fought gravity.
And they would have won too!
But they have roots that attach them to the ground.
And, well, trees are boring.
At least they find themselves to be.
Standing by each other all their lives long,
And never share a word together.

So this is the plan they came up with:
If ever a human begins to float,
If ever they figure out that they can, and how...
We trees will be so very lonely.
So we ought to hold out our sticks (just in case).
Over their paths is over their heads.
And if one should begin (to float, I mean),
Then surely one of us will catch him!
We will cage in the world.
In a tangled up web of branches and twigs,
And if we let go of the leaves,
We will still not let go of the sticks.

As another precaution,
To slow the progress they could make,
Let's leave them in a daze,
If we can manage, let's take their analysis away.
And when they are walking safely
There beneath us on their path,
If they even dare to look up,
We will paralyze them.
Those people will bump up and down,
As they do when they walk around...
But when they look to a tree, sixty feet up,
The bumping will stop.
And they will feel our still advancement.
THAT IS HOW WE CAN MOVE.

Are we all then agreed?
Keep the people inside.
They must not be allowed to float away,
Up into the skies.

my hopes for hope

I watched The Duchess a couple nights ago and it made me sad, to say the least. Georgiana endured so much more than I can even fathom. And I wanted to pray for her afterward. But how does one pray for a thing that's passed? What could I say for this long dead woman for whom I wish so much? The most I came up with was to pray for hope in the details of her life not known. That there was some secret joy or comfort that was afforded to her. I prayed that she could have known, somehow, that people then and now are rooting for her.

I wish I wasn't helpless to people that have suffered. People who lived out their lives and for whom circumstances never improved. I wish I could have some hand in the lives of those who were never checked on by the people that should have cared for them. I wish I could hold the hand of everyone who has ever forgotten what hope feels like. I wish I could hold the hand of and 18th century widow, the hand of a slave, the hand of a sick person. But I don't know how that could ever happen.

This is what moves me: the spreading of HOPE. The proving of humanity. And this is why I will never stop loving, in any direction. I want to share goodness with the world. I want to exhaust goodness. I want to meet the world in an embrace and show children in Iraq and in the UK and in Uganda that they are my brothers and sisters. I want to sit with a stranger on a bench and ask, "What happened?" and just listen until he runs out of things to say, dreams to describe, passions to uncover, and pains to reconcile.

I want to be what the world needs most. I want to write charity in my countenance.

Week one.

Yesterday was my first 15 minute date with the sky. It started out exactly how I wanted it, perfect. I was just lying there completely in control of my thoughts and everything else.

Then an emergency helicopter flew diagonal across my view.
And I thought: What a different world I occupy right now. I am lying flat on the earth caring about nothing and thinking about how beautiful the world is.
And in that helicopter... something else. Something hard and stressful and out of control. Something miserable.
And I was allowed to walk away from my reality, even this pleasant one I created on the grass spot, as soon as I felt 15 minutes go by. And that helicopter had no right to a new agenda. The person inside, the people?, would have in an instant chosen the reality I just left. And this to them, this glorious grass spot, went by the wayside in my life when I rolled over to grab my bag and go home.

And now... I'm typing on my blog, while wondering what the last 34 hours have done for the person in that helicopter. I hope he/she is okay. I really really do.

courage.

{orange} means live.

i resolve.

I decided to stop being a cynic about New Year's Resolutions.

Mine is to stare at the sky for 15 minutes every week. To spend 750 minutes this year laying flat on the earth thinking about nothing else. I think that by stopping to not-think, I might learn something, might tap into some sort of awareness that's was written into the constellations before Adam. I can imagine it. And I know that I'm very far from that point right now, but I want to get there. And I want to be able to sit and call it out from the middle of myself, and just feel aware. I want to eliminate all the false dichotomies in the world and become familiar with the correctness of the universe. The answer that is literally hanging over my head all my life. I want to find it, then own it.
Besides all this, I just really like the sky. I think he and I can become friends.