Kiwi On The Loose

If you are visiting my blog for the first time you may notice that there are some anomalies. Like why so much about America and then nada. I spent May 2008 - Jan 14th 2009 in America in Denver Colorado. I went there for love and that love continues to this day to be a very powerful and beautiful thing in my life. In fact it is a life defining relationship, and wonderful journey in my life. For me my personal history could be rewritten as BS and AS. Before Susan and After Susan. That does not devalue BS people and experiences in the least as I believe all experiences are preparing us for something, they are growing us, and can be woven into good in our lives. For me that good can in the now, as well as out there ahead, unknown perhaps or that in your heart you see shadows or glimpses of. Getting to see that may be a long way down the road……..and not all pain can resolve into good. Somethings are too painful or sad to ever be seen as good.
Back to the anomaly………
This blog is a hodge podge of thoughts and reflectionz from my time in America and its aftermath back home in New Zealand. I am a mn on a journey, learning and growing lots. I have so many people to thank for that, at times that journey is not all smooth sailing.
YES I am possibly more open than most about whats happening in the murky waters of my life……….and the waters run deep for sure. I am not a masked man, or wanting others to wear masks around me, I love the warmth and humanity of warm, open, trusting relationships, and that kind of intimacy.
And besides,  I believe I have a heavenly father who weaves all these twists and turns into something beautiful……… who uses all these things in my life. I believe I have a Saviour in Jesus The Christ. I love life, being alive and sharing my life with others, walking the road with them……..friends on the road are very very special.I value those friends.Yes she is one of them.

The year has started, and I am back at school teaching music. I love holidays and this one to be sure seemed to go one and on forever, it was a summer like the ones you had when you were a kid. I did a lot of thinking, (can’t seem to stop that) a lot of soul searching (can’t seem to stop that) and a lot of dreaming, (can’t seem to stop that one either).
Some dreams have to die, for new ones to be born. I carry too many dreams and really sometimes I am so blind to whats happening in the dream, I miss the real picture.
2010 for me is going to be a year of reality. I sense the strong call of the wild in my life, but there is also a yearning for the familiar and the peaceful. That may just be lying in the sun at the beach or chilling on a couch in my home, or the wonderfulness of having a job, being able to pay bills and touch peoples lives, laugh, take a photo, think or dance.
The call of the wild is best experienced before or after the peace of being home, and in a place that is shaped by you and expresses you. I like home, I like the land I walk on, I like who I can become and appreciate where I have been, I like the oceans that surround me.

This year I do want to write more, and write more from a space that is inhabited by the reality of Jesus in my life, not a pathetic churchy puppet like Christ, but the man Christ. I want to live and write how that relationship impacts my dreams, how I live, what I say and think, yes who I am. I want to rediscover Him myself and not live on past experiences of Him , or others experiences. To be wild it will be my journey with Him, and to be sure that is personal but will also echo and be consistent with the journeys and experiences of many.

There’s a lot of lip service out there to God and Jesus, but not a lot of dust on the feet from walking the hard road.
I want to have dusty feet, and a very open heart, with a face turned to the sky often and especially at sunset and sunrise.
I want to walk in the garden while he talks to me, and sit quietly with His words and bathe my soul in that kind of love.
Yes that kind of love.

Here’s a link to my 1st poem for 2010. On The Third Day

In New Zealand today the sun is as hot as ever, it’s Friday and there’s nothing like a Friday after a weeks work. Where ever you are in the world.

If anyone reads this I wish you a really awesome year. I really do.

On the third day he rose
uncertain and unsure about crucifixion
did it always come with love
was blood the colour of a lovers rose
were rifts in heaven always accompanied by pain

on the third day he rose
carried a dull ache all day
that night still hollow
wrapped his arms around a wine red pillow
and slept
unable to dream of her
walking in the garden alone

Yes the silly season has arrived and I ain’t got no money, and you know what, I am hilariously happy.  When I see everyone out and about flooding The Warehouse getting prezzies, there is a certain amount of gladness that not being flush don’t mean you cant give.
AND in all this I so damm well know that compared to most of the world I am fabulously wealthy. I am so blessed.
So for Christmas all my loved ones will be getting home made mint sauce from my garden and other creative stuff from my own hand.
Far more satisfying in fact, I feel like a revolutionary conspirator knowing I am not on the consumer band wagon, sucked in by advertising and the desire to make money.
So folks that’s my space at the moment.
I have recently updated theBlindPoet.com .
Also I have redesigned QGDesignz.com
I would love you to take a look and let me know what you think, and while you are at it check out my book. Blind Man’s Bluff Vol 1

I hope to write more soon, if I don’t catch you IO hope you all have an awesome Christmas, with real mint sauce!

I find myself hungry for beauty. Not the kind you might think. Beauty comes in many shapes and forms. As I get older I seem to be more pre-occupied with beauty of heart, soul, mind, vision and more internal kinds of stuff. Outer beauty is driven by wanting to be healthy, and to love/respect myself. Nothing to do with clinging to what was or fear of losing who I am. As I get older and more wrinkled I am finding who I am.
Here is a photo blog belonging to a friend of mine. I love his photos and his thinking. Very inspirational.
Beautiful in fact.
http://montestevens.wordpress.com
Check it out now, funk soul brotha.

Hey it’s me!
Don’t you just love spring? For me however, though I know so well that the seasons effect me, it’s not just spring that has got me buzzing today.
It’s not politics, nor a monetary windfall, not the size of my bank account or anything else :-), it’s just simply this. I am glad to be alive and maybe, just maybe I feel so good because I am managing to have some kind of control over my life. TRUST me I am no control freak or policeman when it comes to life, BUT what I am is tired of feeling like I am not doing what I need to be doing.

AND at this moment in time I am making headway in just a few areas.
In this world we live in we can and do feel so powerless. We are bombarded with media messages about what we need and who we could be. THAT’S on top on the messages we bombard and condemn, define or judge ourselves with.

My biggie lately has been my health.
I was heavier than I ever was a few months ago, after 2 years of sitting mainly at a computer being creative and trying to build some kind of income.
NOW I find myself sitting on my couch at night feeling pretty healthy and on a journey towards wellness.
When will I ever learn, when will I ever forgive myself for being so slow to just do something about what I feel bad about.
I joined the gym, I have a weekly appointment with a nutritionist, I ride my bike and am becoming food wise.
I don’t feel powerless against my biggest enemy (xcuse the pun), who is the enemy? Its me!

I am not particularly flush with cash at the moment and maybe never will be, BUT I can live on a shoestring if needs be and I can live better than most of the world. I feel glad and grateful that I can survive and be content going without stuff. We have so much really.

SO YES I am buzzing. I am blessed, I am springy, because just like the seasons change and have a purpose, so am I changing and so do I have purpose.
That is a wonderful thing.
And I have a 1kg bag of coffee beans that smell divine in my pantry.
Even though I can really only do one cup of coffee a day…………..

Such small pleasures.

I love my Saturday mornings @ home. To wake and while I love my job (as a job) I love being home more and connecting with myspace.com, not myworkspace.com. Work is a wonderful part of life, I am thankful that I can work and that my job is involved with peoples lives etc, BUT there is no escaping, its fun and wonderful doing your own work @ home. Trust me, I don’t have protestant work ethicitis where unless I am working I am not happy or have no meaning. I can sit still and listen to the noises in my mind, I make myself stop and think and just be, watch the cars go by my house or look at the clouds, or a moonlight night. I have seen too many people who can’t, and who are actually afraid to do so. Isn’t it great that right now I have the fridge ready to pull out and clean behind, the vacumn cleaner ready to go make love to the floors and I want to sit down and write. This however is just the raving, what I really wanted to write was about the beauty and pleasure in simple things. Twas a feeling I had hanging up the washing, a delicious feeling.
Here’s my list of simple things today that have touched me today with their simple, uncomplicated beauty…….

• Waking to a letter from Susan who is 7000 miles away and 4 hours ahead in time yesterday
• Hanging washing on the line, and while pegging it up seeing the blue sky and feeling the sun dance on my hands
• The feeling of grass under my bare feet
• A coffee in the sun watching the cars go by
• The sound of the dishwasher and washing machine beginning their cycle
• Watering my plants, a Saturday morning ritual
• The sunlight on the wall as I wake, slats of light coming thru the blinds
• The daisies in the lawn sunbathing, being tickled by the wind
• A quick read of the local rag
• The yellow edges of the green agave leaves transparent in the eastern sun

Yes its these simple things that make me realise how rich I am. That I am free in a good land. That being down under does not mean down and out, that great joy can be found in the strangest and the simplest of places. Like the back lawn.

I know I have seen movies over the years of people who have simple lives and one might say a simple mind.
There is wisdom in this kind of simplicity, and great beauty to me.
I want to be like that.

There is nothing like the voice of a friend. Obviously I am some kind of communication junkie. Lately I have found myself having with drawl symptoms from a lack of intravenous supplies, and consequently been doing some serious thinking, along the lines of why I am me and what’s the matter with me. In the thick of it, I so don’t know if other people experience these crippling episodes, you feel alone as alone in this world and nothing is ever going to change, in fact in this state when you look back down your life path it just seems like its always been the same.
I wish my thinking wasn’t always serious. (which I know it isn’t, but it so seems so)
I found myself talking with someone not 30 minutes ago about things I had been thinking and feeling of late. Some might call it a venting, some a letting off steam kinda thing. Whichever it was I so needed it, there was no raised voice, just self doubt and wondering about the interface of me and the world, my history and future, what was true, would it ever change and all that kinda emotive stuff. Emo is the term used by youth apparently for this kind of talk. It was not a careless dump of negativity
In my listener I sensed no judgement, no answers and a lot of listening and compassion.
That was a gift I so needed to work out my thoughts and feelings in a context of acceptance and love.
It was a wonderful gift from a wonderful friend. I hope I can have that kind of voice when others need it.

And now I am back on track. Everything can seem so hard at times, a real uphill slog, and in that dazed state the road looks all uphill. The voice of a friend can change all that. Being there for someone be the need large of small, is a precious gift, a priceless gift.
I am over the peak.

Well the answer is……………very!
I love it how in life you can have moments of incredible lucidity, where you see very very clearly how things are, and what people are saying or writing. THEN on the flip-side are those moments where you TOTALLY miss what was being said, or right under your nose, or before your eyes. I had a situation like this just recently, and yes I feel stupid and embarrassed I could be so blind and thick, but in other ways I am grateful for the wake up call.
For me the wake up call comes in several ways.
1. It is a reminder that I don’t always get it right, that it’s wise to challenge your own thinking and perceptions regularly.
2. It has made me realise that when you recklessly settle into a certain modus operandi or way of being as a person that doesn’t see you challenging who you are and  how you see things, that is when you can do dumb things and totally miss the point or go off on a tangent that has nothing to do with reality or the situation.

My aka is BlindPoet, and I have come to see how appropriate that is for me. If I was an American Indian the name would suit me down to the ground.
This week in my teaching doing listening activities with the kids I came to the realisation that the brain generalises sounds. When you think how the brain remembers and stores every sensual intake we have, that’s a lot of information. When we hear something, I think the brain throws up all the possiblities given that stimulus sound. If the brain had to scan every sound for a match it would take ages. So it throws up a lot of sounds like options. What we have to do is question the options and sort details out in the stimulus sound to see if they match the brains options/memories. That’s when it becomes listening. Listening and hearing are two different actions. We actually need to challenge what the brain thinks the sound is.

And so it is with what i think I read, or am hearing from someone or maybe even feeling.
What I think someone is saying and what they are actually saying may be two different things. It needs me to challenge what I think they are saying. When we get to a space like we just leap to our first understanding of something, that’s when we are at risk of missing the point and getting it totally wrong.

It takes a wake call, embarrassing yourself to realise hey mate, step back, slow down. Jumping to conclusions happens because I think the brain gets lazy, or we get to set in our ways.

Growing always has a level of discomfort attached.
And me being embarrassed is a growing pain.

Clear as mud!
When I think I am seeing very clearly, or acting as if I always have insight, I am possibly the most blind.

I have really written a lot lately when I think of it, and I feel the wonder and the power of words and good coffee (only 3 a week) gathering a strength and confidence.Tonight I finished a poem that started one snowy cold day in Pablo’s in Denver last November. It was a day of 9 expresso shots and 6 poems. Fun and warmth.

Here is The Denver Old Time Dance Society
http://blindpoet259.wordpress.com/2009/08/18/the-old-time-dance-society/ which is published on my poetry blog.

Or you can read it here. It comes from a collection of thoughts and feelings while I walked the streets on Capitol Hill in Denver on my way to Ogden and 5th where I was helping a friend with some jobs on his home. I loved walking the 12 blocks from Colfax thru this old area of Denver. Heres a link to some photos from that time taken on my cell ph.
http://www.pbase.com/blindpoet/denverdays

Here’s the poem.
Leave a comment, I would love to know how it strikes you. Does it work, communicate………???

The Denver Old Time Dance Society

Stranger feet this dance floor has ne’r seen
elongated flagstones rutted
buffed dull crimson by a gazillion feet
Fall leaf woven carpets secret the drenching of beer
and the stale stench of chunder
with cheese like familiarity
This dance floor goes left and right,
on and on
16th, 17th, across Colfax,
across the abbey road, now you see me now you don’t
black minstrels in white pants
beneath a blue sky
where Lucy once flew with
diamonds and loved Peanuts.

A dance floor cavorted by trees
drunken
with tired limbo hangovers
like bouncers
sleeping off wet  dreams
Grease Lightening
memories of young lovers
bare flesh
parked classics
poop collection bags
the doggy lifestyles
of the rich and the not so
the monotony of middle classes
the daily drone
in CO2 madness
1 2 3, 1 2 3, turn
twist
stepping up
to

Mambo No.5
away from the light

Stranger feet this dance floor
has ne’r seen.