"For a hundred years the 'Ice Maiden' was trapped .....but now she is free and a new Ice Age is dawning!" This image was featured in the Expose section of the Dec 2006 Imagine FX magazine
"It is easy to overlook this thought that life just is. As humans we are inclined to feel that life must have a point. We have plans and aspirations and desires. We want to take constant advantage of the intoxicating existence we've been endowed with.William McGuire "Bill" Bryson, OBE, (born December 8, 1951) is a best-selling American author of humorous books on travel, as well as books on the English language and on science. Born an American, he was a resident of North Yorkshire, UK, for most of his professional life before moving back to the US in 1995. In 2003 Bryson moved back to the UK, living in Norfolk, and was appointed Chancellor of Durham University.
But what's life to a lichen? Yet its impulse to exist, to be, is every bit as strong as ours - arguably even stronger. If I were told that I had to spend decades being a furry growth on a rock in the woods, I believe I would lose the will to go on. Lichens don't. Like virtually all living things, they will suffer any hardship, endure any insult, for a moment's additional existence. Life, in short just wants to be." - Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything
This poem brings to light the way women dissappear and appear in the north, or the winter, in the snow in my life. The View From The Northern Wall, Noordwal. In the Chinese version of the directions, the North is the place of solitude. South is plenitude, East beginnings, and West endings.
Or is it God? I'll wager :) Hmmm. Goddess.
Of course to bring it down home, my last lover left Oregon, emigrating to British Columbia. How much more literal can I get?
Tracking Signs
You've gone north and you
Expect me to follow you
But I see no trail.
That means I'll have to
Track the signs you've left again.
That will slow me down.
(shaking the rain off)
Not that I suck at signs, no,
I follow them well,
Hardly ever get
Lost so bad I must give up
In disgust, go home.
You know all of this,
Of course you do. I admit
This pisses me off.
Still, my heart hangs here
Now that you've gone walking
As if I don't count,
As if it's me that
Disappeared, or I didn't
Care enough for you.
January 10, 2009 9:15 AM
First published Sunday, May 31, 2009
no Christopher, what slows things down is having the cursor move down and hit save every other damn GOD damned word.
ReplyDeleteTrusssssssst me Christ
everything is going to be ok, think of the lichen (not the kind that looks like parrot poop on big rocks:which BTW is old, like really really old) but the kind the lives in symbiosis with the cyano bacteria.
you know, the same way you now do, or else after I send my extortion letter to the Mormon Church, zerox it and send it to the Catholics, I will whiteout Pope John P's name scribble in yours and you can pay for my my, actual I don't care what you pay for as long as you don't have any money, or at least not enough to ever smile again
look at my smile though Christopher :D
oh jeez, poor choice of words, My letter would more accurately describe a process know as "persuade" as in to talk some sense into adopting views that more closely align with...hmmmm lets just, to better reflect the views of any American really, shot only because I am being put on the spot and my last name is the only one I know how to spell for sure, just make your checks out to me.
ReplyDeleteonly if that is easier for you though :)
Here's my million zlotys. I invested in them back in the day and have been wondering what to do with them. They're now yours. :D
ReplyDeletewe, all of us, can't help but move on in ourselves. sometimes that breaks the binding with others.
ReplyDeleteyou know, i think perhaps the spirituality in the north is derived from being less. there are fewer people, less concrete, less interference with nature (if you're luckily away from the tar sands) and so, there is more opportunity just to be. you get to be a little more like lichen here:)
I've lived in Ohio and in Taiwan, even southern Ontario where there are too many. I was swallowed, my body and mind, my spirit unrecognizable in many ways. Space gets me there, back to me, especially inside of nature.
xo
erin