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On Heavenly Spheres

by MAÔ, posted in Faith, Poetry, Spirituality, Travel, Universe

Where are we going?

This great spinning rock carrying us along?

Could it have a destination?

Does this globe know its course?

This dance with its sisters, and with the sun; an endless, graceful performance piece with music from the stars.

What are we, then, both onlookers and passengers?

Looking up, we know that beyond the veil there is something more.

A choreographer, who created these steps long ago. Also, as architect, built the floor for our waltz through the sky; set these heavenly spheres on their course, and insisted we hang on for the ride.

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When everything is tragedy

by MAÔ, posted in Europe, Faith, Mountain, Spirituality, Tragedy

This week more than twenty people lost their lives in an explosion. This week more than twenty families grieve the loss of loved ones. This week a world, once again, looks for reason and rationale. 

When everything is tragedy, where does one find hope? 

I don’t know the answer. I know that there are cries for justice. Cries for a cessation to needless killing. Cries for understanding, for tolerance, for recourse.

But where should we look? What is the meaning, the purpose? Why does it keep happening? 

It feels as if we’re on the edge of something, and pretty soon it’s going to tip. What will we find on the other side?

When everything is tragedy, where does one find love?

My Favorite Pearls

by MAÔ, posted in Advice, Florida, Growing up, Reading

Wisdom. Where does it come from? It seems that much of the past fifteen months, for me, has been an unending quest for wisdom and understanding. As of yet, I’m still coming up short. Mostly I quote Socrates (as Plato has written): Ἓν οἶδα ὅτι οὐδὲν οἶδα.” All I know is that I know nothing.

Yet, over the years, people have given me advice in one shape or another. Maybe I’ve read it in books, or seen it on television. One of my favorites has done little more than make me smile, but sometimes that’s all advice needs to do. So I wanted to provide some of that here.

The early bird gets the worm

Obviously. The earlier you start digging in the dirt, the more likely you are to reap the spoils. 

Measure twice, cut once

I’ve never been one for construction, but this can applied to many avenues of life. It’s about being precise – even if it takes a little longer in the beginning to get it right, it saves time and money on the other side if you aren’t redoing your work.

Breathe

Quite possibly the simplest yet most profound peace of advice I’ve ever gotten, and it still shows up for me today, to remind me how important breath is. In my singing, and reading of music, I’ll see hand-scrawled notes indicitating breath marks in the music telling me to breathe. When I’m feeling overwhelmed by external forces, breathing slowly makes the anxiety manageable. If I’m lifting weights, or holding a yoga pose, and it’s becoming impossible – focusing on the slow breathing gets just one more out of me, whether repitition or moment of concentration.

Don’t sweat the little stuff, and it’s all little stuff

This was a book that I never read. But the advice is sound. There are very few things in life that can improve if you worry about them. And when you start worrying about something, suddenly the problem is obfuscated and you can’t focus on the real issue anymore. It seems to happen a lot in relationships, where the one thing is the problem, but every other thing starts being seen in the negative by not fixing the actual problem. When life seems too much, focus on the manageable. 

Don’t eat the yellow snow

Okay. Thanks Dad. I’ve seen snow a handful of times in my life, and never did I want to eat white snow, let alone yellow. Still, when I was a young boy my dad gave me this advice (even though we lived in Florida) and I’ve remembered it to this day. Never will I eat yellow snow, but I can’t help but smile when I think about it.

And I guess, when it comes down to it, advice is just there to make life easier. To make you smile. So don’t eat the yellow snow. 

Back From Abroad

by MAÔ, posted in Europe, Past Lives, Reading, Travel

To wit, I’ve been back stateside now for nearly a month. I had every intention of keeping this blog going while I travelled through Europe, but there was so little time to sit and ruminate, let alone write. 

I did finish On the Road, which I started on the flight from Toronto to Amsterdam. I think I wrapped up the book on the ferry ride from Swinoujscie, Poland to Ystad, Sweden. Since being back, I’ve read a few more. Right now I’m working through Brian Weiss’s Many Lives, Many Masters. Most of the time back has been spent working, or applying to jobs, and practicing music. 

I’m enjoying the warm Florida weather and a cool tropical breeze out on the back patio. My dog is lounging by my feet, drooling contentedly. I had started a blog post two weeks ago, but it’s been lost in the nether regions of cyberspace, likely never to be seen again. I was lamenting the fact that many people will call someone who is well-read nerdy. 

Mind you, it’s been a long time since someone called me a nerd. Dork, yes. But I’ve been a gym rat for years, at least I was before I developed RA. I was also an avid partier, so people forgave my intelligence and habit of being well-read. No, I was volunteering, writing in one of my notebooks, and someone asked if I liked to read. Of course I like to read. She said that she didn’t, but her son did. He’d even started a book club with his friends, and was trying to read a book a week this year. I thought that was an admirable aspiration. She called him a nerd. So, I ask you, when did reading books & being generally well-educated become nerdy?

That was the crux of that lost post. More later!

Day Of

by MAÔ, posted in Amsterdam, Europe, Travel

There’s excitiement, waiting for the day of travel. Richard (my traveling companion for this trip) and I just had southwestern style egg burritos. His cat Jay is now wandering around the dining room table looking for scraps. In less than an hour we head to the airport and prepare to take off for Amsterdam.

This is a new country for me – Netherlands. It’s one of those places that, in my youth, I had always joked about going to. Prevalent drug use, partying, the looser moral systems. I suppose I thought that as I got older I may not go. Now, in going, I’m actually excited to visit the canals, see the open air markets and take a walking tour.

It may not be quite what I had anticipated in my youth, but I look forward to the journey of discovery that is Amsterdam.

Siri Bums

by MAÔ, posted in Thoughts

I think about Kerouac and Siri, that AI phone thingy, I wonder what words, pedantic or brusque, might come from such a pairing.

“I first met Dean not long after my wife and I split up” he may start.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t get that” she’d reply.

“This man who walked from coast to coast, doing a pancake tour of America?”

“Are you looking for the International House of Pancakes? There’s one nearby.”

He’d pause. “Yes” he’d say. “That sounds nice.”

“But you’re not listening.”

“I’m sorry, Jack. What can I help you with?”

“Dean Cassidy” Jack would say.

“There’s no one by that name in your Contacts. Do you mean…?

“No, No!” Would be his answer, frustrated now. He’d start again.

“I first met Dean…”

Going Places

by MAÔ, posted in Travel

I’m laying in bed reading, and I felt like writing some. Doctor Strange is playing on the television, background noise at this point, as I’ve probably watched it half a dozen times since it arrived courtesy of the Disney Movie Club two weeks ago. My mutt, One, can’t decide if he wants to lay on the bed with me or be let out. He’ll jump down, run around the room, and then half hop up, waiting for me to lift his back half. He’s half-boxer, half-pit bull, as lazy as he is spoiled, and I’ll miss him when I leave on Friday.

The time has come for travelling back to Europe, a 24-day trek through six countries and nine cities. 

I’m thinking of course of the London attacks today, and wishing for a safer world. I’m thinking of last year’s trip to Ireland and Scotland, and wonder why I didn’t explore more of the world before. I’m thinking of the stack of unread books I’m leaving in wait for me, and of the beat-up copy of On the Road I’ll be taking with me. And I’m thinking of what I’ll do when I get back.

One is curled up beside me, as I reread Susan Orlean’s intro to The Best American Travel Writing 2007. This passage stood out: “I’d also figured out something about the nature of travel. For the first time, it seemed clear to me that travel is not about finding something: it’s about getting lost – that is, it is about losing yourself in a place and a moment.”

Well, here’s to getting lost!

Strange Things are Afoot at the Circle K

by MAÔ, posted in Florida, Synchronicity, The Artist's Way

I’ve had a kind of bad week at the office. To wit, I don’t actually have an office. I used to, working a quasi 9-5 office job in Orlando. It was a job in my field (arts administration) and the work was governmental, so it was decent pay and fairly good benefits. It was also wholly unsatisfying. When my life upended, I decided it was time to leave that job as well.

I quit. I left without a safety net, without a plan, and without any job prospects. Somehow, I’ve been fortunate enough in life to have things work out for me. Sometimes it serendipitous, sometime downright miraculous. Julia Cameron calls it synchronicity. 

That’s not to say I haven’t been down and out before. Last year was a big down and out year, and I wasn’t sure that I’d ever get up. Even with that said, within four weeks of leaving my job, I found work. More accurately, my mother knew a guy who just lost a worker, so I was able to step in. Voila! Instant employment.

Turns out, I was pretty good at the work too. Mostly it’s smooth sailing, with very little mental exertion needed on my part. While working there, I’ve been paying bills, taking the occasional travel adventure, teaching, writing, and reorienting myself to what I should be doing. Getting my head right, and my soul in balance, after its misadventures in 2016. Just last week I was starting to look to PhD programs and seeing what other work opportunities might be available to me after I return from Europe. 

Which sets up the drama of this week. On Friday, filling in for someone who needed the night off, I had a customer lose her temper with me, walking out and threatening to have me fired. This didn’t bother me so much, as I know she was just blowing off steam, and she has a history of frustrated rants, especially when she comes in forgetting to take her medication. She suffers from a mental instability of some kind, so we all try to remain very patient with her.

Saturday was a busy day, but I think it was uneventful as my week’s negative aspects played out. Sunday, on the other hand, busy and downright awful. I have a coworker who for some reason has this chip on her shoulder towards me. She has a general chip on her shoulder, but it’s even more pronounced when directed in my vicinity. Sometimes she is in charge, but on Sunday she and I were both working the floor. There was this heated exchange, and I had to walk away. Out of the back door and around the building. 

Now it takes a great deal to aggravate me, and even more so to make me angry. But at one point I noticed my hands shaking, and I knew that there was nothing good that would come of me engaging anymore with her. Now, the owner has said nothing to me concerning the incident, but the other party has been off since then, and it’s possible he would want to talk with her first.

Then, again, a minor incident on Monday and one yesterday, all leading me to the inevitable query: Is it synchronicity’s way of telling me it’s time to leave? 

I haven’t come to a conclusion yet, nor do I think that I’ll reach one prior to leaving on the 24th. I do think that it’s quite interesting that, after eight months of relative quiet, all of a sudden this week it seems to be one thing after another. So I wonder… Is it the Universe giving me not-so-subtle hints that, “Hey. It’s time.” 

The last time I ignored the Universe I had a mountain dropped on my head. Figuratively. I do not need that again. 

Philosophical Art

by MAÔ, posted in Ego, Emerson, Faith, Gaiman, Mountain, Spirituality, The Artist's Way, Thoreau

Been on a brief hiatus, as I reoriented myself in a direction I’m comfortable with. Coming to terms with losing love, the balancing of material and spiritual, energizing my thoughts and, finally, discovering what it means to break life down into manageable segments.  

“It’s not the destination, but the journey.” – Attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson 

Years ago I conceived Michael’s Musings to be a political soap box for my thoughts and views on the happenings and going-ons of American politicians. I was, and remain, an ardent Obama supporter, and remain convinced of his merits as president to this day. I’ve been non-vocal on my views following this past election, partly because I’ve been preoccupied with my own crises. Though not a major factor in the lives of most Americans, my dark night has been the Matterhorn looming in the foreground of my consciousness, waiting to claim a life. My life. 
It’s this mountain, this hard time in my life, this period of reshaping, that reminded me of Neil Gaiman’s Make Good Art speech. In it, he implored the graduates of the University of Arts in Philadelphia to find their mountains. Make decisions that put them closer to reaching it. To achieving those goals. 

Thing was, I had long ago lost sight of my mountain. in my proper job, with a desk and office and chair and computer, I put a little sticky note on the monitor. “Will it bring you closer to your mountain?” I wrote on it, using the Japanese character for mountain (山) rather than the word. And every day I would sit there and look at it. I’d wonder whether I was getting closer to it, not even remembering what I had planned for it to be.

Then, after so long spent wondering, the damn mountain came and crashed on top of me. I guess it got tired of waiting for me to figure out that I was supposed to be climbing it. Figuratively, I was crushed. I was now facing decisions that I had no clue how to handle. And only over the past couple of weeks have things began to once again come into focus. The mountain, now looming large in my vision, is calling to me. Beckoning me to come climb it. So I take the first step.

“1837. Oct. 22. “What are you doing now?” he asked. “Do you keep a journal?” So I make my first entry to-day.’ – The Journals of Henry David Thoreau.  

Thoughts on Myth and Hero Worship pt.1

by MAÔ, posted in Thoughts

The myth has followed civilization from its earliest beginnings to modern times. It’s alterations through the ages are not at first apparent, because the modern mythology is so drastically different as not to be recognized as myth. 

Firsst things first. What is a myth? Famed mythologist, author and historian Joseph Campbell states it thus; “The high function of occidental [Western] myth and ritual is to establish a means of relationship of God to Man and Man to God.” (The Masks of God book 2 – Occidental Mythology). 

To Campbell, the vast interplay of cosmic forces we deem religion or creation was mythological in scope, and thus books on right and proper living emerged, as did institutions to bequeathe these teachings. Similarly, in the Humanistic traditions of Rome, Greece, Germanic or Celtic peoples, the deities took on human guises, and with them all the foible and folly humanity itself was capable of. 

Myths endure as lessons in how societies and individuals interact and respond to each other. They became necessary, both as teaching tools and as focal points of belief. But where are they now? Do we still have our myths, or have they become outdated and irrelevant in this golden age of science and learning?