If it's all in your head, why have a head?

Here at the sanctuary, it appears that one does very well according to their "act," or how they talk, what they talk about, how they move their hands around, how they sit, stand up, walk, how they dress, how comfortable or uncomfortable they are in their body, how they respond to situations and people, how they drink, what they drink, if they have "things" that others can ask for and if they are willing to dole out. Most important is if anyone is watching.

And before all that: what am I really writing about here?

I am an intensely idealistic mind. There are many moments where I am watching the dream and not the film in front of me. For instance, I would rather be sitting with people I can create fun with than sitting and writing this, because I feel insidious making these notations about a place that I struggle to feel at home with. I mean, I am certainly at home wherever I am, wherever I go, in this body, outside this body. That's my way of saying, "it's okay."

There's something inside us that has to work to keep us "sane." Maybe it's denial, maybe it's renunciation of a self altogether with feelings and thoughts and a heart that mostly goes without mention.

I'm bothered that I am a ghost here. We are all ghosts here to a certain extent, living in queer purgatory. Visually it is paradise, but there is a deeper current missing altogether. I think it's all those little things that surmise into "community" that I feel missing, that subtle thread that connects you to me to them, an energy web of compassion that arises out of somewhere.

Some people welcome you with open arms and brilliant eyes - sensory outputs for what is undoubted support of your existence. Some people don't even look you in the eyes day after day after day after day.

I'm really sad about that point.

You know, there are some strong personalities here, strong, developed characters with acts and they have sketches to perform, cycles of them. I'm sorry, we do.

So I don't know what "it" is. I'm not a leader or a hero or anything. I don't really want to be here. I would rather move mountains and fly, and making music sometimes is like that. I would rather be having fun. I would rather hang out with a group of kids. I don't think I can take much more of this if this is what being young and 20-something is all about, this daily, weekly affair of apathy and "fuck you" with my eyeballs staring at you with that look of "and what the hell do you want?"

It's this part of the river I don't understand. You give it all up to some higher power, some more enlightened energy that sees where you've been and maybe what direction you're heading, so you give it all up to it, travel, meet lots of people, visit communities.

I don't know.

Why bother writing?

I'm defeated anyway. Everyday I am defeated. I go to sleep and there's no "thought" of "defeat." And there's no consciousness, until the dreams come.

There's a lot of compounded frustration here in this moment, right at my forehead, like it's all about to shoot out. Everything is there, everything I've thought of, every way I've looked at all this.

So, I am defeated.

I give up.

Again.

And again.

Sometimes writing makes things worse.

I feel like I'm in a place where I don't matter, or the necessity to matter doesn't exist. I'm just here and I'm doing the things that I'm doing. I moved my tent far away so that I could find quiet time and then walk the trail to the main hub of the sanctuary when I felt the need for it.

I'm afraid to write about disappearing, but there it is.

I talk to few people.

I'm going to write it: there's nothing heroic or honorable about forcing yourself to maintain your body when the other side is calling. There is a place out there, in the ethers.

I don't know.

I tell myself that I'm in paradise, I have everything here that I've ever wanted. Loneliness, too, seems to be something I want, and I fight it and hate it in my mind, conjuring up broad fantasies about a long-lost lover who appears around the corner in the woods, and then disappears because nothing lasts for too long, whatever that means.

The things that other humans say and the way they say them, the tone, the desperation for connection even though it's just self-listening. I do it too. I usually enjoy talking most when I'm engaged with myself and what I'm thinking and what's coming out of my mouth. I don't really care if anyone is listening or not. There have been moments where I will just spout something outloud, because it sounds beautiful or interesting to me, and at first it will be for everyone to hear, and then it will be just for me when clearly their attention is focused elsewhere.

Maybe I'm surrounded by deadbeats? Am I a deadbeat? Burnt out youth with no energy to save the world, no energy or enthusiasm or passion or courage, so we create this mask of despair, this clown, this running joke, this parade of silliness. That's what is left. Nonsense.

And perhaps I am surrounded by incredible inspiration. We definitely make music here, in fact it's the music making that soothes our shrugs, our "I don't knows." So many angelic voices, and their instruments of sound, there's no urgency to compose words about them. There is a sadness there, in noticing this music we create. Because there is nothing else, it seems.

Indeed. The world we've inherited is under gridlock. Tight borders.

Over and over again I wish I could really travel. No passport. My feet are my passport. And if I could just move through spaces and meet genuine farmers (notice: gentle farmers), and go go go, sail on a ship with a small crew, like a sea-faring commune of music-making not-hippies-hipsters-deadbeats-gardeners-homesteaders (but something else, something we don't have a word for yet).

And, you know, all the trash in the oceans.

So part of my sorrow in living at the mountain/sanctuary is that here I am, a privileged white boy with 1/16th Lakota blood, ridding himself of everything that confines reality into definitions and dualities, "healing" from trauma, sometimes "inspired" to create, thinking again and again about things, mulling them over, then casting them aside when they "don't work," calling on the ethers for allies and friends, watching the movie before me going in a direction that I did not foresee, that I'm not sure is in my best interests, and do I have "best interests?"

This whole experience is so strange and alienating. It really is just a dream. And I take comfort in knowing I don't have to study it, because, honey, there is no classroom here. Your brain is doing a lot of work to stitch this film together in such a way, and you don't want to see what everything looks like when your brain doesn't stitch the film together, when there's no longer a "story," and there's just empty space, which seems to be the true state, because there's no thoughts that box you in, there's no mental chattering that keeps you down. In fact, what gets you down is the full-frontal view of your worst nightmare come true, that your life before waking up had been spent just going on and on and on about things that were never true.

Just as you can be lucid in your dreams, you can be lucid in your waking life.

Do this trick with me now.

First, notice that you are watching a movie.

Second, ask yourself with no words if what you are seeing is "it."

Notice if you feel a subtle "otherness."

I wish I knew what this whole objective was in being, because then perhaps it would make sense to run around and "play."

I tell myself that I came here with the specific intent to redirect humanity, to help guide humanity. Alas, I have become humanity, so I am one of them. I am still not them, something "other," but I have gotten into the rut of human suffering, which I think lies in the mind.

Imagine apes being bestowed with high technology. How long would it take them to figure it all out?

That's what this is like.

I have nothing, you have everything, I have nothing

The Sanctuary is a machine that chews you up and spits you out
Are you hot? Are you not?
It's a reduced example of the larger culture
that we're also escaping
We tear each other apart
With snide little comments
that we can't help
Because these words are coming from somewhere
And going somewhere
And we're blind fire hydrants
Spewing whatever it is that is pushing through us
And your communards address you by your hands
And not your eyes
We avoid eye contact
Just as in the larger culture
avoids contact of the spectators behind the masks
Avoidance, we play this game
We try to hold onto our highs
Kicking those who are low that are desperately searching for understanding
Understanding of same or similar
Of, yes, I feel you too,
We have been there too
You are not alone
These are words I need to hear everyday it seems
And yet we play these games
what have you done today?
Or how are you doing?
Always doing?
Doing.
Do.
What are you causing?
How are you reacting?
I say I'm breathing, goddammit,
And I can smell the sigh from their nostrils
whiskey breath of indifference
you're a saint if you got weed
you're a hero
you're a ghost if you're hurt
Inside
From parents, siblings, teachers, peers, pastors, elders,
who would shame you
for having a penis
for daydreaming
for questioning
for overlooking
Just as God would
Just as Goddess would
Just as your Heart would
in the face of a child who is just hurt
And isn't healing
And the Sanctuary is a school
of cliques
who talk about you
study you
when you are away and out of sight
Well, there is no curriculum
There is no class
There are no teachers
You will not be quizzed
You will not have homework
There is no grade system
You will change costumes
The Sanctuary is a play
And the character you're playing is lonely
And your playmates are just trying to remember their own lines
Not even understanding that there are other characters
And people acting
Trying to remember their lines
Where's the character that is there in the eyes
Who looks into your eyes
Whose eyes are saying
I know you are there
Inside of yourself
Afraid
And I want to hold you
And I am holding you with my gaze
It's okay whatever happens
because it's a play
it's a machine
it's a school
it's a pirate ship
it's a blip
we'll talk after this is over
And relax
And know that this isn't it

all writing is propoganda
and the ancestors whose sacred ways glint across our imaginations like vague scents of past times,
some image of a place so familiar
that in this lifetime you've never been
and is more real than this moment before you
now,

we just want to go home
we are so tired
and so weak
and so defeated

it is okay to fail
it is okay to leave

you don't have to keep pushing and pushing and making up motivations
inventing trophies and awards you'll give yourself when you "win"
at the end
you don't have to