While walking along the beach, I noticed a large stump that appeared to have been yanked from the ground before drifting for a lengthy indeterminate period as judged by the smooth veneer of its chain-sawed limbs. The stump’s roots had…
Purgatory’s jewel
We are lured to the water in tacit tribute to an unseeable unity, both in periods of inspired stillness and foreboding ferocity, with terrible waves woven together in frightful patterns undetected by sense or sentience. One afternoon, my wife and…
Clever grace
When I was nine, the family hit the road after work one Friday, searching for a place to park our VW to enjoy the outdoors. Almost all coastal Greece is beautiful, making finding a campsite in 1971 easy. After helping…
Loverly
Part of my recent routine is tackling select morning chores as the day’s first medications wear off and the second batch of drugs ramps up to take over, a sixty-or-so-minute process that begins about 8:15 am. The challenge is to…
Humility’s gentle grace
My life—until recent years—mimics a pendulum’s widening arc of extremity, hinting only the slightest hesitation as the center oscillates past quiet with confounding predictability. Recognizing prior patterns of hollow value does not magically charm foibles into fables, and perception alone…
Returning to port
My hobbies and ten years in the navy reflect my attraction to the sea, an evolving self-discovery of conflicting visions. Watching the sea’s delicate orchestra of peaceful violence fascinates and thrills, luring, tempting to risk venturing a stroke too far.…
Courageous kindness
While The Lost Intruder was certainly about deep diving, Naval Aviation, and underwater exploration, these perspectives merely provided the framework for the book’s genuine aspiration: describing the re-discovery of my soul. Despite countless hours of reflection, however, the mechanisms at play behind…
Strength happens
Flying home after a visit with my son in South Carolina last week, I pondered how life had changed in just the past year. In addition to a longtime grounding from flying, there was now no more diving, severely limited…
Barren wisdom
To gaze beyond the simplest expression of form, to de-identify from world’s mundane trappings of convenient lethargy, empowers through the erasure of being, cultivating impossibly reasonable utilization of reason, the barren wisdom of unknowing.
A tired man’s dream
Courage without reward, no emerging rainbow sharpens life’s cloud, seeking peace while guts roil in the tempestuous agony of forgotten. Bereft banality of belief or transparency of purpose, the surrounding sin feeds greed’s eager deity by crying out for the…