Oliver's Travels: Summer and Autumn 2009

The New Mexico road trip: Wade in the water at the Ranch
Climbing the Secret Mountain
On top of the world
Running through the fields with kitty, donkey, and Chris
Lounging in the hammock
Birthday party with the fam

New home: the Farm

Visiting Papa
Traveling to Santa Barbara dog beach
Romping about Ventura County

Honoring the women in my life

Today I'm feeling it. Sweat lodge tonight, my moon cycle begins soon -- I'm in that vulnerable and powerful place where I feel things more deeply than normal, where I have the potential of being in tune with the world and with myself. And, this morning, I want to recognize the women who influence my life and the cycle of birth and death. Here's a start:

I held Mel's baby after our Dia De Los Muertos Celebration at Hollywood Forever Cemetery.








I wore the earrings of my ancestors.

From Katie who said "I thought you would kind of love this"

The Invitation
by Oriah Mountain Dreamer


It doesn't interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are.
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon...
I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow
if you have been opened by life's betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us
to be careful
to be realistic
to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
"Yes."

It doesn't interest me
to know where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.

It doesn't interest me who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the centre of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like the company you keep
in the empty moments.


Katie and I've had some lovely times together. These pictures come from a glorious day!

Getting ahead of myself

I'm going to miss you, Papa.

Peeps' thoughts on porn

What is with the incredible pull of pornography? What's with it, I think, is the human ache to know and be known and the simultaneous terror of knowing and being known. We want the wonder, the joy, the piercing grief even, of knowing another person to the depths of her being; we want someone to seek out those depths in us. This is arousal, this is desire. It is love. It is what we most want.

It is also what we most fear. Pornography keeps the viewer safe, because it keeps the viewer anonymous and unknown. The problem is that being unknown is precisely what the viewer, ultimately, doesn't want. This pull between what the viewer feels that he desires, and then arriving at what he really doesn't desire, is what keeps the viewer temporarily satiated, and it's what keeps the viewer coming back. Hence: addiction. It evokes some kind of desire, and seems to meet the desire. The craving to be known and loved--and to know and love--is so powerful and pervasive. But the problem is obvious. The porn addict is like a starving man who does not know he is starving. He eats dirt, handful after handful, but he still feels so hungry. Instead of finding nourishing food to eat, he keeps eating more dirt, convinced that if he just eats more the gnawing hunger will subside.....

But pornography is an extreme (though a very common extreme) and it is a distortion. What about simple and ordinary desire? What about how sexuality is part of who we are all the time, what about how most relationships include some element of sexuality? Desire, intimacy, being known, loving.....what the heck are we supposed to do about these things?


...perhaps only when we can acknowledge to ourselves that we loathe and fear sex, and that we crave and love sex, that our desires are many and extraordinary (and utterly ordinary)--only when we are completely honest with ourselves--will we find ourselves. And we will find ourselves known, undressed, loved, desired, encompassed, taken, whole.
-Tamie http://owlrainfeathers.blogspot.com/2008/08/eros.html

People

A week of merriment!

catching the sunset
...with oliver
extreme bowling

80s house party
beach afternoon