Hey Joe

A friend of mine called one day and stated in a matter of fact tone, “you have to read this book; it will change your life”. The book was ‘The Power of Myth, by someone named Joseph Campbell. I was just divorced and trying to find my way in a strange new world after 13 years of marriage, a world in which I felt as one of the lost boys in Peter Pan. I was ready for something of substance but had doubts as to my friends implied assertion that this one book would open a new world of meaning to me. I was familiar with the works of Thomas Moore and M. Scott Peak so I wasn’t completely unacquainted with the idea of mythology as a psychological tool. But little did I know I was about to submerge into uncharted waters, pushing me intrinsically through the door into the abyss.

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In The Heart Of The Night

In the city of my birth,
On the third floor of Beckham’s Book Shop,
Surrounded by stacks of books I can only dream of reading every title,
Falling asleep on this worn out couch,
The musty smell making me dizzy.

They call it ‘the city that time forgot’ and continues to forget as we saw with Katrina,
Or the ‘crescent city’ for the bend in the river which Bienville saw as strategic,
Many nights I walked that same bend along the railroad tracks by the river’s edge,
Drinking hot beer procured from the abandoned Jax Brewery,
Oblivious to the rich history I was born into.

Wandering these streets of the French Quarters,
Past the painters, fortune tellers and street musicians trying to make a dollar,
I find myself in St. Louis Cathedral staring at the stained glass,
The pipe organ playing Bach while someone is blowing a horn in Pirates Alley,
Both melding into a complexed whole, as candles from the altar, burn our sins away.

So many nights strolling down Bourbon Street in a haze,
How many ghosts have crossed my path this night,
Dripping in the humid air of summer is like breathing thru syrup,
Or the damp cold of winter cutting you to the bone.

Growing up we’d take the Algiers Ferry across the river to the West Bank,
When night falls on a full moon you can see the city’s horizon shimmering on the water,                                                                                                                          

I think we only leave home so we can love it all the more.
It is then I understand this longing I feel for my city by the river,
You never really get over it, just strike an uneven peace between the heart
and head.

©jc2017-9

*Photo courtesy of Pixabay

Echo’s In The Dark- Words

“I would hurl words into this darkness and wait for an echo, and if an echo sounded, no matter how faintly, I would send other words to tell, to march, to fight, to create a sense of hunger for life that gnaws in us all,” -Richard Wright

In an old damp cave or a treasure chest under the sea, scattered amongst pages, worn out pencils and to-do list, I’ve collected fragments of writing without a home, with no prospects in sight. These words are to the point and do not own any lavish pretenses of grandeur. They simply speak their truth as directly as possible, such as the truth a child will convey out of sheer innocence.

The Frozen Man- Go to the Mirror

“If you get the inside right, the outside will fall into place.”
-Eckhart Tolle

When I wrote ‘Private Tremors of the Frozen Man’, I introduced a litany of symptoms prevalent to Parkinson’s disease that most people didn’t know or realized were just as prominent as a tremor in the hand. As time goes on, I discover new symptoms, some I experience and other I may or may not ever play host to. All in all, it’s an education for me and a vicarious one for you, the reader. As I’ve often said, when I was diagnosed back in October of 2012, I didn’t know anything about Parkinson’s except for the handshakes. Now I can see someone on the street and pretty much can tell if they have Parkinson’s or not.

Charting The Rainbow

“You live that you may learn love. You love that you may learn to live. No other lesson is required of man.”
–Mirad

One soul connects to another. But the longing which the cerebral mind intended may end up being completely different from what it originally sought, for the soul requires and demands something more, so our longing evolves laced with these core request. Love born just of passion will fade. As love born to reconnect to the image of a life long dead may resurrect the past, but not create the bridge to our true self, thus depriving the soul of its initial search.

The Road To Anjou

To be happy is to know where we should be on the path even with pain, in effect living from the still-point of our eternal flame. This is where we grow, step-by-step closer to the Grail… JC

At times the refusal of the journey is the most important part of the path, a turning point that can never be rescinded. The

Private Tremors of the Frozen Man

“Accept - then act. Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it.”
-Eckhart Tolle.

It’s been some time since I’ve written about Parkinson’s disease. Not that it doesn’t want to be heard as it does make itself known but I tend not to give it a voice and I really should give it it’s due for awareness is the best medicine. This post also comes as a special request. So to my benefactors, here goes.

As with many other disorders, especially cognitive, outside appearances can take on an air of normalcy, like nothing is wrong. But as in the adage, don’t judge a book by its cover, don’t judge a Parkie just by Tremor. There’s more that goes on than one wants to admit, hidden in the depths of a brain running low on dopamine.

Turn the Page

 

 

 

“We cannot change anything unless we accept it.”
-Carl Jung

“My boat strikes something deep, at first sounds of silence, waves. Nothing has happened; or perhaps everything has happened and I am sitting in my new life.”
-Rumi

The Best Class Ever

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.                                              C.S. Lewis

We read to know we’re not alone.                          C.S.Lewis

Onward To the Palace Of Wisdom… Compassion

Our life is a circle that takes us back home, to the essence of innocence, but with the knowledge that living begets… the eternal search for the Grail. – JC

The quest for the meaning of life is that there isn’t meaning; it is the journey, the path, and ultimately the experience of being alive. The experience is groundless and being mindful and joyful in this labyrinth of sorrows is the “trick”, as the Buddha would say.

Still others believe the meaning will avail itself only when every living creäture reaches enlightenment. Thus, the work of the Bodhisattva is not completed until that promised day.