Change is difficult, and when it’s coupled with fear it renders one inert.

I resolve to never stay too long in fear without remembering a moment later, that I am an infinite being, that there is good wherever I look if I’m willing to just look beyond. Beyond the rat race, beyond the consistent effort to be less than our potential by the masses. To be in servitude to anyone but your own source is to discount how beautiful you are. To feel that you must be in service to an “out there” is to discount your divinity. You may believe that God is outside of you, or that you are just a microcosm of the infinity that is God. Both are correct. To take a concept and it’s opposite and keep them equally as valid in the mind is the dichotomy of our planet. To know light, there must be it’s opposite. As humans we understand concepts by comparing and contrasting them with others, until we arrive at a stable enough thought to be considered a “thing”.

But that isn’t reality. You think that’s air you’re breathing?

Be not afraid of who you really are. Share your gift with the world no matter how scary. Be presence.

The memory of holding you has never faded.  Singing to you in a dimly lit room, unaware of our surroundings, just us two.  It lasted only brief moments but it was a lifetime that we shared.  Though short, it has broken open everything in my life.  When I first heard of your arrival, my soul was overjoyed, the happiness I felt inside was boundless.  Your first kicks of life brought about the wonder once reserved for only childhood, back into my view.  And with an instant that I will always remember vividly, all was seemingly lost.  

Since our time together was short, I’d like to go over some things I didn’t get to say, but I know our eyes did:

• Told you how beautiful you looked,
• Said ‘peek-a-boo’ to get you to smile,
• Told you how strong you were crawling and then walking
• Said how stunning you looked before your prom
• Told you to smile while I took a million pictures
• Said how beautiful you were on your wedding day
• Told you that he has your nose, and your lungs
• Said goodbye as I drifted off for a long sleep

All was not lost on that day.  I’ve been broken open many times after that moment, but it has always been a furthering of what you and I started together.  And within a few short years your brother arrived and several times over your gift has taught me to say what resides in my heart.  

I love you baby.

In memorium Phi, 08/24/2004

It’s all around us. The internet has brought the promise of connectedness to our planet on a scale never before dreamed. But, when was the last time you walked out into nature and smelled a flower? Took your shoes off and walked in a meadow? Marveled at the ocean? Lay with someone special next to a brook and fell asleep?

The more social connection we have attached to a device, needs an equal balance with the earth below our feet. Our activity during a social connection via computer is one of mind, and thought, which is incredibly fulfilling. To stay forever in our minds throughout the day, creates imbalance over time, and the cure is grounding with the earth. Each of the things I mentioned above are things to connect with. Earth connection is just as important as the social one with our human pack.

If you tweet, status update facebook, check in to the retail locations you’re at so you can become mayor? Ask yourself for each one, what benefit am I deriving from this in the short term? in the long term? Would it be too difficult to rise up from your mobile device and reach across the empty space between you and another human and say “Hello.”

Digital social connection can never replace a physical one. Live in the world, put the mobile device away for a while. It will still be there where you left it, to be a information tool, not an extension of the television.

I carry your heart with me (I carry it in 
My heart) I am never without it (anywhere
I go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
By only me is your doing, my darling)

I fear
No fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) I want
No world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
And it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
And whatever a sun will always sing is you

Here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(Here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
And the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
Higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
And this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

I carry your heart (I carry it in my heart)

- e.e. cummings

Have been enjoying my newfound knowledge of the wonders of external flash on the camera for low light

The city dedicated to Athena is a city of striking opposites.  Poverty, immigrants mostly selling 1€ useless garbage — music makers serenading the air, looking for a minimum of 0,20€ donation.  What is striking is they blend directly into the fabric of the city, laughing with the locals, adding a different color to an already culturally explosive city.

Most cities in Europe I’ve been to, share in this, but it’s never more striking as taking pictures of an archway built over 2000 years ago while in the background a busy city street buzzes by.  The city is lorded over by the Acropolis, and it’s relic known the world over -the Parthenon.  Yesterday I took a few hundred pictures of her and the surrounding old structures, while today was filled with more food, more people, a few more 2,000+ year old structures, and learning a whole lot more about the Acropolis at the new museum.  Oh on a side note, if you buy the 12€ pass for getting in to the ancient sites in Athens, 1. it doesn’t work in the new museum (that’s a 5€ entry fee but worth it), and 2. don’t let anyone take the square picture accompanying the little tickets with a 12 on them — it invalidates it.  Learned that the hard way.

At the museum, I learned that the Parthenon for the most part was left relatively untouched until sometime around the 5th century AD the Christians converted it to a church, and removed the large statue of Athena and took it to Constantinople where it is believed to have been destroyed.  After that, it survived relatively untouched for another 1,000 years when the Ottoman Turks took Athens, and converted the church to a Mosque.  They were very respectful of the ancient temple, and did nothing to damage it, which many Europeans attested to after visiting.  Unfortunately, in the 18th century when the Acropolis was being attacked by a Venetian and fired mortar rounds at the structure, which was being used by the Turks as an ammunition magazine.  It largely destroyed the internal portions of the building and destroyed several pieces of the outside.  Other portions of the structure were defaced or removed by looters, and one Earl of Elgin who took a good portion of the reliefs, and they are held in the British Museum, who ain’t given ‘em back.

For this trip, I’ve opted to ignore the islands surrounding Greece, as a day or two really feels like cheating on an experience to be savored at least a week.  So Athens and I have become friends, and she’s shown me some great memories in the few days since my arrival.  Tomorrow I shall pay a quick visit to Delphi, a quaint little village that should prove to be worth the 3 hour bus ride.

αντίο

And the email monster rose to prominence in the stack of unfinished items, claiming victory over this day, enveloping all that sought peace from it’s tyrannical rule.

Our hero crawls out of the rubble from this epic fought battle, beaten, but not broken … tomorrow shall see another fight … and we shall claim victory!

For most of the weekend, I’ve kept email checking to 3 times or less per day.  It helps to have some involved projects to keep you busy.  

Been hacking some iOS stuff lately, very very simple … but enough to keep me busy learning Objective-C.  

What’s the first thing you do in the morning when at your computer?  Is it checking your email?

Ever think to ask yourself why?

If you’re looking to turn a day into a productive one, avoid your mail client until you have achieved something other than processing your inbox.