It was, of course, the moors that did it. Driving over the top of those hills and seeing the White Rose of Yorkshire on the sign by the roadside. It gets me every time. It makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.

It is the colours, perhaps. The familiarity of the names and places, the accent…the terrain… just a quality in the light on water… the smell of rain-drenched bracken and heather, even the smell of wet sandstone. The great boulders and limestone cliffs, the dry stone walls snaking across the hillsides… I don’t know. All I know is that there is something about it that is home.

Unexpectedly, I found myself there earlier in the week, spending an evening with a dear friend and staying over. And waking to a Yorkshire morning. The first for a long time.

I had driven within a few miles of my birthplace, the familiar horizon of childhood tugging at me. I remembered the legends and tales, the drowned villages and the creatures of myth. I recalled hearing the stories from my grandfather, walking with my great grandfather, sharing laughter. I could almost see the Grammar School I attended, as I watched a basket of racing pigeons go up from the place we used to release ours….and as my friend hugged me hello, even the pavement felt like home and the rain a familiar caress.

Of course, I have been homesick ever since. I could say I left something of myself there, apart from the camera with all the photographs…

It had been a weekend for friendship, meeting one for dinner and hello in Derbyshire, hugging many others, very special ones for breakfast and farewells, and so much love, finished off by the delightful and unexpected invitation to dinner. It was one of those gorgeous, evenings that cover so much unusual ground, from so many obscure angles and, of course, it took me into Yorkshire.

I started wondering about home.

What is it exactly? A house is just that… bricks and mortar, no matter how comfortable, it is only a home when it is filled with memories and love. Places matter, of course,where the roots go deep into the landscape or where there is something that simply resonates with the inner being.  But so do people. Even more. Memories are so entwined with them and the scenes we recall the most vividly are usually coloured by the presence or absence of those we love.

I have a home here in the south, with my sons close by and many memories of their growing. But I have a home too in the north, though no bricks and mortar I can call my own. Because home is where the heart is, perhaps, or maybe where the heart comes alive is where home is.

I was at home with my beautiful sister-soul, wherever we wandered across the south. I was at home on the ancient track between two borrowed pillars watching a sunset. I was at home with my son cleaning his home. I am home, wherever my feet may stand, in the company of friends and those I love, in whom I take such delight.

In which case, home is not a geographical point but a state of being, lit with the light of love.

Now if I am alone, I still hate it.. but I know for a fact that people love me. I know for a fact that I am fun.  The long evenings are a little too much to take sometimes… but not in the same way as they used to be.

I used my relationships to survive/ignore this issue.  And when that got taken away from me, I found myself flailing… grasping air… finding nothing to hold onto…

I have had to be my own confidence… Show myself love… Remind myself that I am beautiful… I have no one to rely on to feed these things to me… I have grown so much during this time! And the time is not over yet..  There is more work to do.  Thankfully there is always work to be done on bettering ourselves, otherwise life would be quite boring.. and you know how much our culture hates being bored

Here is a poem I wrote during a time when I had to muster up all the strength and confidence that I had inside me to come to terms with single motherhood that was looming inside of me….

I went for a drive tonight

There’s a storm outside

and inside

Lightning in the sky

and in my eyes.

But I am not surprised

Cuz there’s

estrogen pouring out of

my ears nose and eyes.

This is a war between sanity

and bitterness.

Who is gonna win this?

Struggling to not

become a bitch

or a witch..

But I… am… twitching..

Taking one day at a time..

trying to survive.

Will I??

I’ve got enough drive..

so… BRING IT ON!!!

-C.

moble: and EmojiMaker (now CropAround) will live on. There is still lots to do and learn there – and CropAround is scheduled to be in the app store soon. (yay!)

While researching some professors I came across a book titled, ‘A Goal is a Dream with a Deadline.’ The quote stuck with me and brought confirmation that dreams could be a goal and thus a reality, but whether I was willing to make my dreams goals, rather than hang them on a safety shelf as something that might happen, was still covered in the doubts, fears and disbelief. I ended up stating in the essay that my dream of starting a company is an achievable goal and that was about it. Hi, my name is Caitlin and I have dreams, but I don’t want to talk about them.

The process of applying to grad school opened up something that couldn’t be closed though. I continued to wrestle with what I really wanted to achieve. It was incredibly frustrating that I couldn’t just own it and go for it, but I began to work through all the layers holding me back. One day (3/27/2012 – I happen to journal) I finally said, yep, I am going to own a business. I’m not sure when, but it is going to happen. And I actually believed it. I went home for Easter and told my brother. When I got back from Italy over the summer I registered the business I wanted to pursue. By Thanksgiving I was starting to flesh it out. From there is was just finding the right timing.

On March 1, 2013 I had my exit interview from ‘corporate.’ I then started working full time on two ideas: a single item delivery service and a photo editing app. I figured I would at least learn a lot from developing and growing them, if not build them into something sustainable.

I told my mom my ‘junior’ year of college that I finally knew what I was – an entrepreneur. I will never forget the conversation walking through campus, mostly because my mom jokingly asked me if I knew how to spell it. Now I was finally making it happen.

My life is simple but life makes it complicated. My life is as simple as if you want to go to Paris to see the romantic tower and take a picture. It is as simple as if you want to eat Burger and go to BurgerKing to buy one. But life makes it harder for me. It turns around my life. I do want to go to Paris, but I have no money. I do want to eat Burger, but I can’t even pay the taxi tax to go to a Burger Shop.

In my eyes, I see a lot of visions. I see my dreams come true. I see my novel – that I’ve been dreaming of all this time – has been published. I can see me in a hall of fame, with my signature written under the big font of my name and the picture of me. I can see my big family sit in front of the TV, watching the movie I’m cast in. I can see me standing side-by-side with my idol underneath the bright light of Hollywood’s spotlight, upon the enchanting red carpet. I can see me in a mirror saying, “Lord, thanks for things You’d given me that I never thought I would have.”

That’s what my eyes see everyday. But my brain always make a rebellious thought. My brain always say,

“Can’t you see the things in front of you right now? Don’t dream too high! You’d feel the ache when you fall later. Just see the normality around you, your life, your work, your friends. Those things you see, is far beyond your reach. You’re unable. You and them are different. You’re not destined to be like them. You are you, they are still gonna be them.”

It’s hard for me to live my life. I’d rather live my dream. What would you do when you’re not even allowed to just dream a good dream? Even at night?

I could live with with the visions I see, I could see dreams in my eyes. But the air I breathe in is the air of jail. My eyes see the red carpet, but my feet walk on a hard and stiff pavement. My eyes see me in a make-up but my face cries with the mask I put on.

If I could live my dream as easy as I see it, I would live the best of it.

With practice, no expansion.

What are intentions when there is no practice?

Change does not just happen, we effect change.

Activity does not mean that we are active.

One rushes in like waves of an untamed energy.

Ego.

The other moves with mindful authenticity.

What more is there if not the path of truth?

What have you called forth as your now experience, and if the way that is is not the path desired,

what of the self has chosen to journey there down the path of difference?

We cannot move inside stagnant energy yet hope to be free.

We touch freedom in the now.

With practice we change.

With practice we expand.

ATTENZIONE – Un´artista folle ha intenzione di uccidere una balena a Venezia.

ALLORA – noi abbiamo bisogno di una manifestazione di protesta contro l´artista renfah.

Ricattare una balena e fare arte con schifo e spavento…
Una trovata meschina e codarda che giochicchia col dolore degli Animali, principalmente per sensibilizzare sul mondo che va a rotoli.

E’ sempre la stessa storia, un artista vuole superare l’altro, ma stavolta il cattivo gusto della biennale di quest’anno, specialmente tramite un artista che vuole insudiciare la nostra bella città Venezia .

Quale istituzione può sentirsi così al di sopra del dolore e decidere del la morte di un animale con la sola intenzione di soddisfarsi tramite i cosiddetti mass media e l’arte. E’ impertinente, di pessimo gusto, disonorevole… E’ una vergogna

E’ veramente necessario perdere tempo con questa cosa? L’arte, ormai, non è più che un disgustoso divertimento di spregevoli persone disumane…

E questa dovrebbe essere arte?

LUOGO ET ORARIO DELLA MANIFESTATIONE – il primo giugno a 12 ora
in piazza san marco

ATTENTION – An Artist is going to kill a whale in Venice.

THEN – we need a protest against this artist called ren fah.

WHEN – June 1 at 12:00 on piazza san marco.

What wasteland waits the seeker
Or wilderness abides in time
Its shadows long upon the land
light through darkness come to find

A morning fog obscures the view
though rising sun will warm the day
and render all there lost below
to sparkling waves across the bay

Dreams awake are scattered there
as puzzle pieces sorted through
The eye seems lost while wondering
of places fair the heart once knew

When suddenly the sound of thunder
rolling far from lofty height
Reminds the traveler of home
and hearths that burn into the night

Where was the place where love became
the sacred breath of life concealed
Into the sand and stone of time
the face of Isis there unveiled

Image: http://worldmysteries.tv/2012/04/03/nazca-lines/

A selection of my last work about Auschwitz: “When God was not there”, has just been published on “Le Journal de la photographie”

See more here: Slideshow

Photo via pinterest

I don’t mean to seem ungrateful.

I wake up to you, spread out in front of me,

your contours glistening even in the earliest morning hours.

Every inch of you is full of possibility.

Then you’re off and running, all mysterious.

I’m hit with the fact that there never seems to be enough of you.

But realize, even if I had more of you, I’d feel deprived.

(And, oddly, when you linger

I get edgy.)

Why is it never enough?

You’ve stood by me in your own way,

but so often you seem distant, impossible to reach.

When I’m not paying attention, you sneak off into the recesses of the day.

You resist my embraces and never stay long,

stealing my breath with your abrupt exits.

As I’ve grown older, I’ve come to understand

You don’t just belong to me.

Why are you always in a rush to leave me?

When you’re here, why do you act like you’d rather move on?

Sssshhh. No need to answer.

Just slip in the door like you usually do.

If I’m not here, leave a note;

let me know you’ll return, to be beside me as I dream my dreams

and when I awake.

I try not to think about how much of you I’ve lost already.

Or how I’ve tried to hold you back, sometimes desperate, clinging…

So I’ve made a promise to myself to savor and appreciate you more,

for what you are.

But… I’d be forever grateful if you’d stop and let me hold you.

If only for an instant.

And then I’ll let you go so that stories may be created,

and lives can start and end.

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. ~Annie Dillard

Time: The indefinite continued progress of existence and events in the past, present, and future regarded as a whole.

Click here for a bunch of quotes about time.

Originally published on elephantjournal.com.

It strikes me now, on the upswing from half a lifetime of abuse and self sabotage, that I am still alive– and not just that I am breathing, that my heart pumps and blood flows, but that there is life enough within me to seek the future. More and more, I awake everyday with a sense of excitement, purpose, with a plan in mind. The dread that used to consume me is fading. I experience life through the eyes of a child. I find amazement in everything. Perhaps it is just the sentimentality of a Northeast Ohioan in the early spring (after a long, bleak winter) but I can’t shake this amazement at the regenerative miracle of life. And in particular, of my soul.

There is a sort of calmness one feels once he or she has hit rock bottom. It’s an existential deep breath in, then a sigh outwards that says, “Well, it can’t get any worse than that.” And we who have hit rock bottom (and perhaps some of you who haven’t) know we have nothing left to fear. We’ve stared death in the face, met it head on. And then we kept right on living, anyway. 

The soul never dies, and my life is a testament to that. If it could, mine would have three times over already. Yet I keep on trucking, keep seeking, keep laughing, and, time and time again, find realignment with the miracle of life even after I get lost and worn down.

This spring, I witness regrowth despite the harsh conditions, natural and manmade. I walk through the woods and feel encouraged by my surroundings. They tell me that there is nothing I can’t overcome. That I– along with every other person, family, city, state and nation– can transcend all experiences. That we are, ultimately, going to live. 

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we hear the word of God, proclaiming that in Christ our Lord, lays true justice and the truth itself, however hard it is for this evil-laden world to comprehend and accept. Even among us, there are many who still do not believe truly in God, and put our trust in His justice and have faith in the truths He had taught us through His apostles.

For Christ is our great judge, who will judge every being and every mankind at the end of time, when it is time once again for Him to descend onto this world in His glorious Second Coming, when He will vindicate all who keep their faith in Him and do not give it up for the temptations and seductions of the evil one. He will reward all those who remain faithful in Him, and punish all those who stray from His way, the true way, the path of salvation.

This great judgment will separate the good ones from the bad ones, the worthy ones from the unworthy ones, like the harvester separate the good wheat from the chaff and the husks, and like the shepherd separating the goat from the sheep. So will all of us be separated based on our virtues, and whether we have faithfully kept God’s commandments in our deeds and in our daily lives.

Would we want to be separated as the bad goats as compared to be like the good sheep? Would we want to endure the eternal suffering of separation from God and His infinite love? Never forget that the true suffering in hell is not the physical fire and the torture of the flesh that is always depicted in the secular illustrations, but hell is in fact a state of eternal damnation and suffering when one is truly, completely, and forever separated from God.

It is difficult to believe in God, especially in our increasingly secular world today, as God becomes ever more distant in mankind’s hearts, when world’s increasingly seductive temptations exert greater and ever greater pull on many, steering them away from the true faith and from the righteous path in Christ. This is why the world is sinful, and it is most sinful in what is called disbelief. Not only because it has not believed in God, and had rejected the One whom God had sent, but also that it had made many to lose their faith and belief in God, because it has offered the falsehoods that Satan has offered.

Let us not be perturbed, my brethren. Let us not be shaken in our faith, and doubt our God not for even a single moment, for He is constant, and He is faithful. He is God who keeps His promises, who loves those who also love Him, and those who obey the commandments He had set, and those who follow in His way. Remember, the path of Satan, and what the deceiver offers us, may look good, but it offers only temporal satisfaction. Remember Adam and Eve, our ancestors.

True salvation, true joy, and true glory lie only in God, our one and only God and Lord. To no other being should we bend our knee to in worship, other than to He who had come down from heaven, who had lived amongst us, who died for us, that we may live, and who had risen in glory, in triumph, and conquered death. Amen.

A bee at the Heritage Landing site of the Deschutes River. Photo by Tim Graves.

Looking at the photo, it is obvious that there are limits to my camera’s abilities and to my bravery. The willingness of insects and other small animals to be photographed is also limiting. I have discovered, however, that bees are much more likely to just move away from my intrusive silver box than to be aggressive.

This large beetle also does not like being photographed. I played a game reminiscent of basketball with it this morning. Each time the beetle sought to move down the court, I blocked its path with the camera. The quick twists and turns the beetle took to get around me was remarkable for a multi-legged creature. These competitions with small beings often results in many shots that never make it to Flickr, this blog, or even Facebook.

The opposing player in our game of “beetleball” moves out of the shot at the last minute. Photo by Tim Graves

Getting a good focus on a moving creature at this distance is challenging especially when it is camera shy. Photo by Tim Graves

Inanimate objects are easier to capture. While I still end up with some rejected shots, I have more opportunities to get it right. Flowers and rocks don’t seem to mind being photographed.

Photo by Tim Graves

Photo by Tim Graves

Photo by Tim Graves

Photo by Tim Graves

So, why do I bother seeking to get close to moving objects? I do so because to be close is to be intimate. To be near another living creature is to learn about and know that plant, animal, or rock more fully. I have discovered that this variety of spider, for example, seems to favor this kind of flower. Why? I don’t yet know but I know that there is a relationship between this spider and these flowers that seems to benefit each.

Photo above and below by Tim Graves

Photo by Tim Graves

Like the relationship between the spider and flower, I develop a relationship with nature when I get close. The vulnerability as a walk across wet, slimy rocks to get the “perfect shot” or I move too close to a stinging insect is what is necessary to understand.

I choose to become vulnerable, to get close, because we are inextricably linked to one another. Humanity, beetles, spiders, trees, grasses, and fowl are created to be one. In that one-ness, is where I find the divine. God is in the interconnectedness of creation. To understand the tiny spider on the orange and yellow flower or to play a game with a beetle is to know myself. It is to know God.

                      the
                      pyrrhic
                      play

            to be a Big Player is to play
                      a very complicated game
                                selflessly-
                                selfishly
            to know how the game works
                      know when to relinquish my view
                                to obtain the compromise
            to get what I want (as
                      pursuit of the Greater Good)        the Ends

                                                      … chorus?

                      however

            I want to pursue my own self-
                      lessness I want to sit and gain
                                nothing
            but then I become fatally exposed
                      when I try to put some relief
                                found inside myself
                                ‘out there’ persuasive in the world
            and then it becomes part of the Game
                      which I- do-not-want-to-but-have-obliged-myself
                                to Play

                                … chorus?

            my activity should come out of clear naïve response –
                      a totally un-beguiled emptiness –
                                not my success of finding the point
            not my vindication not my self
                      (because then when I am necessarily ignored
                                I become a living death)

            … chorus: don’t
                      don’t ever Play the Game just breathe
            breathe and step
                      one square at a time
                                while the rest of the Game
                                          plays itself

compromise wormhole: the path / no echo
game wormhole: we play a game
naïveté wormhole: inexorable       naïveté
obligation wormhole: p                        o                   i                             n                                                   t                            l                          e                                 s   s                                          n                                                         e                   s                                                                                                  s               all around
pointlessness wormhole: anxiety
society wormhole: holiday
thinking wormhole: anatta
vindication wormhole: poessay V: // writing / as practice while / writing

I figure it prudent and sensible at this time to take a tangent, aside from the direct Laruelle-nonphilosophical discussion.

And back up..

What am I doing here in this blog, these posts? What am I addressing?
I have said the basic issue is duality. But though this can appear as a beginning, at times it can appear in the middle. So perhaps, a more beginning beginning.

As I proceed to live life, I merely live. I do, I think, I ponder, I solve problems, I interact with people and things, I process information, I have emotions, I encounter physical problems, I get sticks rammed through my toe when I step on them, I get scratches from my dog with untrimmed claws, I love my wife, I have sex, I love my child, I play silly games and hopefully give her a good basis by which to proceed into the world, I live life. Philosophico-crtiquo-thinkers seem to forget these basic aspects of life and the world; it is as if they live in a fantasyland, as if their fantasy is true.

As a thinker, I attempt to reconcile all these experiences to a sensibility, an understanding, reasons for things happening, I make decisions, I move into the world. I hear, feel and experience other creatures, human and not human, I discuss things big and small with others. I talk about sports, I talk about planets, climate change, culture, religion, politics, I hear opinions, I give them mine. As a critical thinker, I attempt to explain all these things and events. I consider how it is possible that there is someone else, what their opinions mean and what it means that I can consider their opinions; I attempt to describe the truth of the matter of life and existence.

Being involved in this process, I am inevitably brought to truth. I could lie or fabricate a sensibility, a description, and then I would be involved with literature or popular fiction. If I am programming a computer, I cannot string together random strings of code and have the computer do anything with it except reject it, or do nothing with it. I am not programming a computer here, but it is a good analogy: remaining with the principle of truth, I am limited in what I can say and have it be sensible.

In this process, then, I have to consider every facet of experience, I cannot leave out anything. I have to fully accept everything, and in this acceptance I further have to doubt it all. I have to put through the ringer every notion, challenging every idea with all possibility of rebuttal. I cannot cringe or run away from distasteful events or ideas. I have to account for my past, present and future, my idea of it, that this idea is an idea, and I have to be able to reconcile this to the fact that I am here now thinking about it, writing about it. I have to consider what a tree is, the meaning I have of it, what other people know of it, that there are other people, how this might be possible, and how this might be communicated.

My task is to make sense of it all, but not only that, I am in an effort to communicate it to others.

This is a most daunting task indeed.

The biggest problem I have encountered has to do with what I could call ‘compartmentalization’. It has to do with being the event of doing. For example; If I am going to ride a bike race, I get the $5000 dollar bike. I also get the spandex clothes with the fancy color designs and the logos all over it. I get the tight shorts, the funky soled shoes that I cant walk properly in. I go to ride a bike race and I am a bike racer; I have the gear, I look the part. If I were to show up in cut-off jeans, a cigarette in my mouth, flip-flops on a beat up beach cruiser, other people would probably laugh; they might still believe that I was going to ride the race, but they would doubt if I was serious: they would doubt I was a bike racer.

Compartmentalizing activity in this way is not bad so far as it goes for the things we do. It identifies us, it allows for interaction along common lines, including dissent, it allows for the furthering of a activity by having controls against which we may discover better ways of doing things, such as, waring spandex clothes for racing reduces drag and allows one to go faster with less energy expenditure.

But honest, true critical discourse about life, existence and reality does not fall into a compartment in this way; in fact, in defies it.

The problem I have in presenting my ideas is that those who are in the business of considering such ideas have an idea of what one supposed to say and how one is supposed to say it. There is ‘gear and a look’ that one is supposed to have, or one is not taken seriously. And this seems to happen automatically. The serious bike racer looks at the cigarette clod rider next to him and writes him off before the race has begun, and his does this automatically. He makes no choice in this opinion, rather, his opinion is already made due to what a ‘real’ bike racer should be, how he should look, what he should be talking about. What discussion may occur between these two racers has more to do with the geared-up racer, if he has an open mind, suggesting to the cig-racer that, if he wants to win, he might want to not smoke, and he might want to get a better, lighter, more streamlined bike, and maybe get some spandex, suggestions for the course and how to take turns and certain hills. The discussion of the cig-racer telling his couterpart that he’s gonna ride real fast and kick your ass, means little or nothing to the geared-up-career racer. But this is not because the cig-racer might not win, it is because there is a history, a tradition, a science that has developed racing in such a way that it tells what a bike racer is, what they should do (if they want to win), what gear they should use, and all this translates into how they should look. And this is sensible so far as racing a bike has little to do with planting a garden, and when they are racing they are not considering what time of the season to plant tulips.

Of course this is an overdetermination, and there is no ‘winning’ in the critical discussion (or at least, maybe there is in some circles), but the activity I am undertaking is just like this: as soon as a person enters the arena, it is assumed that they are doing certain things and using certain tools, because the assumption, the given, the ‘supposed to’ is that the method and tools of investigating and discovering existence and reality have been developed in the same way as racing equipment. This understanding is automatic. It seems so automatic that the theories developed around such a topic soon have little to do with the life that was taken as the initial object of investigation. The theories and ideas become merely an identifier of a particular compartment of experience: just as if I may be talking about computers, I may be talking about existence. The discursive technology develops in the same way in both arenas, around a supposed object or activity that is distinguished from another.

Now to my point:

The problem is that the arena in which, and the topic about which the discussion is supposedly taking place is assumed. And, as we go about to define what it is, we move toward terms that supposedly identify a particular object of our consideration: but by then we have lost the initial reason why we are talking about anything. The arena becomes the defined object of consideration: it is redundant. The arena, the thing we are supposed to be discussing, has dissolved into the terms that we are using to frame the arena. Such terms do not thereby locate anything but the discussion itself. The problem is that describing reality or existence is not like another object like a car. The terms here, of existence, reality and the like, that are developed around a particular object of thought do not identify any object except the thought itself, that thought which has departed as soon as another person uses other terms to propose it. To propose that there is some ‘actual’ truth to the matter of existence or reality, because we have a history, a tradition, and a method that has given us logically reasoned out descriptions of existence and reality, as well as a method by which we can argue with old ones and propose new ones: this is exactly the proposal of a true object, as if thoughts, existence, reality, being, are things-in-them-selves that can be ‘gotten’ or understood, as if these aspects of life are actual true objects. Such discussions reveal, on one hand, nothing but metaphysical, religio-ideological postures, but on the other – and only for those who have stuck with the basic issue through the whole discussion, who have seen that the terms get nothing and nowhere – a description of existence and reality as it is presently manifested in discourse, a description of how the process of description is operating at this moment.

***

This last is indeed what Laruelle has attempted to do, and has done very well. So, if this is the case, then inso doing, inso being able to describe in detail what or how the method of description is operating, the funtions and relations of its pieces, its terms, and how this scheme grants a particular picture that is the very picture we see including how such a description is presentable, the whole thing is thus called into question, and allows for the possibllity of a different… whatever term one wants to use.

Further, it is not just a theory, because the theory itself, the description, includes and/or realizes the lack involved in thoery, so it must be an actual lived practice, a praxis: the project of non-philosophy. This is not particularized, in fact, it is non-particularizable, non-campartamentizable. So it is that he becomes the occasion for my work.