Expansion

Expansion is a curious subject for a wide variety of people.  Expansion calls for a variety of interpretation. Expansion is the sole vision of the one who has it. So what is the cause call and reckoning for this action verb? Expansion has business implications, personal implications, and societal implications.  But what is expansion actually. 

Like most things in this life under the human gaze and perception it functions like a story. As pattern recognizing creatures the pattern we are most familiar with is story. Often human beings adapt to visual and sensory stimulus with explanation. Indeed all of the structures of society, language, social norms, sense of wrong doing is from an established pattern pulled from stories created by human minds.  So they have limitations. They must make logical sense and sometimes logical sense has a very limited perception and almost none of the facts. 

As fallible creatures we have no choice but to function in a limited perception based ideology. The hardest thing for a human mind to give up is a pattern once it is accepted as fact and universal law.  This is why religion still factors so highly as well as perceptions on gender, race and socialization. No matter how advanced the society its failure bursts forth from the same spring. Misunderstanding and false patterns.

These patterns revolve around the relationship with assumed power and brilliance based on wealth. As beings that have a list of actual needs to enable life the principle of wealth has always held sway in human hearts and minds.  Wealth in its purest intent is there to remove chains and provide freedom.  Often the wealthy find that their wealth just becomes an even harder set of chains to break than their previous condition. Freedom in its purest form is usually anonymity.  True wealth from having nothing at all. Yet our patterns tell us that there must be merit in wealth. Merit in achieving and attaining. The wealthy themselves take on the role as superior human as they use assets to back ideologies mankind has wanted to believe in forever. In an attempt to validity their claims and ideas they attempt to shape the world as a safe.  In both phrase and actuality.

The nature of nature is balance and flow. When imbalances occur we call them natural disasters. Volcanoes from too much pressure, hurricanes from imbalances of air and heat. Stories tell me a story. Stories have a beginning, a middle and an end.  A decent story makes you feel something. A great story inspires you to build your own stories.

Make Mine a Heel Post Mortem

Growing up in Texas there were two things that a lot of people did religiously.  Watch football and wrestling. My first wrestling event wasn’t on TV.  The first time I saw professional wrestling was live at the now defunct Sportatorium in downtown Dallas. It was World Class Championship Wrestling. I cried the whole time cause I thought people were really being hurt.  That certainly made the experience itself pretty memorable.  My mother told me right then and there it hurts some, but they aren’t as badly hurt as they make out.  So then I was fascinated by it because I wanted to understand how you could fake that stuff.  My little brother and I would watch religiously, and yes sometimes we did very unfortunate things to each other in misguided reenactments.

My love for football came later as I grew up enough to actually understand the mechanics of the game.  I think it’s a very interesting analogy.  I hated football right up until the moment I understood it.  I think a lot of life is like that.

The character of Dominique ‘Dangerous’ Dutton was originally created years ago as I participated in a play by mail wrestling promotion one of my friends was running.  I loved it because once a month I could sit, and plot out the comings and goings of my wrestling stable called Bad Company. Thanks to my ability to write a ‘mile a minute mouth’ head heel and four flunkies, Bad Company had the entire roster after them, and the top dogs of a sister promotion. With this paper testing done I figured had he been real, he would’ve gotten a rise out of anyone. So when I decided to write a wrestling romance novel it just all came together.

It was a dare I gave myself to write a viable novel about 2 things I enjoy so much I never want to try and live without them. Make Mine a Heel was a project and writing of pure love. It even has a muse that I dedicated it to if you read the book. But it wasn't just the dedication or the love of something like wrestling. It is a love letter not just to athletes of the sports I feature but to the people in the background often behind the scenes that have accepted roles people would assume are less glamorous but are not by any means less important. Its about a function and process.

Love is always hard to convey. Especially when something lives and breathes in you. I often find myself defending wrestling from the 'fake' naysayers. I argue so is most entertainment does that really take away from what you are seeing, what you are feeling?  I don't think so. I wanted to write something that gave a different perspective of the sport. One that highlighted many of the things that fans and none fans alike take for granted when thinking of this type of performer and professional. As a lifelong artist I know what it is to have your life's blood not respected. So I hoped to be able to use one of my passions to highlight and honor someone else's.

I feel like I have a decent amount in common with most people in the professional wrestling business. I have those childhood memories of watching wrestling and being obsessed with it. I developed an a true love for storytelling and physical expression. I also create art and it all has a base in the divine. We all are telling a story of some kind. I wanted this story to do the business justice but I could only do so from a limited fan perspective as I have never been so bold as to wrestle myself or be very close to someone who did or does for a living. So I always hoped my love letter to the business would be received as that and not undermine or disrespect what for me has always been something I've had the utmost respect for. I could gush about professional wrestling indefinitely but I don't want to bore you. So please grab read and enjoy.

Available in ebook from the following venders: Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Smashwords, Goodreads

Opened Doors

"Don't you remember you told me you loved me baby." 

She hummed softly to the melody as the song blazed through the room.  Always she kept the stereo just too loud.  When it was just too loud, it drowned out all else. Even thought.  "Said you'd be coming' . . . But this song, reminded her of everything.

Like everyone else, she had heard the stories about the groupies, the women who follow and chase bands and celebrities.  She hadn't been one of those women.  She stretched her back at an awkward angle and continued the task of washing dishes in the sink that was never big enough.  In the kitchen that left her wanting for more, in the house that seemed to never hold enough space to be comfortable.  She stayed because it was hers, and no one else's.

"Baby, baby, ohhh, baby, I love you."

The floral skirt she was wearing dusted the floor, leaving only a sliver of her naked foot barren before toying with the hard tile.  As she swayed to the music it danced with her, gilding her moves like an echo, ruffling the air trying to remain still around.  The black tank she wore was nearly threadbare from repeated washings.  One of those items of clothing she would wear till it fell from her form.  As most of her clothes were. 

The tears came quickly, as they always did, not unexpected, they never were unexpected.  Most days saw at least one outburst of misery from her soul as it cried out the unfair fate that was forcing her to be so very strong.

The heartbreak wasn't a normal one.  She didn't cry from bitterness of being abandoned.  She cried for having tasted just enough joy to make her long for it for the rest of her life. He hadn't lied, never made one false promise.  So the song actually didn't fit her situation.  But it made it all the worse in truth. He hadn't cared enough to tell her pretty lies.  So unimportant to what he desired in the grand scheme of things she had been that he hadn't bothered to tell her anything.  Not a hello, not a goodbye.  No baby this, baby that, one day soons, or when I come back. Not a don't wait for me, we end here, this was a mistake, or never agains.

For six days and seven nights he had filled her with all that he was.  For three of those nights, she had held onto herself, the fourth she pretended that she was still whole, on the fifth she had stopped lying, and the sixth and seventh opened up another door.

As she discovered the real problem with opened doors wasn't in getting them open.  That had been almost too easy.  It was the closing that proved to give the fit.  Silly waitress in a bar was all she had been.  A foolish girl that had no idea of who he was.  No man had ever made her  . . .feel.  That was who he had become.  Nothing more, nothing less. 

More than just touch, words, expressions, the color of his eyes, the length of his hair.  She knew where he was in the room at all times, as he did with her.  The melting promise of joy would hum through her when she knew he was near.  Damn that opened door.

"Long ago. . ."

She didn't count how much time had passed in years, they seemed insufficient when the number was tallied. Instead she felt his absence in moments.  As the sun slid to rest.  Heavy footsteps approaching. The feel of freshly washed sheets.  Morning dew falling from leaves onto her skin.  Phrases that matched his cadence. Catching musky scents in the air.  Accidental contact with a stranger.  Fresh strawberries against her lips.  And songs bemoaning loving an entertainer.

What he had left was possibility without hope.  She didn't wonder if he would come for her, never dared dream that he still even thought of her.  He ruled her waking thoughts and dreaming nights. Soon it became insanity to pretend that this wasn't the case. She knew that this door in her was wide open now and oh so hard to fill.  A few brave had tried, only to be told, "That damned door only seems to be the right size for one man."

". . . .I thought it was you, it was only the radio."

The dishes were done, the kitchen finally clean.  The baby was sound asleep and the song filled the space.  She turned and held up her arms as if holding onto a partner.  With great confidence she began to move slowly to the soft strings of the song playing. Gazing upward fondly she smiled, sweetly, softly beautifully.  "I love being in your arms", she whispered to the sound pulsing air around her.

From Perilous Flight
On Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Smashwords

Like and Unending Circle. . Linking Like a Chain

Waiting

Somewhere near the end of time
Someplace lost, perfect and divine
I called it's name and waited for an answer
It moved slowly closer like an erotic dancer
It taunted me from afar and held me enrapt
Promised to hold my heart, my soul entrapped
Just as it arrived, I turned to run
Just as it reached for me, I wanted none
It's power frightens me, It's glory blinding to see
More than me, yet not nearly as offensive
Infinite madness, yet slow and pensive
A moment's hesitation, a moment's pause
I feel myself being clamped firmly in it's jaws
Escape is impossible, regret useless
It's true intentions I can only guess
Yet, I want it's heaven, I crave it's hell
I hunger for the lives it's lived, the stories it can tell
Let me go, set me free
If I swallow you whole, I will cease to be
My destruction in your hands, my salvation in your trust
And whatever the outcome, I know the decision will be just
Should I cry for mercy, or obnoxiously demand more
Ask to be tossed like a rag doll or expect to be taken to it's core

My decision made, I close my eyes
Releasing all self-doubts, all others' lies
I trust you, Whole and true
I love you, I love you

Untitled

What I See

Before the end of my day, my thoughts slid to you
Before time has dragged down the sun and the moon is pulled onto centerstage
Before the stars start to shine in a dance of dark and light as they battle for the sky
Before the haze of the city’s nightlife and lights bring the illusion of day

My thoughts slid to you

They rest on your face where your light eyes see me as if they have never
They curl into your hair, dark as dusk, sifting through the strands of raven-colored
They pause at your lips, like a broken sigh recalling the feel of your breath in a
They drape across your throat and shoulders testing the strength and conviction
of such a strong throat of such a breadth of shoulders defying gravity in a way

My thoughts slid down the chest housing the heart that adores me, holding the
force that drives you, moving the tide that powers you, do you have any idea
They kneed the arms of solid integrity, the proof of determination and hard work
feasted so silk that flow along your face whisper that sounded of love but was indeed my name
that only Atlas himself is familiar with
what a treasure is buried here?
because you would have it no other way.

And then you enter

Bringing fact and fantasy together in a rush of surreal ecstasy, reminding me of
what you see when your eyes eat me alive, when your arms hold me as I writhe,
as your heart pushes closer to me in a vain attempt to meet it’s twin.
As you breathe love that is a whisper of my name, as your midnight silk kisses
my face and neck as your shoulders and throat beckon coyly then demand hotly
for my lips, my hands, my arms, my eyes, my nails, my teeth, my passion, my
And in a flash as gradual as sunrise, the moon is pulled to rest, the stars bow
joy, my pain, my pleasure, my will, my heart, my soul, my life.
before the next ruler abiding their time to glow and shine.

Dawn is pulled from the darkest pits of night and

My thoughts once again slid to you

Not A Sin (1992-1998)

Clash colored pencil drawn 1993

I’m sorry that I didn’t explain what last night meant
I simply wasn’t ready for the gift God sent
I thought that love had sirens and bells
Instead it’s like peace and only a kiss can tell
I thought I I’d know if it caught me in it’s hold
I figured I’d see it shine fierce like spun gold
But instead it crept up behind me frightened my heart
Made me believe that I was wrong this can’t be how it starts
Now months later I can’t explain the night at all
I just now that right when I pull away, I fall
When I hesitate my mind brings pain
When I doubt I feel no gain
So I torture myself and wonder at the fact
Could he really love this idiot this spoiled brat
This indecisive beast who plays the silliest games
This petty person that yelled over the ignorance of a name
I really don’t care how it started that night of before
I’m standing here in love and I’m terrified of opening the door
I give myself headaches, practically lose my mind
Did I really walk away from what I thought I’d never find
I comfort my heart with my imagination
Still wondering if God sent a man to see to my salvation
I feel unworthy, but I want it all so bad
I feel like a failure because the loss of love makes me sad
No one really cares about the state of anyone’s heart
All they care is if their words leave another dart
I’ll wake up tomorrow and start my fight again
And eventually I will understand that love is not a sin

My Serenity (1992-1998)

Self Portrait in colored pencil 1994

Heaven and hell wrapped into one
Peace held in check by the power of the sun
My life, my love, my form of exquisite ecstasy
If only you could understand what its like for me
To hold this gift within my soul never to leave
Held in myself so string and tightly it’s hard to believe
Everyday I take my joy and share its grace
From the voice in my throat to the smile on my face
Every time I move, every step I take
From every tilt of my head to every sound I make
Lives in color the proof of my joy
In full light that can never be called coy

What is my life, my peace and my constant company
It is the music in my soul that’s my serenity

Pulled from the sky in the shapes of stars and the face of the moon
With the awe inspiring regality of a delicate rose in bloom
The feeling of touching the sky and finding it soft as silk
The sensation of holding wind as it runs like milk
Take me life but give me my song
Without the music life would seem wrong
Take my heart, but leave me my voice
No heart is needed when life is no longer your choice

Bound together by something far stronger than fate
It seems that music is my soul mate

Behind my eyes exists a separate entity
There lives my soul with music as my serenity

My passions

As a writer it is often hard to admit what I cannot write about.  There is actually quite a bit.  When you build fiction, you build characters and stories.  You have this internal removal system where what you write is you but not you at the same time.  It’s a glorious thing to tell the secrets of the people who live in your head.  It’s not so easy to tell the secrets of the one who dreams them up.

I think as writers we use these characters as avatars to live loudly when we need to live quietly.  To boldly explore places we may fear to tread.  To tell our true desires, our fears and silent hopes and dreams.  Writers often out live their far share of life.  After all we are usually living at the very least 3 to 4 different lives every second every hour of every day.  They have names that are our characters and while Chris may not be having a great day Fiona is making out with the man of her dreams.  Charlie just got whisked out of the country and Claire just got even with her crappy ex.

I often love what I write about.  I write about love, what is there not to love. But the things I’m truly passionate about get caught in my throat and my pen.  Some days they overwhelm.  I love education.  I know it’s weird. Some people love fish or chocolate.  But I love education like dudes love football.  It makes me cry, weep, it stills my heart and takes away my breath.  Its hard to place that kind of intense emotion into words. 

I was going to lunch the other day and it just hit me so hard, like it does sometimes.  I was thinking about my current job and how its all about money and nonsense and then I thought about the day when I would be a teacher.  Watching someone learn from my efforts and my eyes welled with tears, my chest filled with this strong tight emotion.  I could barely breathe, I lost my strength, my senses left me.  There was no me, just the cause just teaching just learning. In that moment I understood what they mean when they say you have a calling for something.  I fought it as people do, but it cannot be fought.  It is like denying breathing, eating, sleeping, love.  The only person that is truly harmed is me.

I have a wide variety of talents.  Many will tell you I’m an amazing singer.  Some will say I’m a good writer.  Others will tell you of my grace, my friendship, my ability to love. You’ll find all manner of artistic pursuits in my arsenal. I love looms and weaving, wet clay and ceramics, watercolors, sports, stage performances and all else that places the human spirit in its best or worst light.  It’s the drama of life but it all gravitates to one overall goal.  Learning.  It is everything we are and everything we do. We learn we adapt we adjust we move forward.  

All that we have is due to education.  And all that we can be will be at the hands of education.  I see no finer purpose or pursuit in this world and it moves me beyond words to think that maybe one day someone, or many will be able to trace a definitive moment in their lives to my involvement, my support, my teaching, my undying faith in them.  A commitment to education is a commitment to something beyond right and wrong.  It is a commitment to understanding what we as humans are capable of.  My dedication to education is a dedication to humanity and the amazing things we are can accomplish when we are led by will and faith.

And Then I Know Passion

Fire

It breaks over my body like a rising day.  The warmth of, the burn of, the living flame of what words have yet to truly capture.  I’ve heard it in a song in that bar that uncatachable untraceable bar of tones of melody of harmony blend in such sweet cloying sanctity.  It sounds like hope that burns in fear, breathes in smoke as it reduces all else to ash. 

I sit I pine and I want and I wonder.  The only thing as sweet as having what you most desire, no even sweeter still, is that moment before it comes to be.  In wanting in pining we live we thrive.  In needing in seeing in craving we are what was always intended.

Water

It consumes my space like water in a dream.  Flowing freely into every crack, every crevice every single space reshaping itself to fill all of me, changing my core rebuilding my texture. What was once some is now all, what was once in parts is now just me. Flood is the word that comes to mind, flood it does, pour till it overflows saturating all around me, rivers running, raging and roaring, rapids freeing caging enjoying.

I am only kept by what I allow to keep me.  I am only captive by the vessel I choose to inhabit. My walls I discover as I flow past them.  My boundaries I invade by running right over them.

Wind

It blows through me like a frost bitten wind. Its light and lithe, a whisper and a storm. It cradles me in intent, passive in its care. It tears at my foundation swirling in cacophony. Unseen power pulling relentless at the seams. It whips it wields it shakes it steals. Swooping diving wrapping and writhing it clears the space in its own time to understand the calm that centers how it strives.

I flow on the current of the will that is eternal. Through the push and the pull of unseen lure. My limbs move as if on their own violation. I fight the tug but none would be undone. Either light as a breeze on a tepid spring day or with the rage of the storm cresting for play. Temper my will my pause my pain, continue to build the strength and feed my flame.

Earth

It buries me in grains harvested from the depths of my being. The long planting season roosted many nights ago.  The moon tended the soul, the sun foresaw the dawn.  In grit it pushes to reach new heights.  In rock it solidifies the sediment of eons of understanding shaping and molding firm foundation for all that pushes. Planting a growing, reaping and sowing, from this place rise.

Elements

The earth as my canvas, water my brush, wind be my motions, and fire my paint. I’ll paint you a passion that you have never seen.  It will shake your foundation, twist your space, overflow your dreams and smote your fate.

Sacrifice. . Not a Good Idea

Sacrifice

The biggest lie ever told to us that we constantly tell ourselves is that the height of true love is the act of sacrificing your own happiness for another's.  Its sounds so very noble and gallant doesn't it?  Very Christian, for God so loved the world he sacrificed his only son. The truth is that we are not gods; we are mortal beings with finite existences and a limited amount of time to achieve a sense of true self and happiness.

True selflessness doesn't come from sacrifice to another for the sake of love. This is an egotistical idea and is based in an exaggerated sense of self-importance and aggrandization. It is an ego trick that we play on ourselves to attempt to trap another person in our lives. True selflessness comes from existing as you are created, as you are, and being willing to give as much of who you are to the world as possible.  Thus the idea of being without self. 

Mermaid Sacrifice

You are not you, but everyone. Fulfilling your needs is just as important as everyone else's because we are one. Selfless. Please keep in mind that this message is coming from a romance writer. I love the idea of the big sacrifice, but I'm a realist and I believe in love as it is more than the love of a nihilistic ideology fairytales and religion have peppered us with for decades now.

This supposed sacrifice is instead just the opposite of true nobility.  It is not a sacrifice but an attempt at martyrdom to attain some unseen prize that only the person claiming the sacrifice can truly name. But what do they really attain?  Resentment.  When you have sacrificed all that brings you happiness and joy for someone people have unrealistic expectations about what the outcome of that should be.  How is the other person supposed to respond?  Is there any response that is good enough?  Just death right?

Seppuku

I think back to the days of samurai.  They would commit ritual suicide before suffering the humiliation of losing a battle.  How many people died this way without accomplishing anything.  The margin of error is too small and unrealistic. It is something that has always been held as a brave and honorable act to willingly face your own death without flinching when a grave injustice has been done. 

But when the injustice is only to pride and ego, where is the glory gained? This was an act of extreme cowardice.  Instead of learning and growing from a lost battle, these men refused to endure the momentary sting of shame from loss and instead chose to end their lives. They let a simple perception of ego self devalue the entirety of their lives to that point.  I believe people do this in regards to relationships as well and it is equally cowardly.

Resentment

We all know relationships are hard work.  But we as people enjoy work.  What we don't always enjoy is the work that is available to us.  This is where we need to talk about the difference between people who work fueled by passion and people who are passionate about work.  Because there is a reason besides monetary gain that work as an institution exists. We need it.  Our souls, our bodies, our minds need the constant interaction and adjusting.  Our greatest strength is our adaptability. So we must flex this muscle often.

We are different each and every one of us.  Some of us work tirelessly fueled by our passion to work while others are passionate about working. I think most people can be separated into these two quadrants.

People who are fueled by passion for their work are an odd breed.  Artsy, athletic, doers who need to feel like what they are doing carries some importance and weight.  Beyond that they self identify in a lot of ways with what they are doing for a living. Its' not a job its a part of who they are.

Inexplicable Superhero Couple Nightwing and Starfire

When fueled by passion to work the relationships need to embody similar principles or it will not work. They don't have to be identical, however the core beliefs have to center around work being a craft that is constantly growing and changing.  Renewal is very important with these types.  Understanding of temperament and the occasional huff about nothing at all. They need an air of excitement and mystery.  A hint of constant revolution and change. A keen understanding of something not just being done right, but as close to perfect as humanly possible.  

Those with a passion to work can do nearly any job that gives them the basic things they need.  These people are luckier when it comes to relationships because they like the work of being in a relationship as opposed to how the work identifies them. They are truly the love the one you’re with type. They like the structure of someone to come home to.  The idea routine of knowing how the night is going to end and the next day is going to begin.  They enjoy the simple pleasures of life.  Human companionship, warmth and those stresses of day-to-day life because they are service oriented.

The key to understanding what relationships work best for you is understanding what work is best for you.  Often you’ll find people in a dead end job they hate in a relationship that is only slightly better.  Sometimes they have an amazing job and their relationships suffer, or vise versa. But in this work life which shows what people are willing to do for what they need is the key to what they need to be happy in all aspects of their lives.

Avoid resentment and live for yourself.  Understand what you need in a relationship and why it makes you happy.  Compromise is path to self-delusion.  You should always love the work to the point that is doesn’t feel like a job and never settle for something less.  Know that your happiness is worth the wait and whether in a relationship or not, you will have it.

Sacrifice courtesy of https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcTbNWUfjyU5iSu7ppSW6Yehl5IkJB_ZWtn3NXo5nY13l1dyqtqxZhgwh3qv6eXSX2wRKqOhmi4nulVWXSB_g0QPx5X7ri6a6dci_SLgnAEOuwILpylwEY1i6_vSJee85uB2IMgsCM5W8A/s1600/crossman.jpg

Mermaid Sacrifice courtesy of http://digital-art-gallery.com/oid/77/640x419_13593_The_Sacrifice_of_The_Little_Mermaid_2d_fantasy_illustration_mermaid_sea_storm_fairy_tale_shipwreck_picture_image_digital_art.jpg

Resentment courtesy of http://www.sadmuffin.org/pinkforsure/graphics/photography-quotes/resentment.gif

Seppuku courtesy of http://hoffstrizz.typepad.com/.a/6a0128773aba66970c0134854417e4970c-800wi

Inexplicable Superhero couple: Nightwing and Starfire courtesy of http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l3cfjk65tu1qc7r93o1_500.png

A Little Romance courtesy of http://deals.westin.com/uploadedfiles/SOP/Westin_Santa_Fe/romance.jpg

Unconscious Love and the Path to Duende

In some sports and other physical activities when someone hits a streak of perfection they are thought to be unconscious.  In basketball especially.  A player can shoot lights out for a quarter and he’s having an amazing game.  If he shoots lights out for an entire game, has double digit assists and rebounds he is unconscious.  The idea stems from the player attaining a visceral plane of existence beyond themselves, beyond the limitations of their own body.  He has in essence abandoned his own form and become in those moments the game itself.

Flamenco

In dance and music the Spanish refer to it as Duende. Its most commonly associated with Flamenco. With their attempt to quantify this elusive concept they describe a nature that creates something to aspire to.  It carries the power of a dark goddess and an insistent muse inciting liberation from all forms.  The spirit of evocation.  What makes music move us to become it in the form of dance, or when singing or playing an instrument.  It is the tapestry of human will, emotion, thought and form where all pours into and out of the spirit and soul at once.

Christopher Mauer the editor for “In Search of Duende” has isolated it to four key elements, irrationality, earthiness, a heightened awareness of death, and a dash of the diabolical.  The Duende is not a possessor but a foe.  It flashes the artist a glimpse of the Universe, life, death and the beyond forcing them to acknowledge the primal forces civilization has attempted to weed out. For to create something of a Duende nature you must drink from the fountain of the divine.  With ambrosia on your lips the art is force of creation reshaping the artist, the viewer and in that moment the fragments of time and space themselves. The artist battles with the dark, the opus, to try and harness it’s power with their own will. The nature of it is to consume and the will of the artist must fight to prevent being lost to it because then it is misspent force producing only destruction.  The terms are simple; you either create or be destroyed. The force cares not which one is the result, only that the show, the dance, the song go on.

Beyond

Duende, being unconscious, are states of love.  Instant blind unquestionable moments of human connection to the will of creation.  Built in a second yet somehow lasts an entire lifetime.  When you hear the plaintive whining, words of desperation, pain, elation, humiliation in the verse, the chords, the pull of a song like Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah.  The untamed temerity, angst, dark lord rise of Ravel’s Bolero.  The soul shattering burn of desolation, delusion, and degradation of Percy Sledge’s When a Man Loves aWoman. You are in its presence.  Its seat its foundation its very will empowered by love, of a concept an idea and even upon occasion an actual person. Our love and ability to feel and pursue it is a myriad of self-serving justifications of our own selfish desire to know joy and joy alone.  However we forbid the whole story choosing to determine the measure of that love, only the joy, only the sweet, only the succinct. 

The beast will not abandon parts of itself to humor your earthbound delusions. It is a full serving, a full course that has to be taken in as it is whole and unbound. It will show you suffering and revel in it knowing how sweet that next climax of joy will now be.  It will bury you under your own filth knowing the elation that freeing yourself from it will bring.  It knows love in ways that only subjugation can embody.  The will of the spirit is not a benign entity but a ravenous specter.  A poltergeist of your own creation that hungers for the fight because in battle alone can it reveal its true face.

Instinctively we seek the ones that will bring us the fight.  We seek the ones that will embody our spirit, empower, provoke, goad so we can rise to the fight again.  Know our true faces. FEEL.  The pain, the rage, the fear, the hope, the rise, the push, the ease, the release, and the fall.  Always it begins and ends with the fall, pain the catalyst and the affirmation of life, of love. Search through those dark, dark, dark spaces.  Love lives even there.  Love sees itself clearly there. It settles with the comfort of an old friend, for in the dark all is free. Stare into its phantom less eyes and know the wonder of the creation of life again and again.  All rises from the darkness and that’s where all shall return. 

Flamenco Courtesy of http://www.ebsqart.com/Art/Portraits/acrylic/599088/650/650/DUENDE.jpg

Beyond Courtesy of http://library.manoa.hawaii.edu/about/exhibits/images/portrait.gif