Sunday, September 20, 2009
Petaluma, CA

I just recently posted the video John Francis: I walk the Earth (scroll down), and ever since I've been thinking of how I'm a prisoner of my own creation. I firmly believe that we are all artists living within a giant life-canvas, we hold the power to manifest as co-creators limitless possibilities.. but we are also just people.

A while back a bought a bunch of those poetry fridge magnets and affixed them to my van, for a while people would rearrange them leaving me notes and poems. I removed most of them a while back.. but there is one that remains on my back door. It reads, "Blue Sky Crush My Trudge".

As much as we're co-creators, we're also just people trudging along under the mercy of a beautiful blue sky. As much as we have the ability to create we're also subject to impermanence, change and the ever-present flow of the universe.

As in the case of john Francis, there's a certain point where you have to recognize the limits to your own manifestations, and take a step back. When I was an aikidoist my sensei used to always say, "be careful not to become a victim of your own discipline." In the end John Francis asks us to all examine our lives and question the inner spaces where we've become prisoners of ourselves, our choices, and our own outward manifestations.

All of this HAS led me to be a bit introspective, and as a result, I've been afflicted with anxiety-filled sleepless nights in the van.

I've been on the road for 1288 days... over three years of living between the cracks, living without a schedule, drifting from place to place, living frugally, unconcerned about 'making a living'... in a word FREE.

But if only it were that simple...

In that time I've also become attached to life out here on the road, life without a kitchen, life of impermanent communities, life of constant change, life of adaptation, versatility and resilience... and a life of letting go.

But what if I want to hold on?

Like John Francis did, I'm finding myself at a crossroads. I say 'finding' since I'm not quite there yet, but I feel the beginning of the shift in another direction. I'm looking at the choice of going down into Mexico and Central America in the next few months and I'm looking at it as symbolic of leaving North America... Originally that was always the plan, to leave and get 'outside' of the box, to travel deep and away into a foreign jungle or landscape.

But like all journeys, something happens along the way. In my case I fell in LOVE, not only with a beautiful woman, but with North America. I've found myself in love with the place I was so set on to leave behind. I'm in love with the Hope, in a world that according to all my reason, is set to destroy itself. I'm in love with all the people who can see an alternative vision for humanity. I'm in love with the people who distribute bumper stickers with pictures of whales on them with text that reads, "SAVE THE HUMANS".

I'm in love with this whole potentially God Damned Place!

It's been Liz that has helped bring me home, it's been in my conversations with her that I see what's possible. I guess in the end it becomes about the power of LOVE..

The power of LOVE to help us face our fears as individuals and as a culture, the power of LOVE to help us face our childish machinations and internal mutant message systems, the power of LOVE to change the face of ourselves while changing the face of our reality. I think John Lennon had it right when, in Mind Games, he sang 'Love Is the Answer'...

http://www.lostino.com/Media/John%20Lennon%20-%20Mind%20Games.mp3

Now at this point, I'm still going to Mexico, but as I say to Liz I'm no longer envisioning it as a process of leaving, letting go, or going away... but instead I'm looking at it as a process of coming full circle. As pilgrim, filmmaker, and as a man.