Gethsemane

Verily, I have sought to shroud my soul in the mists of seers and scribes, but this eve, I feel the urge to cast aside such gauze and speak with forthright honesty, my soul laid bare.

It has been a harsh lesson that my own arrogance and wrath have cast me in a cage of my own making. I have forsaken a life I cherished, a life I fled for fear of living.

I have razed bridges and abandoned those who trusted me, leaving them to fill the void in the wake of my broken promises.

I strayed from my path and tumbled into a despair that threatened to rob me of all meaning and leave me a shame upon those I held dear.

I wielded the lance inwards, thinking only of my own pain and ignoring the hurt of others.

I offered counsel to the suffering, yet in that moment of clarity, I vowed to take my own advice, to give it one more day, to fight on.

And then love came, like a beacon in the night, as children reminded me of the greater purpose of life, not just the mere act of existing.

In that fateful moment, I awoke, and I saw how richly blessed I truly am, even in the face of poverty and fear.

For hundreds of thousands risk all for a chance at the hope that I take for granted, while millions more suffer beyond the reach of salvation.

If I were to lose all this night, I would still have known more than most, for I have a roof, fresh water, a bed, food, and most of all, the love and care of those near and far.

I am made whole and renewed by this love, purged of all disappointment, and ready to take my stand in a world that seems torn asunder.

The night winds sing me to the sunrise, guiding me to a destiny held in the hands of my people.

And so I say, all shall be well, for the lance is down, and the dawning of a new day beckons.

-Hermit King-

https://open.spotify.com/track/1N0HmlJP6dRLXGE71Kgc8m?si=_bM16AMCSjaCZP0XHDEKjw

Gender Open

Without diving too deeply into the myriad of freshly identified and ever expanding tidal pool of human gender deliniations filling the cups of scientific journals and dictionaries these past several years, I am most firmly convinced my golf game is completely genderless.

But for the extra body hair, sperm count, and XY chromasome chaser, gender neutral seems presently, the perfect slot for my confusing golfing game. No one more than my, very manly, full on XY, macho savage, long ball hitter son, gives me more reason to suspect my golf games likely gender fluidity.

My catlike ability to attack the green, with all hardware from the Driver to the putter is my calling card (literally, have you seen the flayling paws of a kitten attempt to even try to properly hold a pitching wedge), likely why the muffled background noises catching the breeze in a snickering fade upon result of my swing seem to reference the metaphor (*pussssaaaayyyyy)

The larger scraps of fairway tossed or timid nibbling at a clubstrikes requirement is too often, in footage, equaled by a stunningly similar forward projection in spectacular inches. I see in those dire strikes a form of humiliating links homage to the millimeter metric system of this lovely sports damp Scottish home.

I realize now that I am not a fully male golfer. Not to say those of alternate chromasome cant wack the shite out of balls correctly (from the ladies tee of course) but my game can not any more identify as being manly. I have joined the golf swing genderless. I dont seem to sport enough testosterone to turn compressed man rage into a spinning Krakatoa sand blast or enough of that controlled estrogen laser focused tidal fury to slap n tap that white, pink or blue ball to where "I Must Have It Go!"

I can only now identify as a Caddie! I can no longer drive the cart without confusion and shame. I must walk the course marshalling alone or except whatever (unique/eunic), handsome, course drink vendor, destiny awaits me, should I continue connection to the holy green. My clubs are now literally "they" and "them", I am a Siswedging Pandriver? Lost, yes lost across the green and swimming once more. Topped it again, Dammit!

-Hermit King-

Modesty

Men, first of all trying to control what a woman wears is like trying to control how much it rains. I for one and among many men think beautiful woman in any state of clothed, or barely such, are simply a testament to the good judgement of a truly divine intelligence. Leaving the whole man woman thing simply up to pheromones, I suggest mankind would still be working it’s way out of the Sudan. The secret to being a good man isn’t complete ignorance of the fine physical attributes of what is truly beautiful, it’s controlling your mind not to overzealously dwell on that which potentially knocks your socks off. Angelina Jolie is a strikingly attractive human being, but I don’t spend any amount of time fantasizing about being with her. Primarily because she is completely unattainable but secondarily it does my soul no good to waste precious time demeaning her with sexually charged thoughts when in reality I simply demean myself. If men were perfect in this (and weather permitted), women could walk the whole wide world wearing nothing but skin. Sadly on the whole we men are not perfect so anything you ladies can do to help keep us on track just benefits society at large. I’m not talking burka, but it’s good to keep us guessing as well as keep us interested. Ladies never stop being women just because some lads can’t handle being men

Toddler to Teen Tips

Its not about keeping them safe in all possible ways more than helping them learn how to negotiate the unsafe in as many ways possible.

Unless its a predetermined immediate danger, the word (Now!) should find scarcer use if always prefaced by a patient timer in agreement of expectation, having appropriate consequence and follow through.

(No!) Can be desensitizing if over abused, reserved for true danger, and explained with age aware understanding, it can truly save lives.

Project more questions and options for the unknowns in them rather than the often too ready answers known in you.

Praise personal pride of performance over preaching projected perfection. Excellence is a big bang expansion of a singularity in the soul. It cannot be injected and expected, just promoted and appreciated.

Always reserve a ready eye to teach with story, play and song. Texts and tweets can more often wait than missed opportunity to grow greatness, intelligence and bond.

I find the passive physical is loves best instructor. They will learn less to fear of life, if touch is left to the calm of need and choice.
The active and engaged mental is disciplines best. They will love much more of word and wisdom, if your wisdom is built on deeply having heard the meaning of every said and unsaid word.

-Hermit King-

The Barber of Levinworth

I met the Devil this Memorial Day. The Devil’s real name is Gator. At the bottom of an intersection to the high road trails of Sawyer Park, above the beautiful Deschutes River in Bend, Oregon.

I had just come down from the silent rises above one of the hidden gems in a string of this exquisite river’s brilliantly twisting vista parkway trails. Gator is striking. He has the abrupt visual of Liam Neeson, if Liam were 71, homeless, had spent over 40 years imprisoned, murdered his own father, served in Vietnam, fatalistically accepted his MS, barely supported two prominent bottom fangs, and was bucket-list marching to Coos Bay, OR, from Detroit, MI, along the Veterans Highway.

I asked Gator—no, told Gator—I felt I needed to speak to him. With one eye flashing and the other glaring into the void behind a very black knit patch, Gator invited me in.
I took a photo of him (with permission) and a photo of his mesmerizing cane. Gator’s very light cane, which he offered to me, was capped by a hardened, polished sculpture of a grizzly bear. Below that was a silver dream catcher, bear footprints, two hanging bangles of significance only to him, and a final silver placard dedicated to his former slave master, Jack Daniels.

Gator had barbered in three prisons during his very long, perceptionally distinguished career: Marionville, Leavenworth, and retired with perceived distinction from Colorado’s Supermax. Gator fearlessly called the Teflon Don “a little fuckin’ wop” because John Gotti liked the way Gator shaped his cut.

Gator’s next brush with horrific celebrity was a long-time customer who regaled Gator with untold memories of his madness and sanguine glory days. Gator proudly gave this customer, Ted Bundy, his final buzz cut prior to the ending of his last appeal with the reaper and a striking veiled woman in red, whom Gator swears pushed the button releasing Bundy to hell.
Gator’s only words were “Good riddance.” Gator had no use for those who took the innocent.

Gator was brutal in his recounting of one customer, and by the way he spoke, perhaps physically as well. Timothy McVeigh was an idiot little brother whose hero-worship of his older brother’s politics led “that retard” into parking a van out front of a daycare, proximal to a federal target, rather than the heart of the also-devastated Murrah FBI building. Gator is a huge Jesse James fan but likened McVeigh’s useless destruction to “that punk Billy Bonnie,” a lesser god in Gator’s twisted pantheon of brutality’s hierarchy.
Gator never gave “that pissant” McVeigh a good cut until the end. Not sure what he meant by that, but Gator’s venom knows a special, fearsome resolve for the injurious murderers of children.

Gator’s most derelict antihero was a con he just called Rick. Rick’s insistent need for respect, as he interpreted it, became the foreshadowing of Rick’s dispute with a guard. Gator soft-cackled, “Rick hated that asshole.” With the solemnity and honesty of a true psychopath, Rick found a way to behead said guard and plop the grizzly, bagged gift onto the warden’s desk. It took a dozen guards to walk Rick into solitary. Rick may still be there. Gator cackled loud, “Gotti, Bundy, McVeigh were all pussies—Rick was a Max God.” Gator swears he was asked to close the door when the guards brought Rick to the solitary cellblock. None of the guards had the stones. Not certain if Gator’s given name was or was not Rick. By the way he barked this delightful recollection, it appeared to be a more personal memory.

Gator doesn’t believe in God but is thoroughly convinced the devil is a woman. Gator believes this more because Jesus had to have an opposite angel fallen to earth. A yin-yang deity to buffer the biblical Jehovah. Gator’s not religious, though. After all, Gator doesn’t believe in God.
He does believe in visitors from the cosmos. He feels the ancient gods were very real and have kept pace with humanity from the very start. Gator received a master’s in psychology while in prison. Who am I to say what may or may not be history? According to Gator, the greatest discoveries of mankind (assisted by aliens) have yet to be realized. Gator is a very deep and intellectual man.

Several civilized members of the local jogging and dog-walking community timidly passed by our park bench, where two hard-looking older men had let down their guard and found a bond devoid of similarity in each other’s company. A yin-yang moment of random happenstance at the base of the high trail to the Deschutes River.

I felt I had truly met a witness to history, a man devoid of the need to lie (though not above embellishment), and a servant to a brutal life I could only glimpse from a distance, through the serious singular eye of a devil named Gator. The barber of Leavenworth. A man.

—Hermit King--

https://open.spotify.com/track/5Yql4ooghbDqwXIvCGXsdx?si=fg63E_DJSEa2EZIqqKE1QQ

I Pod Child

Sometimes we are gifted only moments to retask the dials of behavior on the beautiful task that is our child and charge.

Tuning correctly requires the deepest attempts at concentration and the wisest touch. 

Like teaching a lion to bark, a parrot to play soccer, or pitbull to surf it's all about our patience to discover the fantastical medicinal joy of our childs proper higher frequency.

Then, having earned the right of an open, frightened human mammal to, with gentle hand and word, move the dial and retune.

We must be confident the stations we seek to bring into better focus are truly valid avenues to our childs pause, rise, and track to gain. 

Finally, when we think my child, my child is each one beside me and sometimes we are gifted only moments.

-Hermit King-

Silly Rabbits

Six 

Rabbits Sit

 in a 

Slowly Sinking Ship

One 

nibbles carrots and complains about the rising water

Two 

screams and screams for help into the vast empty ocean

Three

 wants to talk game plans and options for hopping on water

Four 

brags about the great unsinkable ship he once built

Five 

curses the boats maker for his undeniable evil

Six 

wants to bail but is blind to all rabbits sitting on buckets

---------------------------------------

Six 

Rabbits 

Sink

----------------------

Morals

Stop Whining

Don't Panic

Think Logically

Stay Focused

Stop Blaming

Open Your Eyes

BAIL!

----------------------

Rabbits Survive

------------------------------------

-Hermit King-

Halls of Olympus

  I spent a blissful vacation with family in the emerald summer hills of northern Utah. On my last day in town, I decided to borrow my folks' car and take a little tour of Holladay, a section of Salt Lake City where I was raised from ages 1 to 21—what I'll call "the Halls of Olympus."

Into the misty colosseum of my past and the pillars of assumed-to-be-lost memory, I drove. Up Highland Drive from 56th South to Millcreek Way, with a quick right turn, I launched into a two-hour journey that transformed poignant recollection into a surprising flow of grateful laughter and respectful tears.

I first paused at Sid Harmon's, in whose pool I’d learned to swim, along with the myriad other neighborhood kids fortunate enough to receive the weekly Open Pool invitation. I passed the Morgans, the Waldrams, the Miners, and the Fredricksons—just some of the priceless people who made the effort, each in their time, to help parent me as if I were one of their own. I traveled on to the Patches, Roaches, Downards, and Poulsons, all locations bringing back vivid memories of fun and fury, sin and salvation, love and lust, pride and pain.

The home I grew up in sits at the apex of Millcreek Way, a large circle that, when turning, becomes Millbrook Lane. As I passed, I decided to keep those memories of home separate from this journey so as not to overshadow my growing appreciation for the many who, outside that home, had affected me.

I passed the homes of some who had long since traveled beyond life, though they had eternally touched mine: the Mangums, the Marz, the Sills, and the Chipmans. I passed the homes of friends and enemies, and those who turned out to be the opposite. The Trishow Boys, the Jensen Clan, the Harris Brothers, and the great Anne Watson—all now sweetly savored thoughts of late nights, lawns, secrets, and, really, no true secrets at all. Turning back to the west, I passed the Pattersons, Greens, Browns, and Dr. Wright (another great swimming pool), rounding out my first, most formative village and primary column of my young Olympic beginnings.

The second circle connected to the first, creating an omega figure-eight that I’d have gladly spent forever wandering. Passing the ages, wandering from friend to friend in eternal freeform navigation—if only I could stay 12. The second circle brought the Bagleys, Moffats, Evans, and Clarks. Friends of this tight omega, so ingrained and dear to my soul, I am still in awe that I was so gifted with the honor to have known them all. I can truly say, I was somewhat haphazardly raised by a village and have deeply missed the bonds I’d found with so many of that golden extended neighborhood family. Near none I knew now fill these homes. New families send their youth beyond the doors. I pray these young ones find the magic I found and the simpler joys of ages gone by. Any greatness I preserve, I feel, is a gift from those who walked with me along these hallowed halls. Olympians all.

-Hermit King-

Spectrum Ryder

I choose to believe that the more Spectral the child, the Greater the Soul he may have requested of his God to Harness and Ride. Lifes Bull of Choice.

-Hermit King-

https://open.spotify.com/track/14HOaJoakWeGIEkN8g5c6R?si=SoQRRvTmRtOfvIVINdMvnw

Measure of a Man

The Measure of a Man

The measuring of men is in degrees—more a compass wheel than a single straight rule of measure. The rules of our human compass, in the end, bloom how they will and inevitably prove all too brief and oh, so powerfully true.

I have thought long and hard about which degrees, or directions, if you will, might aid in sending you into the world’s great mix of truth and temptation, with some hope and personal pride for what you have accomplished here.

There are many directions I know you will, and have, pondered in your life—some to follow and others I hope you will abjectly dismiss.

I ask forgiveness and forbearance of this audience if the three degrees I have chosen for Joe may differ from your own.

First, Joe, I ask you to kill.

This may seem brutally bizarre and a quick method for resignation from residential treatment, were it not for the only degree on your human compass so worthy of demise—and that is fear.

Our world today consistently stands in animosity, on the brink of manmade disasters, based in large part on fear.

Fearing loss of power, of dignity, of possession, of legacy, and of life.

Ranchers recently facing off with federal rangers in fear over lands in Nevada, Native Americans facing off with militarized police in fear over waters of North Dakota, shifty politicos facing off in fear over our rights in the nation’s capital, our world facing off in fear over control of our souls in desolate Syrian skies, and Joe, a young man facing off his peers from an accidental blow by a basketball to his face and fearing the loss of his pride.

I ask you to kill your own fear, to help kill fear in others. Kill it with abandon, kill it with forgiveness, kill it with joy, kill it with your love.

Which brings me to another point on the human compass: the slippery slopes of love.

Unlike killing fear, love should be a constant concern for your cultivation and growth. The discoveries of love in your life are the discoveries of the mystery of life itself. Love may be the most fragile of human degrees in its beginnings yet, tended well and nurtured by wisdom and patience, will be the most powerful, resilient force in your life and in our world.

Do not ever let the opportunity to love pass you by.

Never mistake lust for love. Lust has its place on the compass for both good and great evil. Lust is, in a way, the lie of love.

Lust, like lye soap, may be employed to augment water in getting yourself spotlessly fresh. Kept controlled, it works wonders.

Too much lye, or lye used unwisely, will more often than not lead to ruin and a sure knowledge that lust and lyes indeed get you scarred and burned.

Love is the key to your future. Realize there is more to love than solely the glories of the physically intimate.

Love each sunrise, love the innocent, love brotherhood, love sport, love great art.

Above all, love those who have proven they will stand amid the blaze of hell itself in their love for you. Love them with loyalty and with passion and with the third degree I would cover with you today: faith.

There are no guarantees outside this black box, and that is the only guarantee I can give within it.

Faith, like the remembered smells of bread yet to bake, the heat of lights unseen yet felt, or the echo of voices yet to return on the wind, are beautiful shifting mirages that keep us safe and sane.

My faith in many things has shifted over time, as likely will yours. Faith must often be sifted to keep it pure and light. Your faith is something no one will ever really see. It is so deeply personal, no amount of display will ever truly explain faith's true worth to you.

Never use faith as a crutch for empathy or as a springboard to fame. You may find yourself alone and broken or, like as not, more infamous than admired.

I have a great deal of faith in you, Joe.

I have worked with you, I have listened to you, I have met your great family, but more than these, I have learned from you.

Surprise! Yes, I have learned from you.

Each morning, after hosing down the disaster left in the school by the swing shift and having prepared a proper learning space for our scholars, I head to the cafeteria.

There, entering to eat, are the beautiful wild things of this forest, where I am Max.

The boys eat first. After the shout and scuffle to enjoy the fare of our fine chef (the other great Joe), a nervous truce is understood, and the sounds of the feed begin.

Except for one—I have seen it before, I have seen it in others, but if he has made it to breakfast on time to eat (this boy loves to fix his hair), I have seen it rarely with such humble fervor.

Joe will grab his grub of choice and with silence and gratitude, among the din, bow his head and speak with his Creator.

He is undeterred, unembarrassed, and in that brief moment completely unconscious to anything but his internal focus on a higher power. I feel blessed to bear witness to that brief Zen moment of peace at the beginning of my day. With all my heart, I will miss it and you.

I have faith, Joe. I have faith you will be OK. I have faith you will abandon all fear, I have faith you will love your life completely. I have faith you will gift your faith to others.

I have measured a man and now personally fear less, love more, and know greater faith because our paths have crossed. I am grateful to know you and forever count you kindred, kinsman, and friend.

Name changed to protect Joe. He knows who he is.

– Hermit King-

https://open.spotify.com/track/53iyt9vi8jhkOqpYVVwkf9?si=Kjxx7AjwRjmDgJaGBf8nrQ

Of Kin and Race

Between washing old dishes and new laundry this morning, to the overloud tunes of recent Nobel prize winner Bob Dylan, I looked up my favorite word. The word is "Kin". 
Kin, at this point in my life is a most vital and precious word to me. My old ancestors, from the isles of Brittania, called it Cynn. Not all together sure why that seemed important to me, unless it's just that I come from stock that know what true kinsmen are and can be.

"The Websters Thesaurus" offspring of this fine word "Kin", match my own. Kindred, kinfolk, kinship, and express the very soul at the heart of this fine word as well as my very good kin. I am indeed a humbled, grateful, lucky man that they do match. They surround me.

 "The Websters Thesaurus" extended relatives of Kin are clan, house, people, and tribe, I have also been extremely fortunate to have them as kinsmen, many my current and long ago friends. I am in a larger sense surrounded and secure in knowing they are both, near and far, part of me.
Another grouping listed is blood, line, and lineage bespeaking the great expanse of "Kin" in directions both well behind and far ahead. Through quantum mechanics and time, surrounding us all.
The last in "the Websters Thesaurus" for relative words of "Kin" is "Race". I found this a troubling, divisive and limiting word. It pierced, rather than surrounded me, as it stands alone in it's relation to "Kin". I would suggest as in kindred, kinfolk, and kinship, we add one additional word to the vernacular of our language, "Kinrace", better yet, "Kindraces".

 We can never and should never erase race, we should embrace it, but we as a free nation of races, in the midst of horrible mistrust and uncertainty, must as kind members of our races, combine in kindness as residents of a jointly shared planet in need of the salve "Kindrace" provides.

Reject hatred, mindless violence, abuse, vitriol, and reject those who promote it, until they also reject it. There philosophies are enemy to every "Kindrace". 

I am a 54 yr old, Scots descended, white guy who considers himself open minded. I attempt and prefer kindness towards all people every day. Unkindness is rude and something I don't like or need around me or any of my "Kin" and certainly not considered "of my Kindrace". Somehow as members of a fearless, open, and forgiving "Kindrace", I believe we can ease violence between all players, care better for our reeling world, retain the best traits of our race, and deliver the best future to our "Kin". 

-Hermit King-

Oh Brothers

Something happened between two brothers today. 

The evil words of youthful pride and challenge 

"I'll Kill You",

 which are often spoken in empty jest or sport, were today made real. 

I try to comprehend that much anger, directed at someone so close for so long. 

The only answer, perhaps comfort, and advice I can give would be an example of what brotherhood has meant to me over the years.

I have 4 brothers. 

We are as diverse and similar as any sibling troupe alive. We played, pranked, prayed, pushed, and applauded together and for each other, but I don't recall ever threats to kill. 

Don't get me wrong, there were moments when the prank went too far and empty threats of just retribution were tossed, (more often than not at me, Sorry little brother), but to allow fratricide to dig it's repulsive twisted roots into a conscious legitimate word, never.

There was a weak and dangerous period of my life when many, hell most brothers would have written me off or felt the need to juxtapose their life experiences into my ignorance and sermonize me into the grave, but each of them received me as I was. 

With kind and generous patience they valued my company, remembered their allegiance, and held up the light that ultimately led me home. 

Were it not for the bonds carved deep into the earthen walls of an imaginary fortress in the cemetery fields behind our boyhood home, or pushing up a mountain trail to first time visions of a world far greater than us, or following a name into high school few could match with pride and fame, another victim may have fed the darkness.

Let it be said, in writing this day, the words that are hardest to say to a brother face to face, 

I love you my brothers. 

You are majestic examples of what brothers should be. 

I wish our brand of brotherhood were true for all the hosts of mortal men, then something would not have happened between two brothers today. 

Go to sleep my boys, and dream of the boys I knew when they were young.

-Hermit King-

Public Sex

As celebrities, media pun dents, and the liberal left celebrate on this day of victory for the gay community with the "coming out" of a professional sports figure, I would only ask the question, Why? what makes this so overwhelmingly unique and special? and Why must it be the fodder for worldwide coverage?

Is it that a man or woman can express that they love another of the same gender? I happen to know that good people across the globe love other's of similar genitalia without a gay moniker every day. Soldiers in the field, team mates, and just best pals love each other unquestionably without shame, hesitation, regret, or news conferences.

It seems the great difference is one faction feels Love's beauty is not fully expressed without publicly confessing their relationship based in an intimate act of physical contact, while another feels true love is a gift of inner self far deeper than any act of physical release, reserving that for the private and sacred purpose of procreation. Both are an education I'ld prefer to discuss with a family child on my terms not as a result of a sunday preacher show or sports centers breaking news.

Both historically and currently, the great majority of the worlds societal beliefs have deemed the act of sexual love to be the responsibility of consenting adults capable of combining elements necessary and vital to the propagation of the species. Both Homosexual and Heterosexual copulation being seen as misguided and irresponsible without a committed bond.

In fairness democratic culture dictates that the minority must also realize equal non violent freedoms, be they appealing to the masses or not and due to a vast array of misguided,irresponsible, uncommitted bonding, protection of the resultant children are not truly better off homeless rather than the care available in the homes of both hetero and same sex guardianship. 

I guess it comes down to the purpose of the sexual act in our lives and does sexual proclivity need to be a declaration for the masses and unprepared youth. If a family member came to me and felt the need to express how much they love a member of the same sex or the opposite, I really don't need to know how they may be physically working that out or not. It is sufficient that they be someone capable of giving and receiving emotional love, whether or not I agree or disagree with physical acts implied or any legal ramifications of a specific commitment designation.    

Should either one be hated for their assumed to be misguided belief? bullied? killed? These should not be options for either side of this debate. Unfortunately, lack of that which each side claims to be their particular birthright is summarily too often forgotten. True Love.

-Hermit King-

https://open.spotify.com/track/5oOUehyct6JhvB6M07TH1z?si=YI2NLZG8Qf-AtS8NfH2ECA

Why?

Good and evil pass through this plane of existence. 

Evil passes at the hands of that considered good and good is too often taken by that considered evil. 

There can seem no explanation, reason, or justice in untimely demise.

Perhaps it is not the actions of gods in control of these events, yet simply universal balance that allows such tragedy. 

The taking of our lives is not just meaningless and sad.

It is only sad in the perspective of we who face a time of loss. 

Perhaps the balance of light against the dark is by some necessity reinforced.

When the great ones are suddenly sometimes violently taken from us, to eternity our time of pain is brief.

We should not turn from the Grace of life and curse. 

We should celebrate the greatness and light of those unfortunately taken. 

We should thank them for the exemplary and courageous lives they led, in our time. 

We should try harder to increase The light within ourselves, because with us they lived. 

One day, when we are taken, we can add our own contribution of light against a universe ever more imbalanced by the incursion of anger and shadow.

-Hermit King-

Truth

The purity of man's perception of truth is quickly lost

like ashes on a building breeze,

diminishing in that instant breath

beyond their moment of creation.

Truth, in its interpretation and expression, are instantly skewed

by shadows of perspective,

fog of memory

and

the darker edges of prejudice.

No film of record, writing, or sound

can ever fully depict a perfect resonance

within a truth's exact inception.

The only unchallenged truths I find beyond the certainty of mere mortal ambiguity are

gravity, God, and my mother's intuition.

-Hermit King-

Going Home

I sit waiting in the living room of my new, as yet unpacked, San Diego apartment for the shuttle to Lindbergh field international airport. I moved into my new place some weeks ago, but due to a bad back and a strong propensity to sitting down after work, I am still surrounded by the tag-a-long paraphernalia and boxed memories of an aging hermit king. 

It is Christmas time and I am flying to Salt Lake City, Utah for a holiday reunion with much of my family and a long needed 10 day rest. It has been a Whirlwind year of great stress, bitter economic blight, uncertain stability and these just for the fortunate. I have been one of the fortunate.

Christmas isn't usually too big a deal for me since my boys grew up, not like my secretary who makes our office the So Cal version of Macy's. I don't usually do much but eat badly and watch football, but this year seems special to me. My parents are getting older, my sons have their own lives and fiances are getting tighter for a family so far flung to gather very often.

I have always enjoyed my family but didn't always seem to appreciate them much. I have grown to love these people over time with emotions hard for me to adequately project. It could be partly "absence makes the heart grow fonder" but deeper still it is those early bonds that took root far stronger than I ever expected and a familiarity of life experience based on those roots that allows me a glimpse into there lives, a respectful perception of who they have by necessity become. When their children are hurt or sick or stupid, I feel those moments with them, through memories raising my own. I exalt in there victories as I'm acutely aware how hard those wins are often won. I cannot wait to hold these people in my arms this Christmas and shake the rafters with our joy as once more we gather.

We will be high in the snow packed Utah mountains at a family cabin that at the very least is a Hallmark holiday Christmas location but for me and many of my family rarefied air on holy ground. There is proof there that a God made this world and a peace that pervades there that tells me God walks there often. Winter there is frozen silence. The deep wet snows muffle even deeper what is already monastic quiet. I have been blessed to know this place both summer and winter all my life.

I will miss greatly those family members who are not able to attend this time, but know they are happy spending time with others this year who need them in there lives as much as I need them in mine. To them all and to you who may sometime read this bleary eyed gibberish.

Have A Great Holiday, 

Know Only Prosperity, Realize Greatness.

My taxi is here.

-Hermit King-

Orig Published 12/09

https://open.spotify.com/track/6pvl3g9am21RDPb4Oh5Bvx?si=oBo8CGFBR0WSqYZXUT2ogA

Team Approach

With Americas political contenders getting started with their run for election to the oval office, I wonder if it might be beneficial for our political process to have these candidates run as teams rather than individuals. 

I believe that leading a nation like America is definitely a team sport. 

I mean, how much more confident are we knowing all the members of the teams representing our cities, their injuries, their backups, their special talents that make our teams worth rooting for. 

Some would argue that politics are the ultimate individual sport and follow their representatives like the crowds follow Tiger. 

Well this argument nearly proves my point, Who's backing up the Tiger when he fails, Bo Van Pelt, John Daly, Annika Sorenstam? Too much of the "who may be behind it all" is a mystery in politics. 

If the team approach were followed, everyone would be aware of the backup QB for their political Mahomes, the offensive line of their cabinet, and their line up for Defense prior to throwing in as fans and supporters of those who may take us into battle.  

I don't just root for a team because the coach is cool or the QB can throw it a mile or the cheerleaders have great outfits. 

I root because I believe in the Team entire, their total ability to execute, achieve, and win. 

-Hermit King-

Bully Shit

My sweet sisters have been greatly affected on a very personal level, by the current controversies concerning gay rights and the bullying of teens to the point of suicide. They may or may not have any desire to hear my opinion on this matter, but I think they would be very surprised by it.

I have been one of those unenlightened fellows who have laughed and passed forward a great many stories and jokes involving gay caricatures, for that I am guilty. I have never spoken any of them in cruelty or directed one at an individual, yet now, in hindsight, I have not concerned myself with what audience may have known adverse affect from my colorful barb. For that I am sorry. I never have intended a punch line to truly injure.

On the subject of teen gay rights and Government intervention in American bedrooms. I can only hope both sides come to the realization that it's so much more important to worry about what book is being grabbed across this land of rapidly depleting intellectuals, rather than who may be grabbing whose ass. Teens are in a constant state of hormonal rage and it is to responsible adults to refocus that unbridled passion into subjects far more vital to the success of a sane productive society than who needs to grope or not to grope whomever else. 

Love should be allowed to blossom on all levels of society and encouraged. The bullying stems far more from an inability to love and violent jealousy directed at those for whom that rare blessing comes easily. I'm not one who enjoys watching any gender combination copulate through their clothing in public or witness couples taste testing each others adams apples while kissing, but what happens behind closed doors is non of my affair. If it's a sin, it's their sin and governments should be nowhere near wasting my valuable tax dollar concerning themselves with this undeniable fact of life. 

Violence against anyone for any unjustifiable reason must and should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and loving someone is certainly not justifiable. 

Let us not for one second confuse sex and lust for love. Teens are better off remaining free and innocent from the unhealthy attachments, diseases, jealousies, and obsessions attributed to early sexual promiscuity. After high school, if a kid feels the need to let it fly, well you as a parent have had your chance, it's time to accept what you got and roll with it. Your only other choice is loss. 

Your child will leave or die. 

I know their are far more intricate legal aspects of this issue we are attempting to divide ourselves with, yet in a world of people out there wanting to annihilate us to a man, don't you think it might be more intelligent to find more ways of pulling together as Americans, despite these petty differences of private personal preference.  

-Hermit King-

https://open.spotify.com/track/6RBWG4bKWWO2ms67zD5DLp?si=z3L0ejOmSS-hv2O_gDSMvw

I AM

Religions greatest rockstar?

YOU!

All these who passed before worked so hard to prepare,

YOU! 

 Choose to understand and truly see beyond the tricks of men and into the great light gifted to all the children of mankind. 

YOU!

 are the reason the truly inspired and great ones spoke and wrote and lived.

 YOU!

 are the fruition of the seeds they have sown.

Raise your hearts, lift your eyes,

 Become that greatness for which all examples have been but gifts to the birth of your own divinity.

YOU!

 Are the seed of God.

 YOU!

 Are God.

Now

 in all humility

YOU!

 thank them

Carry on

 and

YOU!

Be good ones

-Hermit King-

Orig Published

08/10

https://open.spotify.com/track/3fuZdtYnfPG0JQIPanVTTu?si=6teWuOCkSVWR0jZkxheKtw

Command

     

     I have spent many years observing and realizing "what is" a manager and the true essence of command. It is first and foremost an honor to be found worthy of a directoral post, yet a frighteningly real and humbling charge to know the decisions and actions of any given day greatly effect more than just the bottom line on a company spreadsheet. Lives do hang in the balance. Their are no bullets to fear in management, no bombs or imminent threat to life, yet understand war has a more far reaching definition than just the lead story on CNN and it's warriors more than simply hardened hands, prepared to violently oppose another's will.

     This war is much more subtle and it's outcome not the stuff of legend, book, or film. We the people grind away a daily search for our place in the American dream, doing battle with the phantoms of an economic tornado no influence of man or money can hope to contain, yet we carry on. I have been blessed to lead a cadre of working warriors who every day joined with me in a quest to survive the constant perception of seemingly endless storm. Together we battle all comers for the right to achieve and maintain stability in the brutal forum of our most prolonged conflict, 250 plus years of American free trade.

     I have learned that to command good people I have to know them. Don't party with them, swap spit, or have sleep over pillow fights with them, but do have to make it my business to discover what makes them tick. I must know what motivates them. I must know what inspires them. I must know what wills them to continue winning, through whatever blight or tragedy may befall them, so that we  might all know victory.

     The tenor Pavarotti had great command of his vocal cords, Michael Jordan had command of a basketball,  Da vinci command of the brush, Lindburgh the sky, these people used no title, no dictatorship, no outwardly abusive means to achieve command. The great ones don't need to lessen another to achieve their higher intent. The great ones set lofty goals, recognize greatness around them, work hard, study and know thoroughly the tools of their craft. They have command.

     As a small business director, my troops are not legion but my ultimate goal is to know my motley band of few far better than the competition knows their often much larger force and assist mine in gaining the higher ground. The pressure can be intimidating but for that I am well paid. It is on me to keep even the least solvent of my comrades sailing for Eldorado, even if those shores are, for them, yet unseen. I know for some, it is in me they must trust, the shores are there and only through honest thoughtful command can I manage to lead them to a promised land of riches and her safe havens of peace and gold.

-Hermit King-

Orig Published 07/10

“Your position never gives you the right to command. It only imposes on you the duty of so living your life that others can receive your orders without being humiliated.”

Dag Hammarskjold quotes (Swedish Statesman and United Nations official, 1905-1961

https://open.spotify.com/track/53MixI5NFdw2HyRpgwsoGB?si=bJEcgLOhRkGMBsVB0pUG3A

Dive

Once real love has touched your heart and filled your soul, like breathing the warm safe waters of the womb, broken love can be devastating. A setback to life that can stifle confidence and joy for months, years, even decades. After all attempts at therapeutic purges of anguish and anger, medicating, depression, or just screaming into the anonymous hurricane winds, trust remains broken but you carry on. Regaining enough trust to even consider speaking of a personal future with others, seems the distant dream of another alien you. Time marches on and potential partners pass with every unfair comparison to similar memories or moments that revisit the fear of touching that singular moment of emotional violation. Guilt builds as you race through life empty, knowing time should heal the wound, but won't. It becomes easier to accept you are alone and that ultimate type of symbiotic love relationship with another human being is momentary or only for the lucky few.

To this I can say only, Bullshit! Hogwash! Monkeyshine! Yes a broken heart hurts, yes it takes time to heal it, but if you truly wish to love, there is plenty of it out there. First find a way to love yourself. You can't truly love anybody else unless you can accept your own persona as a gift worth giving to another. Why would you give a gift to someone you care for, that YOU don't even want. Second love a lot. love people, love dogs, love kids, love movies, love music, love living and that love will carry you. Third love higher, don't obsess about another. study them, serve them, seduce them, and when warranted spank them, but never even hope to own them. Love comes back around and even though you may believe an adult cannot remember how to breath the warm womb like waters of love after losing them, you will remember. In a movie called The Abyss, star Ed Harris wore an oxygenated water breathing system for a deep sea dive, and like his crew told him as panic took his mind and the waters filled his mask"the first breath is a shock but your body will remember, it will remember! breath easy, you'll be just fine".

-Hermit King-

Orig Published 12/09

Tellus

With all my heart I love her.

I seem smitten more severely every marching moment of the day.

I am as lucky to spend time with her as I am to be alive.

She is a gift of solid friendship and vital link to a safe haven of hope and trust.

She loves me despite my situation or shortcomings.

She's never dwelt on my faults or flaws, but will not settle for less than the best I can give.

Her smile is my diamond and her touch a glimpse of all that ultimately is gold.

I know she must think me slightly insane as I stare at her speaking to people, smiling like an idiot and barely hearing the words through the growing fog of emotion and deep respect for her that holds me hypnotized.

Whatever imperfections she may feel toward herself, I find strangely absent from my own opinion.

She has raised good, honest, and kind children.

They are like her, gifts to an aching world, unafraid to venture out and heal it with the fellowship and shine of their worthy souls.

She is not someone another can keep, she'll not be trapped or fooled.

I can only love each second shared and do all I can to merit what second may be next.

She is not a wife, nor only lover, 

She is a dream.

-Hermit King-

Orig Published 09/09

https://open.spotify.com/track/700GV5YS7noKnkb2tptAZd?si=RMy_24HrSIyTGuJVAzhoPQ

All A Mine

When my extremely possessive son was smaller he used to get irritated with me when others asked "Do you have kids?", I would answer "yes" and to the natural follow up "how many?" I'll forever answer "They're all mine". He understands now why I've said this and how important it is to me that everyone feel this way to some extent.
Whenever you, as an adult, are in the proximity of a child, the physical welfare of that child is shared by you whether you like it or not. If there is a circumstance of imminent peril or even a perception of potential threat, it is upon you and other responsible adults to back up the biologically attached adult so long as that adult is not the aforementioned threat. I do not fawn and coo over the ill tempered snotty little viral pygmies every time one enters a room, but I am consistently aware of their presence and whether they're being kept track of. The world has so many dangers now that can damage so quickly aside from potential human threat and it's upon us to always be prepared to assist.

On the matter of human threat, I am no whiner when it comes to corporal punishment when fairly administered and I am the furthest thing from a volunteer babysitter on the planet, but thrust evil upon a defenseless little one in my presence and all will understand the full malice of a Scot's blood fury. I am not holy, in my overt love for the least of these my brethren. One may not even know I care about the puss caked wee little piss bombs, but kidnap, molest, brutalize, or attempt to kill an innocent near me and if I am at all able, it will take the miracles of Moses to mend your broken bones.

I write this in response to a CNN article concerning the kidnap and torture of a six year old boy in Falujah Iraq by Islamic extremists. The boy was the son of a policeman who had the potential authority to release other terrorists, on threat to his sons life. This incredibly strong willed man refused to release murderers back into the streets, knowing full well his son would likely die. Rather than kill the boy, these psychopathic degenerates in the name of Allah spent the next two years ruthlessly torturing a six year old boy, the horrible likes of which are difficult to comprehend. The boy was ultimately saved but told how these grown men laughed as they pulled out his tiny fingernails and teeth, broke both his arms with a shovel, and drove nails into his legs for sport. A SIX YEAR OLD BOY! I am at this juncture of life not capable of physically resolving what must be done to eradicate this filth from our planet, but I damn well cheer the forces that must end such demonic fervor. I am quite certain now that a just and merciful Allah will vomit this ever increasing offshoot tribe of pestilence into the mother of all Muslim Hells.

-Hermit King-
originally published 08/09

https://open.spotify.com/track/1v7KabGwnsTxKkNY1EHkts?si=g4czzJNhTCOGljAKycvCOg