The Pros

Pro-Life, Pro-Choice, and just plain  Pro-extreme. Of late, these seem to be the preferred opinion battle choices of America's abortion debate other than, like myself, complete Pro-ignorance.
I, as an older white male of our species, with no life mate, no natural born kids, and no particular religious affiliation, unappologetically opted out of what I viewed as other peoples concerns. Some very close to me now are forcing my need to pay attention and it is for the love of them, I suppose I should seek some greater truths.
My limited understanding of the two main views are that those espousing Pro-life are ultimately holding embryo's as imbedded autonomous beings, from conception, inside the mother's womb and my understanding of Pro-choice is that embryo's are to be considered formative tissues of a woman without independent life consideration and justifiably dispensible up to a certain standard of time and sentiant consciousness.
There seem a great many honorable and highly motivated participants on both sides of this matter as to what is or is not accepted to be life and encompassing far more than just the simple science or suggested sacred natures of it.
I personally love a kids mind much more than most adults in the world and am happy all the ones Ive met were born. I have in my long travels to wisdom, as a youth treatment center supervisor, also come to know the often tumultuous lives of some young unattached women. Women with options of existence, both prior to and sadly beyond treatment, so depressing that opting out of existing seemed preferable to bringing another life into it. Therein lies my personal frustration. Love and pity for both sides and a distain for the politically motivated extremists in each hard direction.
Woman should certainly be at the vanguard of all consideration, yet active participation in proliferation of the population (or not), must allow for responsible men to also attest, in at least an advisory capacity, as well.
The pro-extremest views of one extreme of offing kids outside the womb or the others, basically offing physicians lives, through incarceration, for keeping mothers from offing themselves. Each extreme seems to have done more for setting both sides further into the graveyard than resurrecting any justice from her limited consensus tomb. Soon the far left will allow for the disposal of there politically unacceptible teens and the far right arresting and incarcerating any wasteful spark of life's discharge from any unrighteous, unsanctioned male genitalia.
Let us hope wiser minds prevail and people will choose to have kids when they want to and know better how not to have them quicker when kids are not part of the plan.
In closing and with just my, less informed but still valid male opinion, Hell yes! special accommodation should be made for horrific circumstance beyond a womans control. Rape, Incest, Threat to life, my brain and heart speak it to me so.
May all who make what final legalities stand, do so with as much love, respect and mercy available to those who will feel lost and vanquished, for it has been a long and bloody war.

-Hermit King-

Love Match

I will not stop love, it cannot be stopped, I can only try to redirect the too early and/or unrequited illicit applications of it. I have failed and triumphed with much of love in my life. I would seek forgiveness of those whose thoughts of love did not in there time match my own, yet seek greater even still, those whose love is sure that I have unfortunately disappointed.
The highest love I see is that of respectful equals, at all times. Time seems the needed levan in that most holy oven, both physically and metaphysically.
I am old enough and used up enough to know there are levels to love and a witness to myriads of variations more.
I have in my, ahem! prime, come to understand the inspired need for love. Connection at a cost? Connection at a benefit? I find love A human trait that finds its greatest truth of expression in its balance, rather than bravado or basic instinct. True love is a gifted match of time, balance, and energy, that would find envy in a Tesla equation. I find no flaw in the truth of it, just the often cruel and clueless pretenders to it.

-Hermit King-

https://open.spotify.com/track/4Ov2vwGGNKEvgmZ3ajjnp2?si=Vt6xK4SUSXOr6JChSo6mJw

Soul What?

I thought to the meaning I could draw from the name of my sons great band, 

Soul What?

What comes to mind is a fusion of spirit and science called string theory.

String theory, the most imaginative and beautiful thought that others have ever thought about.

Vibrating energy strings, at the least scientifically possible location of quantum measure. Humanity at it's very deepest core are empowered by Music.

I have loved the soulful sounds and rythmically precise tones of great music for many years, and am potentially only half way done. Can't imagine what great vibration combinations are out there still to come.

I truly believe that fusion of the rythmes of String Theory in reality, are the best hope for prompting a World to Peace and discovery of soul. God bless and keep, earths timeless musical hippies who have known it all along.

Though I have come to truly love so much music, for drawing my tears, it is Amazing Grace on bigpipes, (I wept like a babe when Spock first perished), and enjoying great talent both with and by those I love.

For others, Country, Rap, Jazz, or Pan Flutes, mixing beat boxes, banjos, or big base drums are their triggers. Emotionally symphonic energy potential lives everywhere.

My job with teens makes my appreciation for this string theory constantly expand. Young children of proud Native America have shared the vibration of their heritage with me. Makes my teeth grind, but what I see in their eyes makes me vibrate. There is so much respect and connection, I weep as if the bagpipes were wailing my own screeching refrains. Peace in our time.

Andre Bocelli  crosses all borders, dude could vibrate the dead. He should be humanities, believers in string theory, planetary ambassador.

I was not a fan of Rap. I was bred of different drums, but was introduced to a fusion album by The Black Keys and an ass load of rap singers. Love the Black Keys and by this fusion of String Theory vibrations with my own vibrational world and the willingness to mix away rap world, made Turn Blue by the Black Keys, my personal peace with Rap. Guess, I was wrong, I like some Rap.

Point is we all vibrate, based on heritage, appreciation and fusion choices, 

along the way.

String Theory, I am a big fan of this particularly promising and theoretically saving way, toward that which constitutes my answer to 

Soul What?

Brilliance and Karma

An extraordinary woman called Karma,

The Elder Sister of my Mother

Is being accepted slowly back to the realms of light from which she came.

Medicine, I am certain, have their reasons for explosions in the brain, mine is far less articulate yet likely more accurate. The capacity for the frail human body to contain the highest levels of brilliance is finite. 

Like a greenhouse for the expansion of lifeforce itself, Karma's maximum dose of light is setting out to imbue all there is with the seeds of light Karma has grown on behalf of her master.

All she is to me personally surrounds me in this moment as the deep long roll of the dog next door howls goodnight to a far off kin of his own.

I Feel her gathered family, long known and respected kin, of so much talent and variation, now at a cellular level beyond gender, politic or standing,  bowing to this brilliant captured light setting itself free.

Karma, in my eyes, married a hard man.

I did not say evil, I said hard. Love being the great additive of difference.

Karma and Paul loved eachother period.

They raised a good many humble hard working children who have grown and blest the world. 

They raised, arguably, the greatest soul I have personally ever witnessed. My lord if the world only knew the wonder that can become of a severly handicapped child with the brilliance of one and the hardness of another, combined in love. Astounding is weak sentiment.

If a savior walks this world today, it is very possible the words may be slurred when spoken aloud or the rolling wheels a bit wobbly. This savior likely would have a Mother, rather like Karma who excelled at it. 

There are a great legion of legendary souls awaiting Karma that truly understand the immense dignity with which a Mother of valor returns to the fold 

I do not pretend to know the extended story of Karma's line, as I have long been gone from Karma's wise and gentle side. I am simply certain Karma has a solid grateful line surrounded every way and always by the magnificently spiralling and vibrantly brilliant soul of Karma.

Thank you, Karma.

-Hermit King-

Theron

*Best translation of a beat up letter pulled from washing older unused coat written of my grandpa Theron, upon his passing. I'm not certain I ever let anyone read it) 2006.

I sat amid the swirl of my jacuzzi tonight, after a long difficult day at work, moments after learning my paternal grandfather Theron had passed away. I wasn't "unreasonably" distressed. This great man, Theron, had fullfilled for me, a priceless example of how one exits life with total grace. After a well fought hard earned life of victory, Theron left the stage right.

My most pressing thoughts, as I tried to float away my selfish aches and pains, "What personal epitaph could I possibly allow myself to consider?" This great man Theron, whose name I felt unworthy to share.

I stared at the churning waters, where in these type of quiet moments, words come much more easily to me, all seemed sadly insincere. I hadn't seen my grandfather Theron for a long, long, time. I could not remember clearly the time I last had. Did I hug him? Did I spend any extra time with him? Was I in some small way able to express to him my grateful appreciation and pride, throughout my life, as a bearer
of, not only one, but two of his names.

What right had I, to put into word, tight quote, song or weeping poem, the life of one I respected so much and shamefully neglected to contact for so long?

So I sat and sat and sat and stared into the whipping water, when a single soap bubble seemed to twitch and draw my blurring eye. I'm not sure why, it seemed to need attention at the time. As I gazed, the bubble grew larger as it touched another smaller bubble, each instantly becoming a part of the other. No great notion or deed upon the water brought them together, no hero, villian, or king, exposed among the bunch. They were all in their rainbow unique of design but at their core the same.

It just appeared, this one now much larger bubble, seemed to hold the rest of a multitude of them together for a brief and fragile span. The bubble danced and spun and grew ever larger, melding lives with countless others in its orbit. Around my bubble, others of all shapes and sizes fell into one another dancing, expanding, spinning about sharing their all too brief lives with every other touched. It was then I knew the importance of my grandfathers great life and basically lifes mission in general.

No matter who you come in contact with, as you each give of yourself, for good or for ill, you become a part of eachother. As a result of this communion, either expanded by or detracted from, everyone takes that portion alloted and passes, at least a fraction, forward in every single subsequent contact.

I and many others are blessed by you grandpa Theron, in knowing you lived a solid life of valor that fed into my father, my uncles, aunts, brothers, sisters, me and now my children. The essence of your influence and fearless desire to connect will resonate through time itself unto generations untold, as have your fathers fathers lives influenced the creation of you.

I miss you grandpa. As your singular bubble floats away, I will attempt to emulate the kindness of you and in my own spinning dance carry on.

-Hermit King-

Michael Theron Fotheringham

I Am Thankful

I am thankful for Light, without it, I would have missed a lot.

I am thankful for Rain, tears sometimes inspire me and I just don't need to talk.

I am thankful for Green to which all ultimately aspire and must for themselves define.

I am thankful for Sons and Daughters whomever they choose to be, with a ripple like pebbles in the pond.

I am thankful for Parents who live and will, inside of me, for all of my evermores.

I am thankful for Brothers, the columes on whom my blueprint stands.

I am thankful for Sisters, the perfect pitches to a roof I could never seem to match, but will always greatly appreciate.

I am thankful for Every peaceful breath and those who have assisted when each breath was not always so. 

My Friends.

-Hermit King-

https://open.spotify.com/track/4ZkhFcoS3apzze9w2yI9NO?si=PsmGom-rQoKG_p0NUhw6Lg

The Evergreen Hippie

Gratitude, like napkins at mealtime, are the little somethings I attempt to attach to every kindness I am served in life.

It is a rare and beautiful gift of karma and grace to be re-given a moment in time wherein a neglected expression of gratitude can, some thirty years later, find the intended and deserving target.

My little sister Kate ran across Mr. Wesley Mathis, my Evergreen Jr High school English teacher, who my friends and I considered the coolest of all teachers breathing.

Wes Mathis was one of many teachers, coming up, who corrected and graded my spelling, my grammar, my syntax, my punctuation, and occasionally my behavior.

The greatness in him that I forever revere is one simple statement he made while looking me straight in the eye

"You can write" he said, "you should write".

I have neglected any talent I may have been gifted or given through the years by life's many delay tactics and easy excuses, but I never forgot those words and the love of writing they inspired.

I do not so easily express myself with the spoken word,

but Yes Wes I Can Write! good or bad I Can Write!

Wes, my teacher and friend, may the spirit who carries your torch guide your journey, safe and strong, to a destiny at least the equal of destinies you've inspired

and that, I pray for you, be heaven.

Thank You!

-Hermit King-