Graduation Day!

Today, I graduate with my Master's degree in social work!

I have aspired to a new level of cognitive functioning,

there's only one appropriate way to celebrate...

UFO's Abound

I awoke this morning from the static of a dozen unidentified flying objects outside my window.

Chirping and tweeting. Searching for love and, hopefully, picking tics out of my backyard.

I'm familiar with some birds.

The vultures that crash through the uppermost branches in the pine trees outside my front door are anything but inconspicuous.

I can spot a mallard.
If I weren't blogging, I'd call it a duck.
I heard one this afternoon in a water tunnel under a field, echoed not only by itself in the reverberating cavern, but by a brood of ducklings trying to keep up in the dark.

Seagulls.
Robins.
Blue things and red things.

Beyond that, these flutes of the air are a mystery to me.

To center myself, I have devised a plan to get to know these birds.

I choose a favorite call, and then look with all my might for the source. My first pick sounded, to me, like the Simpson's portrayal of an Irish leprechaun.

While tying up my peas this week, I finally spotted the culprit - a surprisingly recognizable finch:
The Cardinal.

I sense this longing among my peers to reclaim what's been lost in the last few generations.

A connection to the land.

An understanding of how things work.

A sustenance based on community.

Beauty in imperfection.

Simplicity and the work that comes with it.

An awakening to the voices around us; the birds and frogs and millionfold mysteries that make our world a living and functioning place.

A new amour propre, that values the self in relation to these things in the present. In the process.

Next on my list, a bird that switches from high, punctuated notes, to low fermatas.

I don't care to know it's name, but I hope to awaken to its presence.

It grounds me in my own.

Two loves

I had another revealing dream.

I dreamt I was lying in bed, walking my eyes over the curves of the sheets.

Then I realized...this was not my bed, but my hometown.

And I knew it intimately.

I knew it completely. Every rise and fall, every veer and surge in the land.

I loved it, because it comforted me, sustained me, and possessed me,

and I it.

As I came to see the details,

the molehills of humanity in the hollows of this hallowed ground,

I began walking the streets of my city

as though they were the halls of my high school. I knew

everyone I passed.

I felt great warmth for each of them. And I worried, with them,

over their concerns. Health, financial, familial, what have you.

But despite our daily worries, there was security in our amity

and goodwill.

We were connected, and stronger for it.

Then an idea turned everything grey,

stuck somewhere between black and white.

I put my hands in my pockets and continued to walk the streets,

a little more bent, biting my lip as I chewed over the idea

The full potential of my two loves could not be reached together.

Justice

2,977 US civilians on 9/11/2001.

100,000 Iraqi civilians since.

Bin Laden on 5/1/2011.

I believe in justice (Tzedakah), but I'm not sure I believe in justice (Mishpat).

Soldier's Poem