DREAMING IN BLACK AND WHITE
From the gray, foggy recesses of my mind, heart and soul...
Little Boxes...home in the 50s.


THIS OLD HOUSE
Charles Dickens wrote: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times."  That probably sums up everyone's childhood.  For the most part, this is the house where I grew up.  Fifties and Early Sixties in America--prosperity was just around the corner and there was a communist wanting to hide under every bed.  One car was parked out back and there was often a chicken in the pot.  The TV had three snowy black and white channels that featured a dullness we found intriguing. 
    Then one night I  discovered the sound of far away radio stations...the sound of an outward bound train could not have been so exciting.  A journey has to start somewhere and for good or ill it started here for me.

Stuart Hamblin wrote:

"This ole house once knew my children
This ole house once knew my wife
This ole house was home and comfort
      as we fought the storms of life
This ole house once rang with laughter
This ole house heard many shouts
Now she trembles in the darkness
When the lightnin' walks about..."



The woods where I grew up...man and child, I've loved the woods.   There is a mystery about the woods—especially about being alone in the woods.  Maybe it is just some left over conditioning from a past life.     

Maybe it is a sense of danger.  Traveling and sleeping alone in the wilderness is a powerful thing.  It's dangerous for sure, but it has the mind clearing power of meditation  and contemplation.
Today, the woods of my youth contain condos and apartments.  Some people think it's progress.



"But I would rather be with you, somewhere in San Francisco on a back porch in July..."




My lover stands at the Golden Gate...I love three places on Earth:  Machu Pichu, San Francisco and anywhere she is.

HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS



Jerry Garcia
My spiritual brother.    I miss him dearly.

"It's been like this in Terrapin
since wild geese and tumbleweeds graced this way,
it'll be this way in Terrapin by nature and default,
it'll roll and rock like this
when the bet is placed  to live one's choice.
First thoughts are ever truth’s sublime vintage—
to rise, to fall,
to always know we were always there.
Thunder drives and lightning slashes,
  the sky opens as winds rip and drive,
Terrapin...
   through it all and still further through it all,
Terrapin...
choose the world in which to live,
choose the ends and beginnings.

   Such are Terrapin's voices
   and Terrapin's stories,
   Such are Terrapin's choices
   and Terrapin's glories."


     
      JESUS AND JOSEPH'S JOURNEY
 
          Caught between The Wallowa and Canada,
          so many byways and highways,
          so long a path of sanguine thought laden flight,
          Karmic doubt against steppe and plain,
           lunging in fear,
           headlong toward peaks and canyons, 
         heart sick and heart strong--
               here it is and surely there it goes,
         this is pawned for that
         and to the victors belong the rules.

         Caught and trapped,
             waylaid,
         on the road and off the road,
         somewhere 'tween here and  God's holy smile,
                a place staked out just this side of insanity,
           mountains in the view enough to be outta reach,
         mountains now the laugh of despots.

         Caught now in mid-dream,
                trudging amid practiced schemes,
         trapped now,
          in holy rolling tumbling  streams,
         lost and limping
         in the rushing path of high country early rains.

         Caught between spirits and reality,
              so many ways and troubled means,
          here it was and there it faded,
          most is lost in hopeless flight,
          all is gone in the path of night.


THUNDER ROLLING DOWN
            FROM THE MOUNTAIN

  "Hin Ma Toy Ya Lot Ket"

Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce

                     1840-1904

Cheated and tricked out of his home, Joseph
led his people toward Canada in the pursuit
of peace.  They were chased and finally
captured within a short distance of what they
thought would be a haven. 



My main web page is located at http://www.billstockland.com