I paint fire and in mud. I paint reds and greens and I make love I am the artist in your dreams, far at the end of the street in the dark alleyways and star-lit night scapes. I am in relation with man and nature, the city and the wild. For I am all of …
Letters #4 Bookstores
John K King Used and Rare Books in Detroit, Michigan takes the cake. I love bookstores. Can’t get enough of them. Even if I spend all day in one, I can probably revisit that same shop the next day and still have a great time. To me, a bookstore is a worthy alternative to traveling, …
Affirmation #11
All is one and One is All
You know the title
No more fear. Fear is a con offered by those who don’t realize they’re peddling it to begin with, there's too much fear so please lead with love No more fear. We can identify a problem But don’t have to lose our head or compassion and respect love spirit If we are the problem Then …
Letters #3 — Unconventional Prose and poetry
It's more than being good with words. To write well, you have to be receptive to the things going on around you and within you. The second part came naturally to me while the first part, the technique, took more time and practice. Quite a few years. I still haven’t perfected it, but eventually I …
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At an ol’ familiar haunt
I just had one of the most fantastic breakfasts of my life, and After a good long wait I’m a changeling back on the scene not a moment too soon here with my people, this Saturday morning through the early afternoon sipping my coffee late in October, for Halloween’s a-coming and the air is cool …
The Only Sin I Ever Committed
The only sin I ever committed was stepping away from who I am as if it was ever necessary in order to love others. We create, express who we are and meet at the overlap The courtyard we call democracy jazz love. -- The world’s customs and perspectives are changing, the resistance to it is …
Affirmation #12
My religion is one of my creation pretty sure I am the only member.
Letters #1: On writing
Like just about anything creative, it's a river. Or stepping into one. And once you're in it, you let it take you. You might exert some of your own will onto it but ultimately when things are going best, it's the river that decides. And it speaks through you as well as to you, …
Letters #2: Influences
When you’re starting out you may find that there are many writers and musicians whose work you dig, but I'd keep an eye out for those who really knock your socks off, who make you want to dance naked in the street, howl at the moon and make love to strangers; who, when you read …
The Wake Up
Only Love For me there is only the road. Sometimes I think it's the only real home for me listening to good music and digging every new place I see and all the old places too with the sun in my eyes and above me the moon and the stars. It's a real sweet spot, …
I think I’ll be living in Santa Fe pretty soon
I think I’ll be living in Santa Fe soon picture me walking ‘long a New Mexico road that Pueblo adobe & streetlights of candlit brown paper bags on a winters night me and the moon and You standing before St. Francis cathedral yea I can see it I can see that being my little midnight …
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I write on the backs of napkins
I write on the backs of napkins I write on scraps of tissue paper for you ought to not sweat the fancy jet the time yet, no or the old lessons of propriety don't stack that shelf full of fancy volumes, neither no, don't overload the head with journals with their pages crisp and clean …
On Meditation
I was thinking about Headspace and how it was the real introduction to mediation for me. I think it’s a great app for the beginner, and it does a wonderful job at making something long-considered esoteric more approachable and welcoming. I started in the early Spring of 2016 and I continued meditating consistently for the …
A saw a film today, oh boy! 1917.
1917 is a story about two British soldiers in World War I sent by their commanding general to warn another battalion, currently preparing an assault on German forces, that they are in fact walking into a trap and playing right into the hands of the enemy. One of the two soldiers has a brother in …
there’s a carnival tonight
Last night I stepped into a carnival. Quite literally. We were coming in from downtown and as we emerged from the LA underground at the Santa Monica/Vermont metro station we found ourselves surrounded by neon lights and funnel cake, bumper cars and clowns. The damn clowns. Anyone who knows me well knows that I’ve developed …
Where Do We Begin? Sketches.
once I was wanting to accumulate (just) stacks of papers and notes as I busied myself with more writing and creating and letting the stacks of papers grow like towers & skyscrapers in a white city as I busied myself like Hephaestus deep in the fiery trenches grinding out work after work But now you …
quick tips: start_
When we’re about to begin a project, sometimes it’s tempting to sweat the beginnings. That is, trying to manipulate conditions, waiting for the right kind of ‘weather’ before you take the first steps. This can be anything from those things out of your control, like the actual weather, or things that are in your control, …
The War of Ideas
I thought I'd grown numb to gun violence, until it finally happened close to me. In my county. Maybe it’s just another indicator of the distance we feel from one another, from east to west. Maybe it’s natural in a land as vast and diverse as our own, an impediment we must continually seek to …
Repetition and Awareness. The Universal Dance.
A Letter Written by Sam Lyons to J.L. Quinby, Esq. | Quinby! You sly devil, you… You recently asked me what I thought was the most defining aspect of my philosophy. The cornerstone of my ethos, so to speak. Well, I think I have my answer. One of the strongest components of my own self-awareness, …
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Ren Michael 