Ridge Runner Report

The walls our minds build that separate us from each other are ghosts, specters, shadows of reality, an egoic illusion that separates us from the Truth. They're the architecture of a dark spirit, an evil entity. These structures, when illuminated by the light of awareness, are stomp out with all the passion I can muster. They damn the flow of that life force that creates everything, the force that fashions a flowering cherry tree from tiny a seed. A sign of humility easily overlooked in its beginnings but whose climax is breathtaking. A flowering cherry tree is a perfect illustration of the beauty each of us can bring to this world and we can use the same unseen force that forms a cherry tree from dirt. This force pumps your heart, fills your lungs. Take a deep breath and know the Truth is in you....

I feel like I should start by apologizing - mostly to myself - for not writing in so long. I could list a number of reasons for my neglect but I'll instead spare us both the trouble. Me of writing it and you of reading it. Who really knows why we neglect the things we love?

It seems there has been a lack of strong motivation to get me to write. Nearly all of my previous bouts of inspiration were stirred by an overwhelming urge to share a new found insight. And I feel my true lack of writing has been due to the absence of this urge. Not that the new insights have stopped showing up at my doorstep but that the urge to share them has waned.

I feel like the main cause of this waning is in large part the reception of a select few that seemingly took offence from my writings, who seemed to interpret my writings as a boasting and not a sharing, as was intended. As though my sharing of these insights somehow made them feel diminished, which was never the intention. The more I think on it the more I realize I never should have let these responses bother me and a part of me expected to encounter some egos, having shown the light of awareness on my own.

But in my own defense I have always tried to stress the fact that these ideas that enter my mind are not my own, nor do I claim to be the first to have written them down. But they are new to me and the more I think on it I feel these are ideas that are so ineffable that they need to be experienced to be understood. These writings were more of an attempt to maybe help point you the way. And the more I think on that, the more I realize that we all have our own way. There are so many rivers that lead to the sea. I guess then, that my target audience is the single drops of rain that join me on my tumultuous journey through the torrent of human emotions. Those that harbor the question "who am I?" and this is the story of my quest for an answer to that question. My intention is that my process provokes your own expansion and inquiry, which will elevate us both. We're all in this together and have so much to learn from each other. This is my attempt at being a stepping stone to those seeking the answers I've already been graced with.

Look closely and you will see these words engraved on your soul: "This is my promise to you: If in this moment you realized how limitless you truly are and consciously endeavored to actualize only a fraction of your potential, in five years you will be in a place you've never dreamed possible." - Love, Your Creator

Is drawn from my depths

Innocence bows as he passes

With a pissed fisted hand

My blood drips from his wrist

A dance of darkness and searing flame

And in the wake of the blaze

Pain, angst, and ashes

...sorrow lingers smoldering

And all that pass, whisper my name

At the dawn of my thirties I feel it necessary to solidify in words, my perspective.
Every moment's a blessing - if you can stand in its light...

But therein lies the trouble for most people.  

    That's why creating art is such a powerful employment of our lives. If you put any effort into creating you realize, to create you have to be totally present in the moment and aware of who you are in that moment. A state which is in constant fluctuation. Given the same elements, in a different time, even moments later a different creation would arise. A manifestation of the recognition of the ever changing face of our physical reality, a recognition you find only when you have the courage to go deep within yourself. I feel like that recognition, that knowing comes from a connection with the very creative force that created our universe and through creative expression we most easily recognize that connection. I just want you to know that there are people who greatly admire the "kinetic excellence" of those who create. Einstein said "nothing happens until something moves." Had he never wrote his papers and presented his ideas to the collective consciousness he would have never affected the ether (the countless # of molecules that join hands to bring us "Reality"), it would have stayed a potential, dormant in a brilliant mind. Don't let your dreams lie dormant as unmanifested potential. Create.......

   And through my eyes, that's our purpose. Our days are our chance to create. As physical expansions of the original creative force (what some people call God) our purpose it to be the lens through which the light is filtered and refracted. And through our learning we focus that creative power. Each of us different lenses through which the light of "God" is focused. None better then the next but different. That being stated, I believe - You are God.... or better stated, a physical extension of the very hand of God. I feel we are all gateways to the void, the empty stillness from which all things manifest, from which the creative force trusts forth new growth, new ideas, new creations. To CREATE, that is why we're here.

    But the word God just doesn't cut it. Three letters is the best we can do to describe something so ineffable? Really? And then you add all of the negative connotation that have been added to the word by those that would stand behind it to elevate their egos; to control others through the fear of sin or damnation. God is love and has nothing to do with fire and brimstone. Save the fact It created it and also created those who spout the words feverishly from pulpits and alters in futile attempts at saving their place in "heaven," or the false imagery of their mind. But this is only my opinion. An interpretation of our physical reality through the lens (the consciousness) named Adam Steele. And I believe your interpretation is just as valid as mine... just as true. In our attempts at describing something so indescribable we all fall short. It's a great mystery ....an empty stillness, the source of all creation.

These are only ideas from my own unique standpoint, my own perspective. Not better or worse than your perspective but the same, from the hand of God, both different colored lenses filtering the same light. But through focused thought we can change the color and better focus that light. Some of us find great joy in focusing the light. And through that joy we get better at it than most people. We clear a way through our consciousness for the light of that great mystery to shine through from the empty stillness (the non-physical dimension) into our world, our physical reality. We call them artists... writers, photographers... yet some of us live our whole lives and never realize the unfathomable power that emanates from the empty stillness. I feel there are three directed actions that will further us in our personal and collective evolution and bring us closer to that realization.

    As physical extensions of that creative force our purpose is to love. And through the action of loving we manifest the very vibrational likeness of the Great Mystery. And by emitting that vibration we clear all the blocks we have accumulated through our lifetime so we can better connect with the Source. But it takes great courage to love, to take off your armor and look to the source of all creation for your security, to trust....

And all at once you lose it. And it leaves you... waiting... hoping

Wondering when it will return and what changed.

What currents shifted from aft to bow or port and when?

Where was my attention then...

the moment you left me? Could I have halted its departure?

Or would I have stood helpless on deck

with only a salty eye,

a grey goodbye?

You took the color when you left....

We can look at an object and all agree it's blue but that doesn't mean we are all seeing the same color. I feel like this is a perfect illustration of how potentially different our perspectives are. How we accept things as truths that are probably all wrong. We interpret the world through our own perspectives and in doing so leave out the vast possibilities that may exist, the infinite possibilities that quantum physics says is inherent in our universe. We make the mistake of not perceiving the infinite possibility in ever moment and lose all of our power as a part of the creative process.

Creative ability is inherent in all of us.... Don't let your ego tell you otherwise.

Look @ the way we live.... look @ the way we are destroying the earth. What's the driving force?  Look closely and you'll see a shallow swift turbulent current of materialism that leaves us tattered and empty; strips us of our power. How do we reclaim that power?

...nurture your creativity, the creativity of others.... if this happens we will see an unprecedented shift in the human paradigm and more fully realize our mind's potential. The whole universe exists inside each of us, the entire night sky (a metaphor) transcending our comprehensions of space and matter. And if we can recognize that, we see its multi-level manifestation in our physical world. How we exist among the stars, are the stars and contain the stars within us. And then realize the whole exists mirrored, projected in a non-physical world. Like how and an image is projected beyond a lens's focal point: as different as the original, as it is the same. A balancing paradox.... 

Something to think about: What, in my creation, speaks to you (what you connect with) is from the piece of you in me.......

A rumbling from the west announces his coming:

His thunderous trumpeting in the distance.

A winged spirit commanding the clouds.

He lights the night, if only for a moment:

A Glimpse at what hides in the darkness.

a Brother....

a Friend....

He comes to celebrate a circle closed and renewed:

Two sacred hoops strung from the tree of life.

He brings a cleansing rain ....and a gift:

The endurance to forge the path ahead.

We share this earth with some truely amazing people. There is a people in Africa that consider their child's birthday the day when that child was conceived as a thought in his mother's consciousness. After she has this thought she goes out into the forest and listens hard to hear the song of the child, the child that yurn to be born. After the spirit of the child teaches her the song, she brings it back to her lover and teaches him the song and they sing the child's song together as they make love. In that moment they are exquisite, powerful creators as they join and expand their circle. Through the pregnancy and birth the song is sung. It is taught to the child's community so that if ever the child falls anyone can sing him his song and remind him who he is and from where he came.  The song is sung through out his life. When he marries a woman both songs are sung. They become two verses of the same song.  The essence of two hearts, one.... And when he dies, when he returns to the source of his song, his community gathers and sings his song for the last time and his hoop is closed. 

Learn your song, sing it every moment of your life and the universe will hark to hear. Go to the forest and quiet your mind and listen hard for your heart's song. In it's melody you'll find your true repose and the courage to sing your song to the world. The courage to lay down your arms, love everyone and roll with the mystery. I promise you: Your life is a beautiful song....

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I had come to die, discover that I had not lived."
-Henry David Thoreau

Unclench your fist.
Close your eyes,
Breathe deep and know
Your life has the sweetest refrain.......

It was early. He was up before the sun. A thick frost had crept in while he slept and without further adieu summer had loosened its' embrace of the mountains. The leaves had changed and the morning sun would soon reveal their fiery exhibition. He sat up in his sleeping bag as the smell of pine smoke rose from the remnants of last night's fire. He got up and stirred them to coax a flame.

The lake was so still.... She called him to her and he knelt on her shore to wash his face. The crisp air drew a mist from the water like a slow simmering caldron. The water, as warm as a mountain noon, washed the night from his mind and from the mist came a loons' trill. It was loud. He was close. The vibrations pierced the vial of his western mind and woke him from a slumber not easily shaken. The notes echoed through the deepest chasms of his soul and stirred a timeless knowing, an ancient wisdom. He listened.... His legs felt rooted in the sand and soon he could feel his connection to everything. Enchanted by the song, he sat back on the bank to listen. His heart pounded with a thousand voices; none of them his own but all familiar.

As a boy, growing up on New York's eastern boarder he was blessed with the opportunity of spending countless hours steeped in the majesty of the mountains, the Adirondacks, the Taconics and the Berkshires. The mountain streams, the swamps and the meadows; these were his playgrounds. He watched as natures' cycles unfolded before him and returned back to the source. He witnessed firsthand the sacred dance of predator and prey. Before long the illusion of our separation from nature fell away. Nature's embrace quieted the chaos of a young boy's mind and opened it to the essence of all that is and he was granted a reverence for nature unmatched by his contemporaries. He was no longer an observer but a participant. He recognized his part as a strand in the web of life. He uncovered a timeless thread that had long ago sown his soul to nature, to the trees and the animals. He could see clearly, we are all bound to the same fate....... When the chaos of our society sedates that knowing, that wisdom, I find my way to the mountains.... who never fail to remind me who I am. When we realize our connection to everything we see we have a stake in protecting it. This earth is precious. Our bodies are made from the same stuff as trees. We are connected. The creative force that manifests a tree from a tiny seed runs through you, through us all. We are connected.

 I'm worried our "pollution" is tipping the delicate balance of nature. "What we do to the web we do to ourselves". I feel like the problem is the "web", I so highly value, has no place on a balance sheet nor is its degradation considered a liability. In fact, our greatest asset is seen by so many as an obstacle of progress, to be bulldozed and tilled up or paved over in the name of industry. An industry whose agricultural runoff and smoke stack pollutants contaminate our air and water to the point I can no longer eat the fish I catch without fear of neurotoxins coursing through my blood stream, to the point that our most delicate species can't live but in the most secluded habitat, to the point the whole web is affected. More people need to ask the question: where will this "progress" lead us or I fear our children will know the answer....

Go visit these wild places. They'll help you uncover that connection. It has always been there. All you have to do is allow it.

You know there's more to Life.

Go find it, bring it back and give it freely to the world.