Caught in a web. Playing with a good camera is a lot of fun!

The Lost Self

Love reunites you with your lost self,
sets you free
into the secret sea of your heart,
lets you know
you're not forgotten
beneath the layers
lets you see
you are not lost
in your becoming

love makes you weak
but asks you to be strong
forever wanting you
to stand inside the fire
and face yourself bleeding.

Steadfast

I wish I were more steadfast,

not caught upon the stars,

shaking so boldly, the clouds 

that I may fall

from my blithe heart felt state

a thousand feet below

to death and desolate despair

womb into the world

time and time again.

Love is Desperation in Disguise

Your beauty

Is beyond comprehension

Beyond a mere thought

Running like a river through me

Streaming like a ray of light!

I miss you darling

And cry in the empty space sometimes

Where you once were,

Filling me with desire!

Beyond my comprehension

Beyond a mere thought.

The pathways you opened

Were endless

The colours came pouring out

Overflowing the edges of time

And touching my soul,

For eternity in a moment!

What wickedness

What joy

What love…

What truth did I seek to find?

that love is desperation in disguise?

Come back my love

and fill me with your light!

You lit a flame in my heart

And it lit up the night.

In You I See

In you I see

a universe of colour

unbound by hesitation,

staring at me across the room,

soulful

emancipation in your eyes;

and your breath,

saturating my body

between kisses.

In you I see,

a child,

eternally curious,

searching for answers and questions too!

imagining stars 

hanging from clouds.

In you I see

a winters day,

mournfully drudging through snow

baggage on each arm

burdened by the cold

of the burning sun,

can I touch you?

with my bare hands?

give you the life that warms me

and I shall warm you,

within eternity.

In you I see,

the desert

burning burning!

hot like sand 

and ashes from a fire

slipping between my fingers

after sundown;

I feel the space you leave behind.

empty,

like the night

without a star.

In you I see,

a white light,

our hands touching

on a summers day,

walking through the seasons

into the blooming of spring.

In you I see

everything,

all of me;

the embodiment of an opposite

that is somehow the same.

I see a soul

split!

at the beginning of time

searching endlessly

between ticking hands

and common spaces,

and here you are...

found

in a bar over Northcote's bridge

battered by life's betrayals

and haunted with reservation

but I am here now

to heal you.

To fill you up 

and be filled by you

for I am not afraid;

only pleased 

that we are here,

together once more

for a brief moment in time

and I am,

complete.

You brought the Sea

You brought the sea with you

rising up inside my soul

and now you tempt me to return
to your temple

you pull back the dark
piece by piece

and I am blinded by your light, 

held captive by the flame

in your heart

that has lit a flame in mine.

Yes, we were interwoven
by the hand of god

on silver thread
and morning's song.

I saw you from afar
and you've taken me.

The ocean rises,
there is no return.

Good Things Don't Come Easy

'Courage is not a man with a gun in his hand. 

It's when you know you're licked before you begin 

but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. 

You rarely win, but sometimes you do.'

-Atticus Finch, To Kill a Mocking Bird

The question of whether we have a responsibility to protect this planet is undeniable. We are this planet, thus we have a responsibility to ourselves to protect what we are.

Many People have retreated from addressing the climate problems of the present and future, as the extent of the problem of climate change is overwhelming. It means we must not only change our technological direction, our patterns of consumption and our focus on economic growth but it means we must change our entire mentality. It is evident that much of humanity is not taking climate change seriously. I believe this is because of the fundamental changes we need to make to our most basic values. We must first change our priorities and our definition of happiness. As David Suzuki says, 

we must prioritize our air and waterways over our economy. In order to do this we need to re-define the source of our happiness; we must re-condition the human race to prioritize the economy second to the atmosphere. This means we must return to the very basics that outline our existence. We must acknowledge our larger environment as the only true source of our being, and stop living in the name of our own images; in our projections of what we are to others through products. Further, we must recognize our actions as being detrimental for the future of our children. Christopher Lanch, author of 

‘A Culture of Narcissism’ writes:

'To live for the moment is the prevailing passion – to live for yourself, not your predecessors or posterity. We are fast losing the sense of historical continuity, the sense of belonging to a succession of generation’s originating in the past and stretching into the future.'

It is our Corporations that capitalize on this ever-dying sense of not belonging to  a succession of generation's, of not belonging to our larger environment or community. They provide us with a sedative, an immediate answer for our disillusion surrounding the dilemma of our dying planet. “Buy this!” They say. “You’ll feel better! not about the world, but about yourself.” 
I saw a target add recently for children’s clothing that closed with the slogan, “Target: the road to happiness.” Corporations have diminished our true sources of happiness in order to stimulate consumerism and the individual’s investment in products as a source of happiness and a sense of self. Evidently, we must act now to save our finite planet but we must also reinstate the true sources of happiness within the next generation in order to successfully change our priorities and influence our survival, hence education is key. 
What are the true sources of happiness? I think everybody knows intuitively. Obviously it varies somewhat from person to person but the fundamentals are as follows: clean air, water, love, intimacy, community, family, food, health, shelter, and music and art, which is the result of humanities inbuilt need for meaning. This is inline with Maslow's hierarchy of needs, (see below). 

Conclusively, the pathway to changing our values and re-instating the importance foremost, of our basic needs, is a long, hard road. The future of our happiness and our survival as a spices depends on how we act now; and although a consumerist culture may deny it, the truth remains that good things don’t come easy.