So what heve I been up to these weeks on non-journaling?
Well, I've doned my muck boots once more to explore the rare and beautiful wet places of our country. These outings brought me to the Fall Creek Watershed which is btw. Cortland and Ithaca to help out my friend Stephen with his master's research. I'll spare you the details in prose and instead send out a few pics of my time working in the fens and hanging out in Syracuse with all my rad ex-roomies at the Bread and Roses Cooperative.

Here is a rendition of one of the first poem's I ever wrote. It was 7th or 8th grade. I was very proud as I scrawled the words that had come to me whilst delivering newspapers. They more than fullfilled the asignment given in english class, and had come so easilly. I felt smart - gifted.
What a helpless feeling came when the asignment was collected the next day and I spoke out to say squeamishly "I left it at home". The reply: "Yeah, right".
So I was not to develope that gift. Oh, well. I never have been very attracted to poetry in my adulthood - always sticking with prose. Joining a poetry circle at a freinds invite a few nights past, I realized this and remembered the old story. So here is my first rebelious punch - a rewriting of a long lost childhood poem. Not very timely, I'm afraid, but then with the August that we've been having so far maybe it is in a weird way. Take that Miss George.

warms rays shine down,
snow melts away.
A bird is heard chirping,
but its January not May.

I saw a robin, some geese,
tread the sky today.
They squawked of their travels
but it's January not May.

The birds shall fly south twice this year,
seeking the warmer day.
They must have forgot,
It's January not May.

This is love: to fly toward a secret sky,
to cause a hundred veils to fall each moment
First, to let go of life.
In the end, to take a step without feet.
To regard this world as invisible,
and to disregard what appears to the self.

Heart, I said, what a gift it has been
to enter this circle of lovers,
to see beyond seeing itself,
to reach and feel within the breast.

My soul, where does this breathing arise?
How does this beating heart exist?
"Bird of the soul, speak in your own words,
and I will understand.

The heart replied: I was in the workplace
the day this house of water and clay was fired.
I was already fleeing that created house,
even as it was being created.
When I could no longer resist, I was dragged down,
and my features were molded from a handful of earth.

-Rumi

I came across this poem in a neat little coincidence and it really spoke to me of some of the things that I have been pondering as of late. Several of the people in my life have been having heart problems lately (as in the actual physical manifestation, not just emotionally) which has led me to ponder the mystery that is bodily death. And life for that matter. The poem is from a book that I had asked my dad for some time ago and which he just found and lent to me the day after he got out of the hospital (with, it turns out, a healthy heart after all). This was the poem I flipped to when I first opened the book. I was contemplating whether to put someone else's words in one of my posts when the amazing pianist that I was listening to on the radio said something about whirling dervishes.
Well, I leave off with another quote, this from a certain recent Hollywood blockbuster: "I'll tell you a secret about the gods that they don't teach you in the temples. The gods envy us for our mortality. Everything is sweeter, more cherished, when you know that you may die at any moment."

We'll here I am at home. Not feeling my hotest. I can't say that I really have any distinct symptoms of anything like a cold or flu but I sure as heck don't have a lot of energy the last couple days. Fighting a bug, I suppose.
More trying than that, my dad is in the hospital right now with heart trouble. He spent last night there and has gone through a series of tests and depending on results may have an artery scoped (a camera inserted into it). So please send out your prayers (or whatever it is you do) for Bill Jungels. He's a good guy.
On a lighter note I am temporarilly jumping on the skin pick bandwagon (though not bearing it all) by inserting a pic of a slightly younger Jeremy workin away. Limited time only.

This is what my car looked like this morning, along with several other cars all allong the block.
List of missing items:
portable cd/mp3 player w/car conversion kit
large fanny pack
cell phone
adress book/calender
assorted other personal items
3 or 4 cd's

Amazingly, I have'nt really gotten upset about it at all yet. Maybe if I'm trying to get a hold of someone at some point and realize there is no way of getting their number. And who knows, maybe some of those things will find their way back to me. I'll just deal with things as the moments come.

4 days, 4 stages, 4 hours of sleep, lots of new beautiful freinds, and dancing like it's my last day on earth the whole damb time. Yup, Grassroots was a blast and I wish that I had some photos to share with you all but I was dancing so much I just could'nt let myself be encumbered with a camera.
Here though is the one pic I was able to take while hiking around Ithaca the day after the festival (a recomended transition for any festival goer).

Yup, it's finalized. I will not be going to Towson University.
And what a decision it was. Crazy dreams and all.
Definitely some humbling lessons learned.
Here's the low down:
I was talking with my freinds Sara and Brian about the decision process (Sara happens to have a BIG decision on her own plate). It was probably the first time that I felt really clear and stress free about it. In fact I would say that it was one of those moments of clarity that come around every so often and I said to them "well, if I was to make the decision now, I would stay". After leaving I sat in my car and thought 'Why not just make that my decision then, I feel so clear about it right now?'. I went home and almost turned
on my computer and sent out the e-mail right then and there. But I was tired.
I slept.
To sleep purchance to dream.
To dream purchance to be guided about the inner
workings of your mind and spirit.

The Dream:
My house. Or something like it.
It's Sunday, the day I usually do Tai-chi.
This particular Sunday Quinn, who is teaching the class this week, has asked to hold it at my house which is of course cool.
Prior to Quinn showing up, however, some folks that I used to do Capoeira (a Brazilian martial art and dance) with arrive and start doing their thing. Apparently I have offered the space to them in the past if they ever needed it. So they start playing.
Quinn shows. I am in turmoil, cause I want Quinn to be able to teach but all these other folks are already playing and apparently I had offered them that service. While I'm pondering this apparently Quinn leaves and I'm left feeling totally upset. 'Dambit' I think, 'Capoeira isn't my thing anymore, I want Quinn to be able to do Tai-chi. That is what I care about. I'm gonna tell them that they can't practice here any more.'
Whilst going into this upset, I retreat to my room. There, an old freind, whom I have'nt seen in some time, is tooling away on my computer. We chat and I ask him if he's interested in buying a couple of my berimbau's (Brazilian musical instrument that I used to make). In reply he starts screaming at me "Why would I want to buy some of those peices of shit!? And how dare you try and presure me into buying them! For that I'm gonna break your knee!" as he grabs my right leg and wrenches it at the knee with his body and arms. Helplessly, I sream "No. Please don't. Stop! Noooo!"
I awaken. I'm sweating in my bed and my knee is sore. I'm shaken.

The Interpretation:
To me, Quinn and the capoeiristas represented the different sides of my decision (see last entry). Cultivating a Tai-chi practice with Quinn has been a big reason for me wanting to stay here in B-lo. Todd, who was teaching the Capoeira in my dream, has the knickname hawk which is the sign that I asked to see if I was meant to leave.
My quandery was whether The freind who hurt my knee represented me being hard on myself as I first thought or my spirit being mad at me for making the "wrong" decision as I feared.
And I woke up with my knee actually feeling injured. That freaked me out a bit.
Well I sent out the e-mail, trusting the clarity that I had felt the night before, refusing the grad school offer.
Then, I tortured myself about it. Who needs enemies really or to be in Abu-Grabe when we are so good at torturing ourselves? As my knee continued to hurt like hell as I worked that night I went full ito feeling helpless and hopeless, thinking that for sure I had made the wrong decision and that being injured was my spirit's way of telling me so. It took me several days and some humbling realizations to finally put this to rest.
I realized, for one, that I had been asking for guidance on the decision, primarilly for the sake of my own happiness. It was humbling to realize this and to attempt, with as much clarity as possible,
to
ask for guidance as to what was best for all beings, not only myself. In facing the possibility of being guided away from here despite the fact that it might not be the happiest decision for me I also came to realize how difficult it would really be for me to leave the community here in Buffalo behind. I put myself in that position and trully saw how much I love the people here and would hurt to loose them. And yet it will come some day. All things, after all, must come to and end.
Still though I was not guided to go to Baltimore, so here I am and here I will be, for the time being at least.
And since really letting the agony over the decision go, my knee has become healthy again (and I danced pretty much nonstop for four days at the Grassroots Festival). Yeah, health!
Lot's of other catching up to do in this journal but I only have so much time and ambition for this...

Alright. Let me tell ya a little something about indecision. I just so happen to be an expert.
It all started at the AMPM corner mart at Delaware and Delavan, a mere two blocks from where I grew up. A young curly-haired kid strolled the candy aile, carefully weighing his options. Carmellos may taste the best but they don't last as long as say sweet tarts which can be sucked and savored for a good 10, 20 minutes. Or how about a mounds bar which must be eaten the prefered way - by nibbling off the chocolate along the walls and sometimes even a bite from the top before plunging into the coconut center. These are critical desisions - not to be taken lightly.
But others disagree.
This is true especially for those annoying adults, who most of the time seem to be hurrying from one place to another, as if anything could be more important than chocolate and baseball cards.
Alas, it is so.
This boys father just happened to be one such adult at the time, and so layed the question that was not to be forgotten for many years to come: "Jeremy, why are you soooo indecisive?"
So, here I am, an acceptance leter to a graduate school in Baltimore on the desk beside me, wondering if this is REALLY the right path for me to be taking for the coming years. I spent hours sitting, praying, listening, commuing at the Reinstien Woods last night long after anyone was supposed to be in the park. It was the perfect place to make the decision, where I could listen to the frogs that would be my primary object of study were I to accept the offer extended to me. The wind, rain, and wildlife seemed to broadcast many conflicting messages to me. They seemed to guide me distinctly one direction one moment and then just as distinctly the other in the next. I learned a great deal about some of my deepest longings in life, mind you, but was brought no closer to a decision.
I am tempted to leave it to some poll - a bulk e-mail like some anoying spam message but this one asking for a simple one word reply to the question: "Should I go to Towson University?" Yes or no. I would then tally the results and take the power and torture of decision out of my hands.
Let you decide. Let the universe decide. Let the advice of my spiritual teacher decide. Let wanting to be with friends decide. Let wanting to do something, anything with my life decide. Let wanting to avoid too much work or stress decide. Let fear of suffering decide.
Choose. No reason. No moral justification. Just Choose to because I choose to.

So, my reason for joining this group - that is besides the mind control device inserted into my brain whilst innocently attending a party at a certain house on Elmwood Ave. - is essentially to get myself writing a little bit again. It's a part of my brain that has had far too little exercise in the last several years of dry and lifeless scientific paper writing. It's time to learn to enjoy this again and to collect my thoughts and understand my motives more deeply through it.
A short background:
Throughout my high school years I longed to become a writer - at first a sci-fi writer and later as a nature writer. I gained a lot from writing. It helped me to take a break from my life and imagine myself as someone else, as who I really longed to be. Yes, it was fed by my low self-esteem but it also helped to solidify my thoughts on the world and become more confident in those thoughts.
Years pass, I go to college starting off in Biology, then change to English as the bio dept. had none of the emphasis on nature and ecosystems that I desired. But then sophmore year something strange happened - I met people. First Bekah, who remains a close freind today, and through her many others. And what did this new found social life do for my writing endeavors? Well, at first it was an inspiration, but then a noticiable "kerplunk" was heard as as it took a dive straight into the earth. Suddenly, the biggest drive behind my motivation to write was swept out from under me. I was happy! I did'nt have to escape my life anymore.
So, here I am, years later, having graduated in Biology from a different school (where my desire to ponder the bigger patterns in nature and theories of ecology was to some extent satisfied) and having left writing behind in the dust.
Maybe this will help me to pick up that old rusty tool again....