THE BRAVE NEW LAND

Seeking perfection in the world can get very myopic, in the sense that perfection itself is one of the most simplistic ideas there is. All we really have to do in order to arrive at so-called perfection is to let go of our ever-present, preconceived notions of what we think the world needs in order to be perfect. I know this is circular logic, but a perfect loop 'is' the closest thing to perfection that we can mentally muster. With this in mind, all we can do while we have the honor and privilege of visiting this chaotic world, with all of its darkness, love, and it's beauty, is to try our best to live big, making as small of a ripple as we can while we do it. Before I left for Africa, I felt I was making so much random noise that I forgot what the world even sounded like. It's hard to filter through the egocentricity that inevitably surges when given the chance. It took some time, as well, after landing in the bush of the Botswana wilderness...

I finished it. It started as fecund air seeping under the door of my mind, and it grew. The air inside it held it up from the earth and floated the whole thing skyward, past the atmospheric event horizon and beyond. The world I had known was only a memory, and what I found myself staring at was the glass that bent the light from above. I'm not kidding. If we understand that we are beings that exist in time, then we know that the world we envision to our right and left is only an illusion. Our world really exists in the fourth dimension, in time. Wait … not really in time, but … that the world we can see and understand is represented by what we 'call' time, here, in our little corner of this vast, vast universe. Funny enough, I found myself staring at a fish. Then I noticed a bull barreling in from above. A pitcher, not of baseball … but of water, urging itself up into my frame of vision, the whole time being acutely aware that something was aiming an arrow at my heart, pi...

More artwork at doronoll.com Much has happened, most of which having disappeared unceremoniously into the fourth dimension. My last post was months ago, before I lost my day job working for the German factory, advertising their gas systems and baked goods to the world. It was before my night job started its journey on 'its' self-absorbed path to supernova, eclipsing my day job with naked abandon and a flick of a finger. It was before my youngest left on his cosmic journey to illuminate the dark, magical corners of his mind, while testing his body's limits, and then pushing those limits beyond the conceivable with what he had found lurking there. It was even before a forbidden, but courageous creature followed us home one night, making his way into our lives and becoming fat. But, was it actually courage that this creature possessed, or was it a lack of sense as a 'lack of sense' can sometimes make us believe? Most likely, this forbidden creature followed ...

I landed between rockets into a mine field of ideas, of philosophies, of religions and cultures on the day that I almost kissed the tarmac at Ben Gurion Airport upon our return from Malaysia. I was extremely relieved to be home, with my children, with my family, with my people and in my land, having been trapped on the island of Borneo, a primitive, albeit advanced, island of barbaric wonder and a cacophony of culture. We rode planes from there, hopping from one country to the next, until, unknown to us at the time, one of our flights jettisoned through the airspace over the Ukraine. It flew on the same flight path that Malaysian flight MH17 took the very next day, as it was unceremoniously blasted out of existence transporting 298 souls on board… for nothing—not as a step towards the ultimate goal of an obviously mistaken philosophy, but only as a mistake in targeting. And the missile had missed us by an entire day, thankfully, allowing us to continue to perseverate about the ...

Pit Viper in the Jungles of Borneo Sitting here… reading the news on the Internet… I'm having a hard time remembering my travels in Indonesia and Malaysia last week, and the week before that, and the week before. I wanted to share so much about the people, the flora, the fauna… but alas… it may not be possible to do so without the sour taint of the kiss that I almost gave the tarmac upon my return to the Holy Land… last week… While reading within the allotted WIFI zones at each airport that I leapfrogged through on my way home, Kuching, Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, Vienna… I grasped that the world was becoming quite insane, like I was entering more finite levels of chaos/civilization at each step along the way… I was happily coming home and realizing that in doing so… I was losing something important to the 'me' that I had discovered… along the way… interspersed with the people, the flora, the fauna… I sit here now… sad to the core for the boys that have passed to the next ...

I guess it started with almost getting run down by a car skittering onto the sidewalk, stopping in front of me, the driver looking as if he was already coming up with a plan of action to downplay his fault in the matter, and…   ultimately causing me to jump out of the way of the out-of-control little green beast on wheels; but… that might be presumptuous... in the sense that it probably started with someone or something else that has more clout in the universe of real life, not the fringe-floppy one that I seem to inhabit. I worried about walking up and down that busy street right from the start. This was when I walked a whole of 10 minutes to get to the German gas system factory from my house, when I lived in a place called the Place across from The Winery. Now it takes me a half of an hour to get there… and then another half of an hour to get back home again.   I see so much stuff on my daily walks, stuff that could never be noticed from a car window, or even a bik...

Birthing belief in the stars, I feel the suck swooping down to encompass my silent haggis. Her rattle swears in its own single mammogram clutch selling crystal liquid from a bottle, The container that produces me spinning overhead like a cat in a burlap sack or a sacrificial chicken. Writing poetry over the wall furiously with blood green and messy, she is… Singing along with the echoes of her voice bouncing across the wallpaper around my mind Rattling with magnesium bullets, ricocheting in the ramshackle village where I grew up, showing bones bleached in the moonlight. My list of worries selfishly rolls out onto the floor, scratching the tile with a shifty rustling, like snakeskin catching on grass, My skin has risen, but I don't mind since I have forgotten what it felt like and don't know or care. In a sweat full of cheap and easy transactions, I awake, And awash with the wonder of clarity becoming emptiness, I look up to the blue sky...

What a fabulous life Hashem has given me. I whine a lot, but really, when I add up the blessings (&)+(*)+($)+(#)+(2)+(^)+(@)… they equal (=) fabulous! What does that word actually mean, anyway? I looked it up and it seems that it is derived from the Latin word: fabulosus, meaning celebrated in fable or rich in myths. Etymology is a great thing. It’s fascinating how you can see how concepts evolve from one society to the next by tracing a word back to its origins. Speaking of origins, I originated on the planet as a human being that contained 5 levels of soul (I sort of understand 3 of them) almost 51 years ago, depending upon which calendar you follow. Generally, for everyday stuff, I follow the Gregorian calendar, also called the Western calendar and the Christian calendar. This calendar used to be the Julian calendar, but in 1582 it was reformed in order to time Easter with the spring equinox, keeping it from drifting all willy-nilly around the planet, or at ...