Liz Baumann

The invisible red thread
which weaves the common ground
conducting their illusions
are those spiders all around.

Everything happens, not for
one reason – that’s simplication.
But for many, all at once -
dreams’ overdetermination…

or is it:
Predetermination.

For what the future left behind,
present quietly concealed,
abidingly taking time while
vain, the pasts are revealed.

This world is so riddled
with word and with name
but anagrams are showing,
homonyms are the same.

The fire I did not start
no spark no fuel no light;
sure, clearly, it’s not visible
hiding there in plain sight.

With gravity of observation,
Four’s waves did thus form
and merged with those others’
to create the perfect storm.

Lessons from the frog
last, thinking it could hide
insecurely in the bathroom
but doors flung open wide

now once again encountered
this time she’s wearing red
why should I try to hide
what those other people said?

The sun of rocks and stones
had it backward, but no less
his timing was impeccable
for the future’s not addressed.

In my last post I promised to spill why my burner name is “Sparks”. There are a bunch of reasons:

• This spring I had a dream I was camping alone and was able to light a fire but then had no fuel to put on it*
• One day a couple months ago my friend Malina, in complete seriousness, asked me if I had her spark. (She wanted to do an Ignite Boulder presentation and they call the topic summary a “spark”; she couldn’t find her copy from before. I of course knew I would have it, and I did.)
• I’ve found 2 lighters since June (fuel)
• My obsession with sparkler painting this July 4 (one of those lighters came at exactly the right time for that)
• My interest in lighting up clothes, bikes etc.
• I have a sneaking suspicion I’ve sparked at least one relationship between other people
• I need to be careful around people who are dynamite with a short fuse
• Various people using the word spark around me and/or saying I sparked some thought for them
• Let’s just say, it takes one to know one
• more that I won’t say, have forgotten, or haven’t learned yet… it seems almost daily the word surfaces or there’s a metaphor or song or some other new reason

Does that spark anything for you?

****

*The dream mentioned above was interesting in its own right so I’ll tell the whole story:
I had a dream I was camping alone and was able to light a fire but then realized I had no fuel to put on it, leaving me to helplessly watch it smolder. Then I realized that I should have put up my tent beforehand; now it was dark, cold and starting to rain. I got the tent up only to find I was camping somewhere off-limits and had to move. Now I was at my wits end, feeling very hopeless… but then there was a voice (my power animal?) pointing out that I had a car which I could put my things in and which would provide temporary shelter, and that was enough comfort to make me go on.

Post-dream analysis:
In waking life I was feeling pretty inadequate about something so the dream fit there and really made an impression. After I thought about it for a few days I felt the part about my car was telling me to spend time in Denver not just Boulder. At Apogaea this summer we started setting up camp and then were told we couldn’t camp on that spot and had to move.

An old friend recently remarked to me, “oh, you’re a ‘sign’ person”. I guess I have to concur with her there! I never used to be, but after seeing so many of them at just the right time in just the right place, as if tailor-made to my current thoughts and/or life situation, I can’t help but pay attention. While I may feel like I see other types of ‘signs’ from time to time, here are a few conventional signs that have spoken to me over the past year:

A couple more that I wish I’d gotten photos of – both bumperstickers:

• Die Trying
• Women who behave rarely make history

I started this post many months ago and was going to title it “Is Charlie Sheen really that delusional?” Thinking: high salary, fame, goddesses… it would be a bit delusional for him to think he is not at least somehow god-like.

But twice now I’ve revisited these earlier thoughts, both times just thinking about the ways he has impacted society.

From blog posts to stated personal philosophies to my neighbor’s description of his shirt, I still keep seeing and hearing things related to him. People might say it’s the wrong kind of publicity; I can’t really pass judgment on that. I keep coming back to that word “winning” tattooed on his wrist, not so that he can read it but so others can, and how that continues to show up in general commentary, conversation and Twitter hashtags on all sorts of subjects… Regardless of what it means for him, or even what other people think it means to them, I think that sort of thing (just seeing the word itself all over the place) gets into our psyches and has a positive effect.

There was and is more I would like to say, but maybe it’s best that I just end here with:

Thanks for the vote of confidence, Mr. Sheen.

. . .

P.S. Ok, I’ll give a link that captures some of my other thoughts, here.

I’ve had lots of seemingly random thoughts lately regarding words, so I thought I’d combine them all into one… well, maybe two… blog posts.

1. The most interesting words or phrases have got to be the ones with multiple meanings. Maybe this is why so many of us like to use metaphors and riddles, which produce a similar effect. It’s as if these enigmatic utterances speak across multiple dimensions. And the more dimensions something has, the more unforgettable it is. You might also say that metaphors are like art: it takes time, talent and patience to get it right, but if you are successful, you may discover you’ve created a Mona Lisa. Someone painted me one of those a little while ago, and I can’t seem to forget it.
2. Have you ever experienced a situation where someone says something that leaves you feeling… exposed; like they’ve somehow read your mind, or your deepest secret? For instance: “that – that can’t mean… I mean, he couldn’t possibly have found that, could he?”
3. Sometimes the trick is not what to write, but what order to arrange your words and sentences, and even more importantly: what to leave out. I once spent the better part of a Sunday agonizing about what to write for something, something I thought was important. In the end I realized I should throw away 90% of it.
4. Sometimes I’ll say something with positive, unmalicious intent, but when I see it in print and know someone else may be looking at it, it starts looking negative and I find myself wrestling with second thoughts and wishing I’d said it differently. Maybe this is a case of those multiple meanings again.
5. When you say the wrong thing, it can be very difficult to take it back. Written words linger longer visually, so they command more respect from me and I worry more about getting them right the first time. Maybe that’s why it’s been over a week since I’ve done a blog post?
6. Honesty is the best policy… but some things are better left unsaid. Oh, whatever is one to do??? I don’t know. But I tend to err on the former. Or do I?
7. On occasion I feel insecure or experience feelings of self-doubt regarding whether I should share some random thought. But, I’ve realized something from being on the other end: sometimes the crazy things in other people’s lives actually make a lot of sense in the strange spectacle that my life has become over the past few months. So, I figure, maybe it works the other way around, and the freakish things happening in my life might make sense to other people. I’ve noticed I’m not alone in complaining about trouble sleeping…finding happiness… general angst, and the like. I try to restrict my maniacal musings to metaphor to mitigate the real meaning… refer back to #1.

I think that’s enough for now, I don’t want to bore anyone with a that’s-a-bit-too-long blog post