Albatross Airport

I recall the moment you let the ashes fall,
Scattering them like birds over a busy airport.
The way your hair blew sideways in the ocean wind,
Silhouetted by a spouting chasm beneath the coast,
Told me that perhaps humans, too, could fly one day.

How the tides look like runways for transcontinental birds.
If I had wings, I’d run into the ocean,
Outstretching them before the windy beach carried me aloft.
The horizon is an avian precipice
Unbound from the sky yet attached to it by color.
Out there, on a sunny day
You can’t tell whether the white caps are wave crests or albatross.
 
Hazy ocean sprays on the road ahead of us.
Bring us that horizon, you boundless coastline.

Sunflower Angel, Come West

The sound of an airplane streaks across the sky,
Reverberating off the windows of the cabin,
Burying itself in the light of the evening sun.
Out there, on a hill above the reed stalks,
Children swing on a tire underneath an oak tree,
Jeering in delight as the radio plays Springsteen
From the porch where their grandmother watches.
A leaf flies by, reoriented by discontinuities of
Breezes that twist around the tangerine meridian,
Telling stories of barnyard mythologies
That so lit the campfires of weary travelers.
The smell of barbecue sauce percolates adrift,
Simmered by the charcoal blazing beneath
Grills that grid the ridden fields of grain.
Lost entropies brewed from a patio cauldron
Record the prolix of girls making stew,
Whose parents, after a long day of greasy drudgeries,
Seek solace in the garden, where a solitary dog
Rolls in the dirt with a kite it had captured.
Off in the distance, the crack of a baseball bat

Wedges in time the parabola of a shooting star
That arcs through the amber air above faces in awe,
Saluting a flag out on the bleachers
Blowing proudly ‘neath a flock of migrating orioles.
O sunflower angel, how I wish you were here
Dancing your way through these summers that singe
The farm-laden flanks of the heartland ridges,
Warming the country terrace that burned
For eagles that dared to soar westward. 

Mysterious Connection Between Lie Group E8 and the Flower of Life

        This might be the greatest discovery of my life.  I was watching the rotation of Lie Group E8 when suddenly I noticed 30 seconds in that it looks like the arrangement of circles in the Flower of Life.  This geometrical coincidence may have far reaching implications about the structure of our universe, because the Flower of Life is the cornerstone behind the Five Platonic solids, Metatron’s Cube, and the Merkaba Field (when rotated in 3 dimensional space and fractalized, Metatron's Cube creates spirals and swastikas that demonstrate many of the dynamic systems in nature, bringing to light the mystery behind the Ulam Spiral).  That the Lie Group E8, a theoretical atlas of the way particles move symmetrically in space, rotates into the 2-dimensional representation of the Flower, is breathtaking, eerie, and perhaps the closest we’ve ever come to finding the Theory of Everything.  This finding has converted me into believing in the graviton. 

I was feeling a bit like Archimedes when he shouted "Eureka!" after discovering buoyancy, but it turns out that I am not the first person to connect the E8 Group with ancient geometry; somebody beat me to it on the Spirit Science forums.  Dang, snubbed again, just like the black hole theory.  More credit should go to the guy who discovered E8 anyway. 

Desert Solitaire, Edward Abbey

    Not many great books have been written about the desert. It was nice to finally take an adventure through it with a man as passionate for bizarre geology and hikes with aerial viewpoints as I am. He also has a likable disinterest in the civilized world and a preference for nature, which many chapters are devoted to explaining. Not only that but the style of writing is perfect for an atmosphere of blistering heat, mazes of canyons, and nights alone with the stars as your only companions. After reading the first chapter I knew it would be an instant favorite. There isn't a single bad chapter in here, but in my opinion the best are: “The First Morning”, “Rocks”, and “Down the River”. 

Candide, Voltaire

It can be argued that Voltaire was the cornerstone behind the civil rights movement, starting with the French Revolution and not ending any time soon, making him the most important writer of the 18th century. I think it’s a bit of a stretch to say that he directly influenced 20th century rights, but if you want to connect the dots then sure, he did help spark the revolution, which in turn ousted authoritarianism, kick-starting democratic processes. 

The important thing about Candide is that it rejected the blind optimism taught by the Church, which had more power then than it does today. Its entertaining shock value made it an instant success, as people around Europe began to value reason over faith. It single handedly made Voltaire a God of the Enlightenment, and for good reason (no pun intended). 

My criticism about Candide is that the protagonists fail to see the good side of dilemmas despite being optimists. Optimism itself is important for healthy living, and even though it may seem like nothing goes in your favor there are things one should be grateful for (such as being alive, having friends, health, certain liberties, the chance of opportunity and change). Also, while the events were gripping and often funny, the writing felt a bit watered down. It might have been a translation issue.