The Remnant

We are the consecrated, the concentrated

And we will stay here

Look at what they've left

Empty houses, abandoned dreams

Scattered lives

How are we the chosen?

For I have seen the weary fall and go elsewhere

But somehow this remnant never took the sane way out

Faced with the tough choices to remain

Steadfast, secure in the one who provides

We are poised to hold on

For we declare it is a new day

And we will see this city rise

This poem was written around 2008. Published in 2009. This poem was written for the city and people of Detroit. 

Cover Me

Shake the dust off my heart,

Are you there?

All of me is just acting

Pretending, you must see through

No matter what I am giving

You know me, little to guess

The more or less impressed

This is the best I can try

I feel a pain below the surface

It sees no way out

All in all the need is forgiveness

But its burnt at both ends

I can hear it in your voice

That a lot depends on the truth

On the weight, the things

Bothered pulling the strings

We once spoke with hands lifted up

Awaiting a promise

Your will always listens

But nothing is here that justifies the hate

When I seem so small

All in all don't you see me--

See this, cover me

Rapunzel

Slitting ends

Twisting, braiding

Hope to climb out soon

There is a light

Feathered by your window

And the moments passed away

A future perhaps made on another timeshare

There in your grasp you can follow

To know what bequeaths:

A moment you can share

When you have arrived at another question

Soon this made up thing is just paralysis

A hope bends through a prism of pain

Maybe less is more than reaching out absolves

Priorities exchange a bit for a tattle

A muse for the price you are willing to pay

For staying too long

Between The Truth and the Surface

Automatic.

Without a prayer of cognition

Slipping away the thought temp to bare

Squeezing the distance

Where would you rather be?

There I am lost beside the vacuum

Betting on the fringes

Looking for a better platform

Liquidate, Complicate

My soul advised in a million different directions

I try to speak

But its not you I hear that is listening

My breath is short

It one knows one name--constantly, ceaselessly

In between the my thought, one way to the next

All of me wanders through Plan F

Before I knew Plan D

Do you want more prayers; better questions?

Do you want better references?

The perils of seeing them the one and the same

Release me from the fallout

Projections that don't need advice

They just need better labels

Where are you, this war left to construct?

Further are we, what is easier to agree?

Some versions need an index

Others a common thesaurus

I can leave you this tale to behold:

My version promised between truth and the surface

High Tide

There  is a point of perception

Slowly reaching assimilation

The taste that drives me onward

The Crisis that dissipates with every right turn--

The right question

Mazes of tense preparation becomes the flood

That ebbs and sinks my feet deeper into sand

The tide, my hands by my side

Breath succumbs with the slipping horizon

Don't you say?

Speak up.

Engineer the masses; footprints

I cannot make footprints

I am loosely fumbling for air

Once I was proud searching for an urchin

In low tide

Now I am stuck poorly sucking in

When I need to move out

Driving every opportunity:

The salt, the wounds,

My hands gravely grasping grains of sand

Pull me out of this vision, this prison

Pleading for release

Blog: Enjoying Today, Embracing Tomorrow

I must not be remiss there are times that I feel I have to do it all.  Like I have to write the songs, design the stage, write the lyrics, score the opera, translate the words, sing the tenor and the soprano parts, promote the opera, choreograph the dancing parts, I am sure I am missing something.  But you get the point.  Is it a first born thing, is it a bi-polar thing? I don't know exactly but for me each day feeds the pressure to do something magnificent, while living in the mundane. 

Waiting for a big break, waiting for some recognition its a part of the life of the artist.  And the longer you wait the more you have a choice to some degree, you can get discouraged and feel you have to do it all, or you focus your efforts and time and get really good at one thing in the hope your focus can eventually turn the tide and get you the credit you deserve.  For me my strategy more often just to do it all 

And doing it all, hmm, can really spread you thin.  Even as I sit and write this blog I am reminded constantly of how difficult on a daily basis it is to squeeze everything out of one day and not be sold out entirely on tomorrow.  This is something everyone faces, no matter where we are in life, there's a constant pull that the future hold and it can steal our joy today if we are not careful.

And trying to do it all, can burn you out, make you jealous of others, and frustrate you in the here and now.  When its all on you, its you against the world.  And nothing happens soon enough, your break is always agonizing out of reach.

Living in today means gaining the trust that God will take care of your future. No matter what leaving the details to him, is very counter-intuitive, it goes against every fiber of your being when you feel you alone are in control.  But its dealing with your fears, you can embrace today. 

Living for today has its own risks but when you relax your grip on tomorrow, when you can break away from isolation, and give and take (share) your talents with others you can then now let the timing of your breakthrough happen in its own. 

Today is more enjoyable when you feel you don't have to do everything, life is full of more possibilities and you can share your gifts and talents with others.

Blog: The Inherent Struggle

As I sit back and look at what has framed my adult life, I am daily reminded of my constant struggle for balance.  I have found I need "mind space" to channel my creativity, but increasing I have found a pressure I find a existence in a community.  How does one coexist in both worlds? 

Creating has never been a problem for me.  In fact despite many attempts to find jobs or greener pastures, I still have been able to be prolifically productive right where I am at.  But the one thing that has eluded me has been to find a community.  I have learned to produce when I was without work, I have composed songs, written books, taken thousands of photographs, I have found a way to channel everything into products that amaze and portray a beautiful world.  While I am grateful, that all this channeling produces some things so rare, I want to reach out more.  But to this point I have been handcuffed in doing so.  

There over the years has assumed a reality...until you find your audience, your community your work will never feel complete.  In some sense in this day and age, the virtual worlds of facebook, twitter and instagram, all create forums for discussion, for people to "like, or tweet".  But I have found these sources to not replace the inherent need for face to face interaction.  For the drive for earnest discussion, for the assimilation of ideas, for new hope, for fertile ground.

I don't believe that being diagnosed with a mental illness helped all of that inherent struggle.  Sometimes I believe Bi-Polar has pushed me to be more reclusive to this point.  I think I have had more down time than most people, my introspection certainly has had more of an intensity because of that.

Sometimes a community is not a new place, a new job, sometimes community is a portal, a person. Many times I have wished that if I just moved away, if I could reset everything, that somehow I would just land in this community.  But many times, life is more complex than that.

Today, I find myself still riding this edge between the isolation of creative genius and the brink of establishing community for the first time in my life.  My life is filled with an awkward expectation, somehow things are happening differently.  Maybe its a new place, maybe a new friend, maybe I just need to see something deeper that is already here.

But its not easy, being where I am at.  There are days where I feel like everything is on lay away, like I am filling up this time and space for someone else, for somewhere else.  And I despite what I read and meditate on I don't like being on this edge expecting a breakthrough.

But no matter how this season ends, I believe I will find this community.  I will find a new source of purpose to live creatively and to share my voice with the world. No matter how mundane or the "identical" a day may feel, the hope remains. 

No More

So much more than a hobby, a job, a tag, a diagnosis:

My thoughts, my prayers combining

This is the distance, alas

I tell myself, no more

I had defined myself with "exact" proportions

And all I am left with is Spirit

Not my fears, not my imaginations

Or my lack there of

As I try--all my limits come crashing

All of my desperation

To feel more attached somehow

To these things that fill my hours

They are gone, released

While I speak

Do I in peace remind myself

The sooner the heart is stilled

Let me breathe

At last I found you, again

Let Them Speak

Crowns thrown

Amidst the recognition

Maybe a thorn

Moves me from certainty

Leaving within the struggle

Master-- claiming the right baggage

My first plight remains

To take me to the process

My flood waves in currents

Alive the portion and control secluded

If the remainders seek life amongst dry bones

Let them speak

Wrapped in Your Light

Your Promises stretch forth like hands

The hills break forth around me

In all directions

Move me within

Make this certain

Your Intention

When the rains chase rivers

Unto their end

I'll always arrive

When the moment

Shakes me into now

Breathe across this earth

The surface alive

In its warmth

Assured forgiveness

Speak

Listening is a way

Being

Wrapped in Your Light

Digging

Every time against a wall I hit

When every imagination loses its fit

Unscrambled into verse

Curse the riddles

I remain unspoken

Miles above the tense

You leave me shuffling in reverse

I plot around each vision

Make anew the dirt

Buy a stagnant plow

My earth it speaks

It leads only by suggestion

While my arms are raised in portion

Removed suddenly a fixture

Loses less time

Above my thoughts of reason

Dance a stubborn sky

To A Lost One

There is a silence

That we now know as years

Why is it easier to hide?

My truth and yours divide

I can't remember the last word

Pressure has its world and itself

Better to speak then on your own terms

When I imagine the loss that brings you back

Who's thoughts then do you confide in?

Who's life are you hiding from?

There is a grace that covers all that

And time purchases the words

We realize their weight

All these parents have wars that must die with them

Why enchant their survival?

We are lucky to move in a space of freedom

I hope you don't wait

Grace, let it be this day

thirty-seven

What is it that I want to know?

Passing through

Unlocked doors

Open windows

Where there are moments

Reminding me of purpose

Let it sink in

I want my freedom

Dancing to the limit

On edge

New earth, new sound

Put me to the forefront

Transformed

Renewed

Empowered

My Invention

I know but I am not there yet

I see only just what I am seeing

It's like before I've asked,

When do we rise?

When do we transcend the past

Into another grid

All my thoughts are trained in circles

Their asking, their pulling

Baits me and prods

While I pretend and weigh their merit

But there has to be more

Than their static would resolve

I want an easy answer

But I'll drive through what is harder yet

If it could get me though all the sameness:

Does patience ever get lost?

As everything beckons in an open system

Something has to reach in

And make this more than my invention

Ariel's Horizon

Expectant tides roll round memories

Thought a bridge across

A surface scattered

At once so brilliant

Light transforming

Now I say to you,

Good Morning!

Now awakened I find

Some trace of an echo

While my spirit confides

With the source of these waves

Oh, to begin again,

To rise with their promise:

Letters I trace into words

Words I breathe into song

Songs become my life,

How must I sing it?

But my eyes are spent

Between the edge of sky

And the emerging sea

As I listen for a new word

Crackling in the distance:

A banner, a wave

Oh, the coast is clear my love!

Upon these trades that pass

That pull you to me

My will becomes my purpose

Above the sparkling sea

Patience

Patience can be a hard lesson no matter where you are in life.  In a world of instant cures and solutions, its hard to find patience when dealing with mental illness.  Many times the remedies to deal with emotional triggers are deeper than the surface.  And our coping mechanisms need to reflect the interior work needed for lasting solutions.

I find myself constantly needing to be reminded that while I am confidant in long term success, sometimes the instant revelation of that drive is not always present.  No matter where we are at in life when we look to far ahead we miss the present opportunities and the little lesson here and now.

Over the last month or so I have been on a campaign to make mental health issues more prevalent and visible in every way I can.  And in the process I have gotten discouraged by the lack of tangible results.  And that's what all of us want at some point in our journey, we want a direct correlation between effort and results.

That is certainly something we are anticipating very early on in a diagnosis.  We want medications to work, we want therapy to ease the pain, and we want our lives to get back to normal.  But really the same patience is required no matter where you are at.  Because there is always a push for more, for more results, more assurance we are doing the right thing.

No matter what it is important for us to talk out our frustrations, to find someone that not only can meet us where we are at, but also to walk with us patiently as we expect a brighter more peaceful future.  Finding someone who shares our vision for health and purpose is crucial in those days in those moments when nothing seems happening quick enough.  It is amazing when we can confide and find solace in that person.  When we share our lives we also can become more open to solutions as well.

When we are committed to living lives with less fear and more expectation.  When we open our lives to others, we can begin to live in the now, and create an atmosphere of patience in our lives and live one day at a time.

Thank You Readers!

Re-inventing Yourself

There are many times that life creates situations where we have to change.  We cannot be the same, and we have to dig deep and find ourselves a new way going forward. 

Looking back, when I was first diagnosed with bi-polar in 1996, I didn't have a choice.  When I tried to handle life, a job, classes, and downtime, it was clear life on meds created a situation where my approach to life had to change.  And believe me this did not happen overnight.

Its may be obvious, but your brain just isn't the same on meds.  Your whole eat/sleep thing irrevocably disturbed and it takes weeks if not months to find your new routine.  That is exactly what was so shocking for me that after my first hospitalization I went directly back to the university.  To put it mildly, I could not cope.

In a nutshell, your threshold for stress and pain becomes very low especially after extreme emotional swings.  And Anxiety becomes a constant friend when the stressors come at you from every angle.  With so many things in flux inevitably you have to get to a place where you can control your variables, and limit your stressors so you can be more control of your environment.

For me it took two years after diagnosis to have a life that was similar to the one I had pre-college.  But in that time everything shifted.  I had a lot of mental "noise" that I had to sort through.  I had a lot of down time.  I had to slowly get back to reading, even stretching my attention span to watch t.v. was chore.

But I certainly found peace in writing.  What I wrote is immaterial, and the record of it doesn't exist to this day.  But it helped me to connect with my surroundings and it helped me sort out the endless chatter of my mind.  Eventually I took on the arts, and I found myself at home taking a Saturday morning drawing class at community college.  And artistic expression is something that helped me re-invent myself in those early years.

But it really doesn't matter the creative channel you use, it just takes sometime to find what works for you.  In the process you learn to channel your energy away from anxiety to a place where art becomes a new territory of self expression. In that sense art can become a way for you to re-invent yourself.

Another way is to re-invent yourself socially and we will look at that in the next blog.

Thank You Readers!

A Declaration of Love

Love is more than a duty or a pin-prick of the heart

Love is not a emotion, a tug of a string

That sets you apart

Even though you know

You cannot fathom

You live, you breathe

At once things must scatter

A flame, a vision, a purpose

The move of my hand

And the touch that lasts for more than a season

I breathe, yet I sustain, I overflow

I am a vessel and I exist, I persist

Where you cannot find strength, I build

I put in motion, I sustain

I lift upon my voice and I see that it is good

I am more than a husband, a wife

I am the generations not lost but consumed

I have and I see that my word is true and lives in my people

You have been called and you will know me:

In the silence, in the spoken word, in the written word

In the storm

You will seek me, I am the truth

And you will love me

And you will see the family I have for you

I will bring life

And you will know its abundance

I am good and worth the wait

I am good, just know my Son

Just know I won’t leave you

Just know I have so much for you

And I will not leave you

It takes time, but I love you

Don’t forget you are set apart

I love you please it takes time to set hearts straight

It takes time to live and make minds melt into the fire of persecution

And the enemy wants nothing more than to take everything down

But I am the master, I love you

And my generations live and see that I am oh, so good

Building a Team

Life is not something we can do on our own.  When you have to adjust your life to the day to day struggles of dealing with a mental illness, building a team around you is crucial.  When a team is in place you can see things from new perspectives, you approach life at different angles. 

But a team doesn't happen overnight.  As one grapples with new meds, sleeping, and eating patterns and just living many times back at square one developing trust with the world around you just takes time.  Even finding the right doctor for me took a few months.  And even the friends and family view our life from the sidelines it becomes apparent that some of our closest loved one are unsure of their role in our lives.

This can be difficult at first.  I know for me, not everyone around me had very sound advice in times of crisis.  At one point right after my first hospitalization, fresh on new meds, my mom and stepdad thought it best to go directly back to the university.  And that advice only ended me up in the hospital a couple weeks later.  For good or bad results, in particular everyone's role gets more defined the more you are able start making decisions for yourself.

For me, after the doctor and family roles were defined other people fell into the mix.  In my case I had very little peer support especially in those first few years.  Friends can be as equally stand offish when it comes to finding new roles in your recovery.  The key with this is having the understanding that this process is very new for people, they have to feel out what to say what is too much to say, and how much they just have to let you be you and a healthier you. 

Open and honest communication is the key to long term success.  In this process of building a team, the more people can communicate with each other and build a united front the better off you will be in the end.  When you add a team member like a therapist, or spiritual counselor like a pastor, you can start to redefine you reactions and life and the other people around you.  When you a up for doing the internal work you can more clearly process the advice and direction you get from others.

A team will help you transition through crisis in to health, it will help you define your direction and help you to be accountable to yourself.  The more you begin to trust the people around you and their roles the more you will find stability and be able to stick to long term goals.

A team is a safety net, it a undeniable resource that stabilizes and defines our path and our perspective toward a healthier life.

Again readers, you are awesome, thank you!

The Freedom to Make Mistakes

What I am about to discuss needs to understood in the context of my life specifically and in a life case by case situation.  I have been fortunate that throughout my experience with bi-polar that the people closest to me including my doctors had a very light approach with my treatment.  This wasn't to say there were never any crisis moments or times for immediate action.  For the most part everyone allowed me to make my own decisions for me and allowed me even to crash and burn a few times so that I could learn lessons myself.

My life with bipolar was particular that in all my trials and manic rides I never had the intent to go out of my way and hurt anyone.  This just isn't in my personality, manic or not.  So in my case no matter where my illness took me, it was safe for those around me just to let the situation run its course regards of the outcome to me.

There of course are times for forced intervention, there are times case by case where someone should and has to step in.  All I am saying is that the hands off approach worked for me.  I do remember a brief time when my family tried to intervene.  I was miles from home, and this only caused my situation to further spiral me into fear, anger and frustration.  The end result is that I did end up coming home for treatment and things did sort themselves out.

In my case whether you are too high or too low, forceful intervention can be like throwing a lit match on a full box of matches.  But it is very painful for loved ones to see another crash landing.  I believe looking back I am thankful that I was given the freedom to make my own choices even in crisis situations.  I am thankful that even in the worst case scenarios for me life played itself out without force or without a violent situation.

But I am acutely aware this is not the case with everyone.  Mental illness can get ugly.  Its this pot of heating emotions, and thought and it can boil over at anytime.  My path was a unique one.  My doctor has always been very conservative in my treatment as well.  There is not very many things that I can say or express that will change his approach to my care.  I have been extremely blessed with that, my treatment has been very consistent for almost 20 years.

In cases of crisis, my advice as parents, friends, and doctors is always to act as a team.  When you act as a united front this will lesson the threat a loved one feels when a intervention in made.  When everyone can get on board, and a loved one hears a message on concern from more than one voice, odds are greater that the message will eventually sink in no matter how dire the situation.

Hope and healing are on the way.  When you are allowed to make your own mistakes, you still feel you have ownership of your own life.  And that is a critical element in the treatment of anyone having a mental illness.

Thank you again readers, you are a blessing!