It's been said we die twice in this world. The first time when we're buried and the second when your name is no longer mentioned. We all hope to be remembered, I think...Or more appropriate we want to be remembered in a good way. Sometimes that's just not going to happen no matter how you try to live the last part of your life the first two thirds have probably already been chiseled in stone. When I was young I was diagnosed at Barrows Neurological Center with a problem with a part of my brain and was said it seems to manifest itself as something called 'Position Vertigo', the inability to make sudden movements without suffering a balance problem. It wasn't until the military had a hold of me and as I lay recovering from a wound they ended up giving me a psych evaluation which just seemed to go on forever. They graphed off my bald skull into squares and stuck needles into my brain (Ouch) and they discovered I had an abnormality in the prefrontal load whic...

I've been dealing with a lot of things lately.  I'll get to that in a bit. When I was young, early teens kind of young, I never saw myself making it to old age, frail and embracing what memories I had left in that thing I call a brain. Like most people that age the term 'Old' probably meant anyone forty or over, alone, a regular customer to the liquor department and watching endless hours of television waiting for death to embrace this crazy life and then...Well, that's always been the question. What then?  There are no lack of 'Reality' television where people go in search of 'Ghosts' and get all excited when they see a shadow moving, a chair rocking, little things that get the viewers all worked up hoping for that piece of evidence that proves we don't end when our hearts stop and knowing we aren't going to get it. Some people find solace in religion, old words written by long dead men whose initial intent was to keep the populace u...

The following illustrations are from a story titled 'Women in Love by Julie Aramos'.  There are more from this story...Lots more. I'll probably post them on this site if FB doesn't got all self righteous and makes me take this down. later

In Douglas Adams' book/movie 'The Hitchhikers Guide to the Universe' a race of mentally superior beings create a super computer to give them the answer to the meaning of life...Of course it's the number '42'.  It's as good as anything else, I suppose. The advantage of actually living to an older age (And there aren't many) is you can look back at your life and it somehow makes sense...Sometimes it's all nonsense...But you can look at all the threads, decisions, journey's, heartaches and fears that led you to a place you never really believed you'd experience. Seriously, back in high school our math teacher had us figure out what our ages would be when we entered into the year 2000 and, firstly...Old! Secondly, I don't think anyone who knew/knows me would have believed I'd make it that far. I was on a path of self destruction though, as hard as I tried, I never really mastered.  I got to this point and look at all the goals I...

A hundred years ago people pretty much didn't live after 40. Disease, poverty, war and racial divides were a way of life and death, the medical breakthroughs in antibiotics and the ability to transplant organs just a dream of a few who could actually afford to have dreams. When you look back on history it's pretty obvious why people clung to religion to make it from day to day...They didn't have any room for spiritual evolution because they were focused on their now instead of their children's tomorrows.  Those who were able to break their bind to home, family and community and get an education beyond their controlled world discovered there was more to living than simply surviving, than having a family and watching the younger generations continue on living while they grew old and left out of the world at large. Even today with the Internet humanity still looks for that 'Small Town' feel, they seek out those who believe like themselves, they read works by th...

I need to be clear about this...I didn't attend Bible School because I had some guilt about the life I'd led or some huge revelation like Saul/Paul. I had no problem with most of my life up until that time dancing with the whole Dark Magick experience and I saw/did a great many things that I've come to discover it's best not talking about it to just anyone, moments that I can't explain and you probably wouldn't have believed had you not seen it for yourself. I started out my spiritual life with the whole 'Gaia' aspect of Witchcraft and moved almost effortlessly into the dark side where, yeah, I did get just a wee bit careless now and then. For the most part. There were a couple of things that almost drove me insane, that burned images into my mind so strongly I couldn't remove them, couldn't drive them away and that part almost killed me because I refused to sleep, eat or do much of anything normal. I ended up taking care of the problem in a ...

I hate being labeled. When I registered for college there was a space for your 'Ethnicity' and I checked 'Other', always have. I didn't want to be known as any specific 'Type' because I've always known we are never just one thing. To my parents I was a son, to my sister, a brother, to my friends as Mike and it just goes on and one. A single word, a label, can never describe a person and yet we're still stuck with having them attached to us. Artist. Man. White guy. Witch. Minister. Writer. Anarchist (Antichrist?).  I've had the displeasure of having several Psychiatrists slap several labels on me and I really don't know how to spell them so I'll just leave that to your imagination. In the 80s you could rightly say I was an alcoholic and drug abuser and you'd be right.  Still, they're just words. Images that, by themselves, elicit singular images...Most of the time. We have this place in our heads that say an 'Artist...