the pelican

once more with feeling

wind cave

words words words. sometimes have to wonder if they are really ever appropriate. silence is golden as they say.

as they say.

yeah so i guess in some sense i’m always writing. in my head. to some extent at least, have to say there is some kind of regular verbalization going on at quite a clip most of the time. always sorting it out, talking it out on the inside. trying to define and describe and label, all done in some sort of vain attempt at understanding that really involves more a sense of justification or evaluation. i think i call this process “making sense of things” perhaps, but i have my doubts.

and some kind of inner certainty that the really important stuff simply has no words to describe it.

so much of this chatter, this mind dialogue, this rancid nostalgia, this recreation of reality in my own image my own perception my own my my me me me stuff.

seems so bloody fascinating at the moment but you look at it really closely and it just dissolves into nothingness.

just.

like.

that.

and so. what i have got to say?

precious little, really.

yet no doubt i could go on about several things that have been eating me of late.

wind cave for one. yeah wind cave. south dakota.

get ready for some darkness.

darkness darkness.

went on a road trip, see. busier than i’ve ever been in my life at work these days, so much going on so much happening such a cacophony of deadlines crashing into each other and general loose ends and extra discovery and special exceptions and one big hairy giant hourly case that if i worked at a big firm i’d be delighted to sink into all day long for days on end of billable hours but in the midst of an incredibly hectic fast-paced case load of other stuff it makes for an impossible to manage combination of bad timing and fires and emergencies and forgotten pieces and approaching time limits.

yeah so anyway in the midst of this we took a week and a bit off just ten days really and we went on a road trip. like that was such a good idea. but husband was threatening some sort of mutiny because there was so spring excursion due to trial and been so busy catching up after that and the whole firm is moving office space in about a week and it’s all nuts and chaos and yeah.

we went up to jackson hole and that was magnificent of course though cold and rainy and the tetons were covered in clouds for the first two days but did get some goodly glimpses of those most amazing fantastic spectacular mountains. they aren’t even as high as the mountains i live near but you see them right up close and personal without any foothills or flatirons or other stuff in front. they just sprout right up in front of you in some extremely poky pointy spikey rocky picket fence of harsh beauty.

and then we went to cody which was ok. buffalo bill and all of it. wild west stuff that was never really wild once it was the west and the nostalgia began before they were barely finished exploiting and destroying it you know so that we can drive there and see what once was. strange stuff and not so distant of a past. not so distant at all. cowboys and indians and such you see. saw some old wild west town with old cabins and a saloon and a general store and lots of artifacts and trophies of destruction. got me going about this cowboys and indians conflict thang i got going on internally.

and then to south dakota. over the pass looking down on the big horn basin full pallet of color with a medicine wheel on top.

devil’s tower not so devilish but very still and powerful.

black hills. rich. lush. dark. deep. old. soft. sacred. and, coincidentally turned into a bright commercial fun-filled family-packed amusement park for your convenience. very strange juxtaposition of things. giant dollar bill presidents’ faces grafitti-like on a rock face with a big sterile institution-like cafeteria food government installation below all made out to be some sort of magnificent achievement. tired wimpy genetically inbred bison half asleep in penned sanctuary type drive-through lush rolling grassy hills of a pay per view state park. visited the motorcycle museum in sturgis. had the worst service ever at a chophouse in spearfish. ate nachos under kevin costner’s waterworld costume at his bar in deadwood. visited the shiny sparkling new crazy horse memorial complex with mixed feelings. not the old long dirt road with the rough rocky parking lot and the tiny heart-breaking little museum anymore no sir. i guess this is a good thing. i guess this is progress.

i guess.

and then eventually pulled down called down forced to endure wanted to see wind cave.

do like caves. did two full tours, the natural entrance tour and the garden of eden tour one right after the other. marching around with rangers through narrow passageways and stairs and stairs and stairs down corridors and tunnels with about twenty other tourists for about three hour hike total all together or so.

thing is though, thing is, thing about the whole thing well it just was quite weird. kind of irritated me. got in under my fingernails. made me think of tibet of lhasa of sacred places crawling sprawling under construction shrines and holy places as tourist attractions full of pollution and garbage and cars and looky-loos and just really made me sad.

i mean here is this place this obviously special place this beautiful sweet amazing lattice work of caves and tunnels lacing underground for miles and miles and miles. this magic little hole in the ground that breathes. this navel of the earth. this living orifice. this wonderful in breath and out breath this place that puts the om in home kind of place.

and here i am entering it with a pack of people through a giant metal glass revolving door.

and as for being a natural entrance, well.

and we tromp down concrete steps and walk along an asphalt blacktop path that has been seared coated globbed into onto throughout this gentle still dark quiet empty place of earth breath.

and i could not help but feel as though i was clearly violating it, even though at the same time there i was finding the the whole experience rather fascinating and interesting and beautiful and exciting.

i mean i just don’t get it. i mean i guess i do but i don’t.

perhaps it is purely infantile of me or just some sort of misplaced sentimentality or maybe you could say i am too idealistic or maybe just maybe it is about what a sad strange lack of sensitivity we seem to have as a race that we must do this sort of thing. i have to ask have to wonder have to scream sometimes have to cry have to ask what is wrong with us what is wrong what is this about where did we go wrong is this the only way we can learn do we have to destroy everything do we have to commercialize it does it have to make money does it have to have value in the materialistic sense is nothing sacred is nothing real can we not agree can we not see can we not get it do we have to dig up graves and put things on display in the name of understanding and science and yet and yet i was so excited to get the new national geographic with stonehenge on the cover and read about new discoveries and yes of course it was a graveyard people of course it was it is it is just too much of a contradiction and it’s all happening so fast and sometimes sometimes sometimes i can’t have it both ways in my soul sometimes the tao seems to be fighting it out like cowboys and indians and everybody is going to lose.

and.

and what makes me oh so morally superior i live here i live in a house i drive a car i work in an office i go to the supermarket i do i do and even so even so even so all these big plastic mcmansions are sucking up all the energy and watering their fake blue grass lawns in the desert and bush wants to drill up the coasts for oil because the oil companies are gouging us to death and people driving their big black SUVs don’t want to pay to drive to the top of pike’s peak and the glaciers are melting and the tornadoes are coming and the rivers are flooding and still it’s all about the economy stupid and the war in iraq and there are lives on the line so many lives on the line all the time all the time in the world all the time and and.

and i’m still not really sure where i was going with that whole thing but no doubt it has something to do with my attitude or lack of awareness or something but there it is.

the darkness of wind cave.

i want to figure it all out. understand it. name it. define it. say it. have my way with it. make sense of it all. formulate and draw conclusions and put it together with whipped cream and a cherry on top. i want balance. i want meaning.

but this is all i’ve got for now.

words words words. sometimes have to wonder if they are really ever appropriate. silence is golden as they say.

as they say.

and so. what i have got to say?

precious little, really.

been a while since i wrote much.

guess wind cave knocked the words right out of me.

and even though she is coated in poisonous petroleum products and packed full of tourists, she is still breathing.

for now.

and so am i.

and here we are.

and what is it that changes and what is it that endures?

oh ephemera.

and words words words.

posted by: limine at 00:03 | link | comments (8) |

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