Footprints on the Sun

I opened my eyes on the morning of January first and walked past the horizon and right onto the sun.

Looking back over ninety-three million miles, I was surprised to see the world from this new perspective. In that moment of awe, imagine my face when the sun spoke (and for those who must know, he has a deep but soft voice- much like the sound of a tuba that sings). "Not what you expected, is it?" Came the voice from a thousand flames. You (yes, YOU) look like little suns against a greenish-bluish sky.

I walked along the boiling ground quite naturally looking for my home among these stars that shone. Just before my continent turned over it its sleep however, I saw a strange light; it glowed every colour you can imagine but it wasn't in a man- I found it in a dog's heart. Another one shone so bright that it lit up the ones around it- this one was a child. I saw one more before I found my home: This was a man with his shine struggling to stay light (much like a candle in the wind). I saw in his heart a record of lights he had put off, and of countless others he had stolen colour from. No shine was in his eyes when his light was taken from him.

Finally I saw my home with six little lights. A smile stretched my face when I saw that each of those lights had a piece of the next within it and that together they shone more brightly than if they were alone, however great the distance in between. A little farther off I noticed a beautiful thing happening; there was a bright and beautiful light increasing ever so slowly in brilliance. The strangest thing though is that for every light that passed, the brilliant light gave some of her own and yet never lost hers but grew with every giving. The big light was a woman with her death at her side (don't worry she knew, and so did her heart) yet she shone brightly on. Even when she danced away to forever, little bits of her shine bounced around in the pockets of those other little lights that had crossed her path- forever alive as a light within lights.

Eventually the sun brought me back, and tapped on my shoulder as my foot reluctantly touched the horizon:

"Be careful how you shine, and never where you do. My light is for you to see, but yours for you to live- you, and every other little bright light."

A greenish-bluish sky with six billion lights. I wonder how yours shines, after you've left your footprints on the sun.

On The Freedom of Free Will

Free will.
Free-will.
Free. Will.
However many times we mouth the word and throw it around, do we ever really know what it means?

To be free, as my dictionary flatly sings, is "to be exempt from subjection to the will of others; not under restraint, control, or compulsion; the ability to follow one's own impulses, desires, or inclinations; not dependent; at liberty" (frankly, I like to think that all dictionaries have the personas of grumpy old men). Here's what I think- whenever a thing is explained in as many ways as that word has, then no one has ever completely settled on what exactly it means. Let me paint a picture, if I may. I'll call the word a cloud, because just like those great bulks of white that migrate across the sky, we can see freedom but then never really touch it.

Let me add a bit more spice into this stew of ponderings; consider the word "will". In one sentence, the power of choosing (a curious note: Does the simplicity of this word's definition mean that this one is more available and tangible than the concept of freedom?). It's easy to choose between a vanilla or chocolate ice-cream - though maybe not for some- easy to choose between a text or a call. Is it as simple to choose between the heart and the mind? Is it as trivial a task to choose between loving and letting go?

Following the above then, free will in one phrase becomes " to be at liberty to choose. This should then become to me my mantra; that I am an individual. Not a group. Not a religion. Not a culture. And not a race- an individual. Such a simple tune to hum, and yet I can't count how many times we have given it up, only because it becomes too heave a burden to be who we can become.

To become an individual is no simple request. To discover who we truly are and what we are capable of is no small matter. I will (see definition above) say this one last thing though; free will is not an intangible cloud because who we are, and how we are, and where we belong, is always completely up to us.

Free will.
A reality, not a dream.

Of Clouds and Silver Linings

I remember the days when I was just a boy, when my hungry mind would look for escape from the bondage of reality to become something bigger than I was; taller, a bit more muscle tucked between my skin and bones, a superpower of some sort (what more would a boy ask for, right?). I searched for something that I couldn't find in my childish games and often illogical day dreams, and I found my paradise within the pages of paperback fantasy.

I found a place of endless possibility, an escape maybe, from the incessant arguing behind closed doors, the harsh looks shot across the table while plastic smiles that held on for dear life, desperately clinging to some semblance of a perfectly happy and normal life. I didn't understand then, even as I have understood now, because back then, I had discovered my very own closet that opened up into a world filled with delight, adventure, thrills, and- my favorite- where reality did not apply most times. Inside my books I fought deadly pirates single-handedly -literally- while balancing a glass of brandy on my other hand, I scaled the highest of peaks, stood side by side with a great lion in an even greater army. I have been a  lovable giant, a heroic squirrel, a dark shadow that strikes fear into the hearts of the bravest of men (cue organ music). I have been carried into the air on great leathery wings as a dragon, gargantuan and proud. When my mind was set free to roam inside these stories, my little innocent heart with its clouds full of questions that always seemed to chase the tears from my body, was set free along with it, and even as I grew and matured, I found my place of solace no longer needed to be hidden inside the pages of an old and barely-holding-itself-together book, because if in my mind I could be anyone and any thing, then in real life I could become anyone and anything, my life was not tied down on the sinking block of society's criteria of what was successful and what was not worth while. this got me thinking; perhaps we all need a break from reality every once in a while to live a dream; to possess true love, and to touch pure bliss. And so, this came into being, that you can't live inside a cloud (if at all we could) and yet see the sun as it strikes the edges that most likely made the old man in a farm think of silver and then share this with his twelve young- that's a fantasy for some other day. Back on point, it takes one to look at life from a different perspective to enjoy its little, often uncelebrated silver linings, and if ever they were people, I would tell these silver linings that on this blog, they will find a home, and I hope that you do too. Life doesn't have to be as pale as would be said by millions, live a dream, seek out and find your silver lining.