Treasure

I’ve always surrounded myself with those whom I can call treasures. Treasures bring not just riches but the desire to seek more treasure (hunting). Being a hunter and a gatherer, I want to pull together my past and seek new adventures. The concept that hunters and gatherers are inately different defies the true nature of both. A hunter is useless if he leaves his incapacitated prey where he dropped it. A gatherer is useless if he refuses to apply action once the desired prey is found. A woman going to the grocery store is hunting and gathering if she chooses to buy. A man going out deer hunting is hunting and gathering as long as he collects the fallen deer.

As I have the insight to declare the previous, now, my only job/course is to identify how my treasures are identified. Are they identified by the happiness they bring me? Are they identified by the deep contemplation they instill in me? Are they identified by their love for me (or I for them)? Are they identified by pointing out my past mistakes and INSISTING I address them? The answer to find that true gem is yes to all of the above. When hunting for those treasures be sure to gather them.

Treasure

Story and photo © 2009 Kathleen Bjoran

Two Moons

When I look up and see two moons
Hanging in the sky
I see the truth of what there is
I also see the lie.

I see the truth of what has been
And what is now to me
I see the lie of what’s to come
What there is to be.

I see deception in one face
The other shows no sign
I see reality of all that is
And consume it with my mind.

My head drinks up the brightest moon
But seldom sees the one
That hangs between the moon and me
Before the night is done.

Two Moons

Story and photo © 2009 Kathleen Bjoran

Macabre Puppet

“Carry me away to a place of rest,” I could hear the leaves crying. Their lives had been spent and now they were no more than macabre puppets for the fall breeze. The fall breeze that believed it could prove something by giving the leaves animation after death.

I had seen the movies – the movies that produced fear in the viewers by animating dead animals. H. P. Lovecraft, it seemed, was sitting right beside me!

The passers-by were ignoring the abhorrent show but, had it been hundreds of butterfly wings (sans bodies), the story would be different.

The Macabre Puppet

Story and photo © 2009 Kathleen Bjoran

The Path Less Chosen

I looked down the path and felt so alive with anticipation. The trees canopied my future. Behind me lay the highway, cold and desolate. It could take me home to my past and to all the reasons I ended up here. I looked toward the future.

I will admit that those first few steps were a battle with cement boots. I was leaving behind a long and prosperous life but knew simplicity and art WERE my future. Oh, I could paint, take photos, draw, and write (and I don’t mean programming code). I was leaving behind 20 years of C++, HTML, JAVA, ASP, XML, and all the other programming codes (too many to list) to embark on my distant past…my new future. I came from art and thus I return.

I walked along the tree lined path as it narrowed until it became thick with brush. At some places it was almost impenetrable but I championed on. I had a determination that only few people ever get to experience. I know those folks who climb K2 get drunk with this same determination.

I love working. I love networking. I love writing and all those other previously mentioned arts. I’m about a mile into my future. The path has disappeared so I’m making a new one (and yes, I have my suction snake bite kit with me). Though that path has disappeared, I SEE so many things to inspire me. Life gets easy sometimes and we tend to forget where we came from. I don’t mean work gets easy for I know the harder I worked the more money I made. What I mean is, I reached an uncomfortable comfort zone. I had a name and reputation increasing my salary yearly. My income was 6 figures but money isn’t everything. Our lives can easily turn to monetary poverty but, please…all that is holy, don’t let our lives become culturally impoverished!

La Chaim!

My Pen Writes Grunge

Story and photo © 2009 Kathleen Bjoran

Nature and the Song

Once upon a time in a land far, far away, lived a little man–a slight man–who sat and sang the whole day. His songs were for Nature and she loved him. She gave him every gift She could–fertile fields in which to grow food yet he wouldn’t farm, streaming rivers overflowing with fish yet he would not catch them, days and nights filled with insects yet he ignored their songs and all he did was sing. One day on a soft whisper of a breeze, She asked, “Please sir, tell me why you have ignored all the gifts I’ve sent you?” His song was not broken and the melody continued. Nature, feeling the breeze was too mild, sent a gust of wind with the same message. The man paused, then continued his song. She felt turmoil building inside Her as he ignored Her yet again. This time, with fury, She sent a blast and realized too late that it easily sent the man into the river from which he could not escape.

As he ascended through the heavens he appeared much more formidable. His build was not slight at all. He was a very handsome and strong young man.

When he neared the apex, she interrupted his journey. “Dear sir, I am so sorry for what I have done…but tell me why you ignored all the gifts I sent you?”

“With respect Nature, if you had listened to my song you would have known that I was born deaf, blind, and crippled. I sang to You daily begging for Your mercy. I loved You even though I had been forsaken. It is now the end of that prison to which I was held for so many years. Do not apologize. I am Your humble servant.”

Nature was so moved by this man’s tribute to her that she sent his song into the trees and the grasses, the stones and the dirt, the oceans and the rivers of the Earth. That song that had pleased her for so many years was, in reality, an ignored plea. So, if you’re sitting out some day feeling the soft breezes, listen for you may hear his song. Do not be sorrowed by it but rejoice in its release.

Blue Heron Over Lake

Story and photo © 2009 Kathleen Bjoran