Days When you Feel Like Taking on the World

DO WHAT YOU CAN DO, AND DO IT WELL.

I woke up this morning and stretched my body. I stood in the grass by our lake, and felt the sunshine warm my muscles - I felt like I was absorbing pure energy. I stretched my arms, my shoulders, my legs, my neck, my hands, I let myself wake up with the day.

I went for a hike. I breathed in the smell of wet leaves, I touched the trees as I walked by - the feeling of rough bark on my fingertips. Walking through the woods, I felt part of my surroundings, part of nature and not just moving through it.

I drove to a friends lake, took off my clothes and waded into the cool water. I splashed, swam, jumped from a rope swing, and enjoyed being able to move my body. You are acutely aware of the motions you create when you're in water - you can feel the way your arms rotate, the way your legs flex and kick, you can feel the breathes going in and out of your body. I swam back to shore and let the water drip from my skin.

I was offered the chance to go for a motorcycle ride. I took it without hesitation. We put on our jackets, helmets, gloves, and pants, and then headed out onto the trails. I felt like part of the bike, like it was a piece of me that had suddenly just become enabled. I pulled back on the throttle and motion shook my soul. Trees and dirt flew past me as I raced through the forest. Over logs, through creeks, jumping, skidding, - my heart in my throat, my eyes open wide. Some dreams feel like this, dreams where I am flying.

I stopped by the gym on the way home. The pulse of energizing music filling my ears - thump thump thump. The heaviness of weight, the ability to grasp, to lift, to feel strength leaving your body.. it is a feeling that should not be taken for granted. My arms ached, my veins screamed; I am reminded of the concept of pain passing through my body - it is not part of me, just a fleeting feeling, lost in a few short moments.

I picked up a few bags of frisbee discs, and headed to a course near campus. To throw something and have it move in a desired direction... AMAZING! I am forever fascinated by our ability to control movements - to direct concentrated energy towards a destination. I focus my gaze, draw back my shoulder, and this small round piece of plastic goes flying through the air. Energy lost - motion gained. I play until dark.

I pour myself a glass of dark, smooth wine, and sip on it while I sit watching the stars. I could run 1000 miles right now. I could sail across 7 seas. I am exhausted, and still so full of life. The day winds down, and my motion slows, and I feel the pleasure of enjoying each moment. Not out of desperation, or a need for preoccupation, but out of the love of touching everything - the love of motion.
Today my body moved, and I enjoyed every second of it.


(Andrew Tipton)

9 OF DIAMONDS

There is a place in our minds that we don't control. It is the place where we become so in-tune with the force of motion around us, that our thoughts, our words and our movements stretch beyond explanation. We can predict circumstance, we can touch the visions of another human, we are able to see life in a way that normally we wouldn't even consider.

You can't find this place. You won't be able to will yourself into a state of mind, or read enough books on the subject to master the art. There is no seminar on achieving success or learning control - it is about losing complete control. I am beginning to believe that the reason we have a hard time as individuals, communicating and reaching other people, is because we are so focused on our self as an individual. Are we really separate from everyone else? Is there really a distinction between me, you, a tree, a rock, a bird, water, the grass? Where does my line begin, and your line end? There is an overwhelming sense of autonomy has caged our minds! If we can break it, we might just see a world that doesn't exist some plainly - so well defined.


Think of the world as you know it. There is you. There is someone else. There is a forest. There are animals. There are clouds.
Reconsider your world. There is only we.
If you back far enough away from planet earth, you no longer see the lines. The edges of our bodies, the definition from sea to land, the breaks in our words and in our expressions - they are all lost in the single sphere of motion. You still exists, but you start to see that you are connected deeply to everything else.

If we can forget to be ourselves, if we can erase the lines that confine our brains, and stop trying to control our environment - there are possibilities unlocked, that will absolutely rock our souls! Imagine being able to know what another person is thinking, imagine being able to communicate on a level that is beyond speech and language, beyond space, beyond definition.
Twins are the closest example that we have to draw from. It is true that twins experience "telepathy" from time to time. I am a twin, and I can assure you that it is true. Why is this? How is this possible? Could it be, that twins were the same being for a short period of time, and they are still subconciously aware of that untra-sensitive conncection? Don't be naive. Don't be naive. Stop placing limitations on yourself, stop thinking so much, stop tyring to analyze, and factualize yourself. Open your mind.

You are not your own. You are part of earth - a living breathing being. There is a connection to every living thing here.. you are part of everything else.


(Andrew Tipton)

Always Amazed

The Stones that move alone

Motion is bulit into us. It is closer and stronger than we can possibly imagine! If we are not consumed by it, if we are not wrapped in the rythm - we cannot be satisfied .
Even the rocks must move. Motion is everything.

I am always amazed.




(Andrew Tipton)

Taste of Waves

Enjoy today - it is a gift. Thats why it is called the present.

I was surfing right after the hurricane. The storm was passing, and I was in the ocean, paddling out into huge waves - waves that have their own soul, their own motion. I could feel the sting of saltwater in my eyes, hands gliding down through the water propelling me closer to life.
There is a indescribable sacredness when you are flailing and fighting lost in the rhythms of the ocean. You will find, that you are smaller, weaker, and far less important than you previously imagined yourself to be. The ocean is a being; it is unmoved, untamed.. constant. When you are surfing, or swimming, you feel the movement all around you - in your ears, your eyes, your heart, your stomach.. it consumes you.



I fought my way out to the edge of the breaking waves, CRASSHHING! RUSHHHING! the feeling of being in a stampede. I waited on the right wave to come, I wanted to time it just right. There it was, looming behind me - like a sea monster rising from the depths. I paddled furiously, urging my board to catch the current.
In a split second I had jumped up onto my surfboard, and was now riding the face of the wave - plunging down, across the hissing surface.
5 seconds of glory, and then a face full of sand and seawater. I was flung from my board, pushed, pummelled, held beneath the frothing ocean. I clawed upwards, straining against the pounding force of the wave.
Finally, my face ripped through the water's surface, I gasp for air! Ahhhhhhh! My lungs drank it in.
Never has the most common of all things tasted so good, or been so desired. There, in the depths of the crashing waves, you find that the thing your body craves the most is simply life. Not food, not money, not friendship, not comfort - simply life and a solid breathe of air.

I paddled back to shore. Wiser. Took a look at the waves, and then did it again.
The taste of waves, makes you realize the insane beauty of simply being alive.




(Andrew Tipton)

Urgency

Life can't wait.
There is no moment more precious than the moment you are living.

Be consumed by the urgency of life.

There is a saying:

live like there is no tomorrow

. In reality, there might be a tomorrow. Its true, there has always been tomorrows as long as I can remember. I remember yesterday, and the day before, and the day before - all followed by tomorrows. That convenient truth keeps us sedated - it keeps us quiet and comfortable, and calm.



We live carefully, because we anticipate a tomorrow. We work long, because we are hoping to have lots of money tomorrow. We don't live completely in the moment, simply because we are quite sure that tomorrow we will have the chance again.
I am perfectly aware of the paradox of living fully in the moment, while knowing that tomorrow is just a few hours away - it doesn't happen. We are so convinced in the security of our existence, we have lost the urgency of the day.

I don't want to live like there is no tomorrow. There very well could be one.
I want to live, knowing that tomorrow I will be older, slower, less beautiful, weaker, in more pain, and less able to taste the deliciousness of being alive. I want to live today, believing that I will not always be young, that I will not always be able to climb mountains, that I will not always be able to dance, that I will not always be able to surf waves, to kiss a beautiful girl, to have warm skin and firm muscles, that life is slowly, surely, stealthly wearing me down. That knowledge gives my life urgency! Whatever is available, whatever is beautiful and amazing, and extrodinary - DO IT WHILE YOU CAN. When I know that, I can't put life off, I can't conveniently let it pass me by. I must be in it, moving with it, exploring and feeling the earth.

The passage of life is both predictible and incredible. The ability to live fully, grows smaller and smaller with each and every passing day. Know it. Own it. Believe it.

TOUCH EVERYTHING WHILE YOU CAN.
Tomorrow may come - what will you do with it? What can you still do with it?



(Andrew Tipton)

The Rooms of Perfect Strangers

Have you ever found yourself in a new place, looked around, and wondered how you arrived there? You look across a table at smiling faces, you take a bite of delicious food, you run your fingers along a glass of deep, dark wine, and you share ideas with thirsty minds - it is an amazing experience. There is no apparent reason you have arrived - no obvious course of motion that has drawn you to this place - But you are here.



Its the perfectness of strangers, and being a stranger that gives us the ability to glide through cities, through towns, through the world itself - intricately, subtly, peacefully.
How imperfect are the ones we know so well? How many faults, and drama, and scars, and wounds do we know? The beauty of being somewhere new, is that you are a perfect stranger - and people will treat you as such. There is a curiousness we all share when it comes to a new face. People are eager to take you in, talk to you, dress you, feed you - even when they know harding anything about you. In their mind, you have no flaws.

So there we sit. Myself in a room with perfect strangers - both of us blinded by initial beauty, neither of us really knowing the other.
And this is where is starts.


(Andrew Tipton)

The Power of Good Words

I admit it. there are days when a life of motion and adventure takes its toll on my body and my mind. The times when I am so exhausted, so tired, so torn and dirty, and sweat covered, that I can hardly move. There are those moments.

It is exactly at those moments, when I feel beaten by my pursuit, when comfort wispers lies in my ears, when I feel seperate from all that is safe.. it is in those moments that I get a smile, a word of encouragement, a shoulder massage, a good meal, an drink of cold water, or a look of strength. I get a unmeasureable response - people say that they admire me, that they would follow my lead, that I am an inspiration.
Me? They probably don't know me well enough - I am just a boy in love with adventure. But, those words have power! They shake me from my very being, the part of you that is wild and raw. When I hear those words, when I see that look.. it gives me hope! I could not live a life of motion without those people - they are my soul. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I owe life to you. Peace & Motion always.


(Andrew Tipton)

The Luxury Of Having Little

Only when we are no longer afraid do we begin to live. Dorothy Thompson

Money, wealth, power, intellect, control. The luxuries of life.
Luxuries?
Men live and die for such things, surely they must be worth the pursuit. ?. We endure the agony of loss, the continual trial of sustenance, the distrust, the conflict, the flicker of passing pleasure - hopes and dreams wrapped around the absolute pursuit of an elusive happiness.




I challenge that thought.
I challenge the slavery to pointlessness.
I challenge the preoccupation with the comfort of life - instead of life itself.
I challenge the minutes, hours, days, months, years, decades spent working towards a life of freedom that is always a day away.



Consider this, the luxury of having little.
Be lured by the taste of absolute freedom. Is life not unspeakably beautiful? Does the warmth of the summer sun not draw a smile from your lips? Do ocean waves not seduce you to journey into their mystery? Can you not taste the sweat of mountains, and the revalation of ice water in a scorching desert?
The luxury of having little is this: Everything becomes incredible.
you will always be consumed by motion, you will always be free to go, you will always have your mind twisted and your opinions will be lost in truth. The luxury of having little is that you will feel above very few, in debt to none, and able to lock eyes with whomever you cross paths. You will be strong, you will be tired, you will miss meals, you will feast like a king. You will meet strangers, you will find friends, you will lose enemies. You will touch this world, and it will touch you back - and you will never be the same.

Life is almost over; there will not be a second. What luxury will be left?


(Andrew Tipton)

Alone in my Head

There are moments when I am owned by my mind. Moments when I am absorbed into the drama and confusion of my own imagination. Beautiful moments, full of thought and introspection, debate and color. I live within the bounderies of my skull, wrapped up in the process of life - the seconds that have just passed me by.
Its a good place to rest for a minute, to recharge and reinvent. Never underestimate the power of being still!
At times though, I linger there, pondering myself and my reason for motion. I get caught in the cycle of thoughts, the rythm of thinking. If I spend too much time in my own mind, forget the present. I forget that there are words to say, and smiles to give, and skin to touch, and children to hold in my arms. I forget about the sweat from running, and the pleasure of diving into a cold stream. As incredible as the mind is, I do not wish to live a life inside my head.

I need motion, we were all designed for movement! I shake myself loose from my coat of self-awareness, and focus my attention back on the beauty at hand - the beauty that is absolutely blinding my eyes. I look into a sunset, I smell the sweetness of freshly cut grass, I taste the flavors hidden in strawberries, I hear the perfect notes of songs.. My eyes begin to light up. Truly, Life is better, lived.


(Andrew Tipton)

How to Untame a Tiger

In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit. -Albert Schweitzer

What would happen if we lived life without inhibition? How would the world change, if we stopped pretending, and actually lived outrageous, uncivilized, incredible lives? Does any American do that?

What if you owned freedom. What if you owned truth. What if, when you talked, there was substance in your words, and wisdom in your thoughts.
There is absolute seduction in owning what you talk about. When you have explored lands, and bled, and tasted oceans, and seen sunsets over deserts, and touched jagged stone, you become more than simply someone who has read a book, or heard a speech - you become REAL. Places, people, experiences - they all become part of you... and you get deeper, stronger, wilder, and wiser.

People need real. We lost it somewhere along the way, while we were searching for comfortable. We rarely see lives that exude unpredictibility or embrace constant motion - and yet, we are facinated by the idea - facinated by people who challenge it all. We crave the life that is consuming, we crave passion and depth and emotion, we crave freedom and living like there is no tomorrow - but we are too scared to leave our cage. The entire, beautiful world calls to us! and we are too frightened to step into it. Shame.

We are tamed tigers. Splendid, sensual beasts that were created to roam free, to explore, to growl - but who have forgotten the feeling of freedom. We are tigers content with jumping though a hoop.. rather than jumping through the tree tops and running through the jungles.
Wouldn't you love to see a tiger, living as a tiger? To see that untamed look in his firey eyes, to hear him growl low and strong, to feel the scars and wounds in his beautiful stiped coat, from his battles and adventures. Would you follow that tiger out of your safe little cage? I would.

How to untame a tiger:
show him a free tiger, a real tiger, an untamed tiger. There is nothing on this planet more attractive.


You weren't born in a cage - don't die in one.

(Andrew Tipton)

The Taste of Raindrops

It rained today.
It rained thick and heavy... dark and mysterious like ancient stories from the pages of a dusty book. The smell is intoxicating. It has the scent of energy of life and strength, of wildness, of the untamed - the smell of all things alive and breathing and full taste.
The rain poured down, it flowed through tree branches and across the leaves, down the bark and onto the ground, and into the soil and through the roots.. it flowed into the earth and the world let out a sigh that you could feel in your soul.
I stood under the drops.
My eyes closed, and my mouth slightly open - I could taste the sweetness and saltiness as the water ran down my sweat stained face and along my dry lips.
Everything about me is wet. My face, my arms, my hair, my skin - it is the feeling of complete saturation; it is amazing.
I let the drops run from my lips, down my neck, and all the way to my finger tips.. they slide down each one of my fingers and hang for a few moments before dripping onto the ground.

Standing bare in the rain, it runs over my body and my thoughts - washes away the blood and the tears and the anticipation.
Rain is real and it is beautiful on a summer night.

(Andrew Tipton)

Myself & What You Think You Know

"Its not that I am so tough, I just put everything in a box, lock it up, and bury it deep down inside where no one can touch it." J. Maxine



I listen and smile politely whenever someone tells me that they know all about me.. that somehow they can read me, or understand me or percieve the depths of my thoughts. I am deliberate.
My life revolves around truth and openness, and yet, you know only the person that I allow you to know. Don't be naive.

Friends often wear their deepest self on their shoulder. They grow spiritually, mentally, physically, and they must, at once, share themself completely with the world. They spend no time savoring the moment, or reflecting on the deepness of discovery - they are simply concerned with telling someone. What feeds that need? Have we become so insecure as indivduals, that we feel almost obligated to tell people about ourselves - to glorify our actions, to dramatize and hype our days and words? Our egos, our security, our very place in existence, rests solely on knowing that people "know" that we are ok, or that we are successful, or smart, or powerful, or weathly, or hopeless, or in pain.

We sell the sexiness of our souls .. we strip the depth of our concious! How does one retain beauty, and mysteriousness, and subtlety if our minds are continually naked and exposed? Where do my thoughts go to swim with one another, after I have drained the pools of personal reflection?

There is a satisfaction that comes from knowing motion in my mind, of which no other person is aware. It is a relationship that I have with myself. My spirit and my soul share secrets, they tell each other stories, and play games together. There is beauty wrapped around the thoughts that no one hears about.

GO. DO. EXPLORE. DREAM. BLEED. GROW. LAUGH. And I will share much. There is still a box inside that no one knows - don't be naive.


.


(Andrew Tipton)

Light And Water

(Andrew Tipton swimming in Yosemite Falls upper pool)

The Day you Wake Up

There is a moment in life.. a instance that cannont be touched, defined, or written about - it cannot be described or depicted, it is beyond comprehension, beyond reason, beyond thought or intellect; it is the moment truth and spirit kiss, the moment fear is slain by freedom, and the moment your eyes awake, and for a fleeting breathe you behold the delicate, priceless beauty of the very moment.
You are outside yourself, you see the world as a speck, you see time as fiction, you hear only the rumble of motion and feel the rush as it consumes your thoughts and your movements.
There is the illusion of tomorrow, of beyond now - it is what keeps us in check. We follow rules, save, fret, worry, rest, kill - all in the name of anticipation. But there is something better, something more powerful and more brilliant than safety - it is what you do now. When you are aware of the moment, you are free. Outside the bubble, outside the grind, outside the lines - danger tastes like sweet sweet berries. A life that is wrapped around freedom is dangerous... and if you are afraid of danger, you will never ever experience the moment.

Andrew Tipton