Feathers

I was watching the birds.

Stretching this morning beneath this enormous cedar tree.. I listened as they chirped over my head. My eyes closed, my breaths coming in and leaving slowly.. I just listened to their cries and whistles.
What is a bird to me?
Its easy to look at a bird, to see it sitting on a branch or flitting through the air, and to consider it a lesser being. It is smaller, it is weaker, it doesn't seem to share the same acute sense of reason or thought.
It doesn't wear clothes, or go to college, or paint on canvas.
It has never been snow-sking, it has never been drunk,
Birds will never build skyscrapers.
Birds are simple.

But, as I stood there this morning, my mind racing with a million thoughts, desires, questions, doubts,.. I looked up at these birds.
And I envied them.

In all of our complexity.. we lose ourselves.







Andrew Tipton

To the Ones Who Start Fires

To the ones who start fires.
I am glad to know you.
To the ones whose words are like embers.
I listen.
To the ones whose thoughts destroy worlds.
I welcome new ones.
I have known the feeling of breaking apart at my seams..
The feeling of losing my best answers..
Truth does not grow from safe words or consolation.
There is nothing more terrible and more brilliant than a burning mind.
Your motion is subtle, yet provoking.
Your skin, ordinary like mine.
You are the travellers.
You are the heretics.
You are the lovers.
You are the worshipers.
You are the healers.
You are joy.
You are wisdom.
You are peace.
You are dangerous.
Burn these days down.
Burn my heart until is aches for rebellion.
Until I long for liberty.


Andrew Tipton

Let Go and Feel Your Nakedness

...

Let go with the senses, pull out the stops, forget false teachings and lies
Let go of inherited belief, let go of shame and blame in brief
Let go of forbidden energies, choked back in muscles and nerves
Let go of rigid rules and roles,
Let go of uptight poses
Let go of your puppet self, let go and renew your self and be free
...
Let go this moment, this hour, this day, tomorrow may be too late
Let go of guilt and frustration, let liberation and tolerance flow
Let go of phantom worries and fears, let go of hours and days and years
Let go of hate and rage and grief, let walls against ecstasy fall for relief
Let go of pride and greed, let go of missiles and might and creed
Let go the dead meat of convention, wake up the live meat of love

- Harold Norse

Permission to Live

I remember what you said on the way to the funeral,
How you stopped and looked at me with those wide eyes
You whispered your name,
You said it again, louder and people heard you this time,
and it felt good when you said it
it felt real, from the inside out real
I wanted you to say my name too
I wanted to hear it from your lips
You took off your shoes and I watched your feet sink into the grass
Its right then I fell in love with you,
When I knew you were leaving
When you ripped off the bottom half of that dress so you could run faster,
I loved that.
I loved what they screamed, and how you didn't care,
And when you didn't look back over your shoulder
When you disappeared people just stood here silent
holding their eyes on the horizon,
like they expected you to come walking back.
I knew you wouldn't


Andrew Tipton

We are Wild Horses

"THEY ARE FREE WHO DO NOT FEAR TO GO TO THE END OF THEIR THOUGHT"

I read this quote a few days ago, and it has been consuming me ever since. It embodies the essence of absolute freedom.. the possibility of living out the motions of our minds.
Take a thought.. any thought, and consider for a moment what you would do with it.
Maybe, its a thought about getting up and walking outside, stripping off your clothes and laughing at the incredible feeling of sunshine on your skin. (thats a good one)
Maybe, its a thought about creating... music, words, ideas..
Maybe, its a thought about getting on a plane and travelling to Timbati to climb trees with the Leopards.
Maybe its just a thought about discovering happiness at this moment.

What do we do with these beautiful thoughts?
Perhaps we would pretend for a few minutes.. fantasize about how that thought could change our day, change our life even! We let the thought enter our minds.. and we think about how awesome it would be. But then, right along with the thought.. we also let in fear. Fear kills ideas.
Uncertainty.. doubt.. negative expectations.. All untruth that we have been fed since we were just tiny babies. Illusions that somehow certain ideas can never really be birthed, or actualized.
This mindset is absolutely fear-based.. manufactured by our ego..
We are afraid to fail.. and so we never try..
If we could see through the smoke of our fears.. I think we would discover that most of them are our own creation..
We are afraid of what people might think.
We are afraid of what might happen.
We are afraid because we don't know.

These fears are contrived.. they exist only within the walls of our own minds. If we allow them to dictate which thoughts we act upon.. and which thoughts we run away from.. we will never experience a life of sovereignty.

I am not advocating the "fulfillment" of every thought we have.. for example, maybe I won't go to Africa today and play with Leopards (but it would be cool if I did).. truly, its about understanding that we are able to pursue a thought as far and as deeply as we want - Any thought.
Victory is not completion, it is being fearless enough to take action.
When we can look a dream squarely in the eyes and not look away.


We are majestic, wild horses that have always lived within the fences of our own fears.. but we are discovering that beyond those fences is a landscape of uncharted liberty and possibility... and we are aching to break free.


Andrew Tipton

Acadia Song

Some footage from our journey to the northern forests of Acadia..

Music - myself and Trent (Dulcimer and Guitar), an idea for a new song.
I can almost hear our friend Joshua's voice swaying in and out of the melody -
Just simple soul.. the motion of ordinary, incredible things.

I remember the skies, as we chased a hurricane up the Atlantic coast.. we spent our nights dreaming in hammocks under the stars, and playing music as we watched the flickering embers our campfires soar upwards and become new constellations.
Such a Wild earth.)


Andrew Tipton

OM.

What can we believe about ourselves?
That we were once animals?
That we are still animals?
Life moves to us the way it moves to the birds, or the white lions of Timbavati.
What must a lion do with life?
What must a Raven do with life?
Does a fern need to achieve some sort of greatness or esteem in order to be valued?
How are we different from them?

We wake up in the morning, when the sky is alive with color.. and immediately place ourselves underneath false expectations and false burdens.
We put on our clothes and our intellects, and re-establish how successful we have become up to this point in our lives.
The day is forgotten.. our animal being is silently slaughtered.
And then we breathe a long painful sigh..
Being human is difficult we say.. and perhaps it is.
But how much of that difficulty are we creating ourselves?

The separation from our animal self has led us to believe that we are more than animals; that there is more to life than living and dying.
If we believe that.. we are selling away our peace.



Andrew Tipton

Snow Leopards

where do snow leopards go to dream?
When they are exhausted from the cliffs and narrow ledges..
when chasing wild sheep has left their paws torn and aching.
do they travel beyond the mountains?
away from the cold of Patagonia nights..
away from the avalanches and the echoing screams of Golden Eagles.
Do they have a warm den someplace..
where sunset sunlight filters in deep,
and they can lose themselves in the spotted fur and melodic purs of another leopard?
These are the hours of December..
when snow seals in our dreams..
and we roam to find some solace from the bleak afternoon grays.
The clouds glide overhead, close.. moving east to west..
Thick and heavy like Himalayan candlelight..
We both hear roaring bears in the distance..
It is happening before us.. sometimes to us.
All around us. Like this.
Snow leopards on mountain tops.


Andrew Tipton

Mercy

(LUCAS OLENIUK/TORONTO STAR)


"Where is Mercy?"
When our hearts break. Where is mercy?
When our daughters slip away without a goodbye. Where is mercy?
When the morning brings with it coldness and gray skys. Where is mercy?
When there are no good words for our ears. Where is mercy?
When our wounds ache and our bodies are weak with pain. Where is mercy?
When age strips away our flame and our strength. Where is mercy?
When hunger and suffering and poverty and hate overtake us. Where is mercy?
.......
Mercy was given to us when we were born.
It was given to us when we saw our first color, and heard our first sound.
It was given to us when we breathed our first breath.
Do we deserve more?




Andrew Tipton