Blue Heron

Andrew Tipton

The Politics of Ecstacy

(Theo Gosselin, one of my new favorite photographers)


I discovered some new tastes recently.. people, places, and things that have legitimately stirred the embers in my mind! I find myself studying in the late hours of night, lavishing over subjects that were once foreign - creative desires growing, it excites me to see where all these roots are headed.

I can't help but feel though that there is always some form of subversive thought lingering just behind a new love. The ecstasy that flourishes in the first few encounters, is often subdued by the agenda of 'purpose'. I feel at times that I lack the will to begin a pursuit (even one that tugs at my heart), because of the expectation that accompanies it. Maybe a lot of us feel that way.

Our relationships have expectations.. our friendships, our creativity, our work, there are expectations for sex and pleasure, for our voices, for our writing and songs.. It almost takes the joy out of loving a thing.
Sometimes I wish to be rid of the politics that accompany a new pursuit and just lose myself in the experience. Find out for myself its secrets and its details.. without being told 'how' or 'what' to admire. I want a relationship without precedent, a love affair that makes up its own rules.

Maybe that is asking too much from a thing? Maybe its asking too much from a person? But it is what I want.



Andrew Tipton

Meditations

"Observe constantly that all things take place by change, and accustom thyself to consider that the nature of the universe loves nothing so much as to change things which are, and to make new things like them. For everything that exists is in a manner the seed of that which will be." - Marcus Aurelius

It makes sense that our thoughts are motion as well.. never dying, never lost or abandoned only reborn in the minds of others at different times. I was reading the last few pages of "East of Eden" tonight.. and came upon this quote.
Its like stumbling on your own thought.. written two millennia ago. How remarkable! It is my quote.. my prayer, my mantra. But written before me. I forget that I am not the creator truths.. only part of their circle. And it brings me comfort to know that these ideas, and revelations can never be lost or abandoned. Motion is my poem... but I do not own it.. I am the grandchild of its energy.

We are constantly, eternally, being remade.



Andrew Tipton

Gift Basket

I am warm
from your touch:
flower / eye
body / body
creature / god
We are all warm.

Charles Paisly

Every Word is Sacred

Poetry is such a perfect language.. every word that we use is wrapped in meaning. There is not space in a poem for wasted breath. Poets are the ones who grasp the roots of thought and shake away the dirt. It is marvelous to watch.. to follow an idea so intimately down down down into a person's heart.
I watched poets perform a few nights ago.. speaking about anger, and love, and youth, and sex. Each poem was like a knife, cutting through my pretensions and my own noise.. entering me, and making my mind bleed. Thoughts.

I would love to meet Sarah Kay.. she speaks with her entire body.. the subtleties of her voice leave me hanging in space. Graceful and warm.



Andrew Tipton

One Thousand Butterflies

It is such a release to look into the obscure shadows of death and not avert our eyes. To accept our mortality as a common thread.. that life comes and goes, and we are all bound to that experience - we can accept our humanity and share the emotion together.
We pretend that if we hide from the idea of death, that perhaps it will disappear; we only talk about it in whispers, but I'm tired of keeping my voice down. We're dying! We are ALL dying.

I spent last Wednsday in the company of hundreds of other people - recognizing the sacredness of the living, celebrating the loved ones that have already passed on, and embracing the delicate distance between our world and the next. I watched as thousands of candles flickered around alters.. their warm glow punching holes in the fear and the lonliness of dying. Alters dedicated to friends, fathers, prophets, brothers, mothers.. people who came, and loved, and then transitioned onward. It was like we were holding death and shining a light onto every pore and blemish, until there was nothing left to run from.. we can see it now.
We see these people who have died, and we see ourselves.. and for those who are willing to look, that truth unites us. We're all it together.



Rachel's father died 10 months ago.. and to celebrate his life she folded one thousand oragomi butterflies and hung them from strings. That was her alter.

Me Now

Your days in one
This day undone
The kind that breaks under
All day at once
for me, for you
I'm just too young
And what of my heart
This day was once
Silence before
All grace of lost
Can't wait at all
Can't wait at all
Temptation won

And what ever comes through the door
I'll see it face to face

- Beirut