Andrew Tipton
Friday, June 19, 2015
Wednesday, June 3, 2015
For the Horses
I wanted movement, and not a calm course of existence. I wanted excitement and danger and the chance to sacrifice myself for my love. I felt in myself a superabundance of energy which found no outlet in our quiet life.
- Tolstoy
- Tolstoy
East Boundary
There is this cliché I grew up with, that says nothing special happens where you're from.. everything of value or importance is happening somewhere else.
When I am back in rural Alabama sometimes, I feel that cliché might be true. Often, when I am "home", it feels like nothing of importance (as far as I can tell) is really happening there. I go for a run, or take my jeep for a sunset drive to feed the horses.. It feels like the same routines, the same ideals, the same familiar faces.. I am often counting down the days till the next "trip", or the next chance to venture elsewhere. Talking up surf escapes to Nicaragua, or motorcycle rides to Alaska..
People (my self definitely included) go off in search of adventures, of romance, of inspiration, of purpose.. we travel to the corners of the world to sort ourselves out, and forge new ideas.. reclaim forgotten truth. New places are sensual! They are unpredictable, they are freckled with fascinating people and experiences! So many unforgettable stories I have shared while on the road. When you are traveling in an exotic destination, its easy to find bewilderment and to feel that travelers "high" - the sensation of being intimately connected to the abundance and affection of the universe.
Now, after much travel... I am beginning to discover, that it is: the sensation of being intimately connected that we are all secretly longing for as human beings! We want to feel part of something great.. something epic and sacred.
Recently, I've begun to revisit and to challenge the cliché that I grew up with.. the cliché that encourages travel... but leads us to believe that intimacy and muchness only exist outside of our ordinary surroundings. The idea that I have to "go somewhere", in order to experience god's conspiracy of goodness.
I think when we believe that nothing worth-while is nearby.. that begins to erode our perception of the magic close to us. It diminishes what we expect from ourselves in ordinary spaces. No matter where we come from, or where we find ourselves.
I have long adhered to the instinct that somehow the universe was hiding its best pieces from me.. that it had scattered them across the earth in mysterious and difficult places. That love, and fulfillment, and revelation were available.. but only with extreme perseverance.
Perhaps that vision of god lacks clarity...
I am reimagining now.. that the sensation of being intimately connected to the abundance and affection of the universe is sometimes right in front of my nose! Perhaps "god" places us nearby to outrageous gifts.. maybe we just aren't accustomed to looking for them in ordinary places.
Perhaps what we are searching and longing for is often so close, that we overlook it entirely.
Maybe love, and revelation come right in through our front door.. maybe she sits down on our porch, or eats dinner at our kitchen table,
and we don't even see her because we are simply not looking there.
I believe greatness and enlightenment are sparks born from the depths of travel and from existence on the edge of our sanity and discomfort.. But also.. there are the most incredible things happening to us in very ordinary places as well.
I wish to be aware of both.
Andrew Tipton
When I am back in rural Alabama sometimes, I feel that cliché might be true. Often, when I am "home", it feels like nothing of importance (as far as I can tell) is really happening there. I go for a run, or take my jeep for a sunset drive to feed the horses.. It feels like the same routines, the same ideals, the same familiar faces.. I am often counting down the days till the next "trip", or the next chance to venture elsewhere. Talking up surf escapes to Nicaragua, or motorcycle rides to Alaska..
People (my self definitely included) go off in search of adventures, of romance, of inspiration, of purpose.. we travel to the corners of the world to sort ourselves out, and forge new ideas.. reclaim forgotten truth. New places are sensual! They are unpredictable, they are freckled with fascinating people and experiences! So many unforgettable stories I have shared while on the road. When you are traveling in an exotic destination, its easy to find bewilderment and to feel that travelers "high" - the sensation of being intimately connected to the abundance and affection of the universe.
Now, after much travel... I am beginning to discover, that it is: the sensation of being intimately connected that we are all secretly longing for as human beings! We want to feel part of something great.. something epic and sacred.
Recently, I've begun to revisit and to challenge the cliché that I grew up with.. the cliché that encourages travel... but leads us to believe that intimacy and muchness only exist outside of our ordinary surroundings. The idea that I have to "go somewhere", in order to experience god's conspiracy of goodness.
I think when we believe that nothing worth-while is nearby.. that begins to erode our perception of the magic close to us. It diminishes what we expect from ourselves in ordinary spaces. No matter where we come from, or where we find ourselves.
I have long adhered to the instinct that somehow the universe was hiding its best pieces from me.. that it had scattered them across the earth in mysterious and difficult places. That love, and fulfillment, and revelation were available.. but only with extreme perseverance.
Perhaps that vision of god lacks clarity...
I am reimagining now.. that the sensation of being intimately connected to the abundance and affection of the universe is sometimes right in front of my nose! Perhaps "god" places us nearby to outrageous gifts.. maybe we just aren't accustomed to looking for them in ordinary places.
Perhaps what we are searching and longing for is often so close, that we overlook it entirely.
Maybe love, and revelation come right in through our front door.. maybe she sits down on our porch, or eats dinner at our kitchen table,
and we don't even see her because we are simply not looking there.
I believe greatness and enlightenment are sparks born from the depths of travel and from existence on the edge of our sanity and discomfort.. But also.. there are the most incredible things happening to us in very ordinary places as well.
I wish to be aware of both.
Andrew Tipton
Sunday, May 31, 2015
Tuesday, May 26, 2015
33°02'01.2"N 86°47'29.2"W
The only way to see myself clearly now.. is too turn and look at the places that built me. My 'coordinates'... my birth marks on the map. The outlines of what I adore, and the fear, and the ambition.. they were all there from the beginning. Like threads heading backwards into old photographs.. I can feel where they touch, somehow, the story of my past.. where I agreed to them.
I think there is a place, or many, like that in all of us.. place / places that lends as much of itself as it can to our becoming.. to our muchness, or our weakness, or our grace or our apathy. It isn't a clever thought.. but more like a recollection and a acknowledgement of those spaces...
I am thinking about my identity, the WHO, that I feel.. deep down.. at the bottom of all of myself. There is a great deal of who I am, born in ordinary rooms, or while paddling a lake, or in a treehouse... And what is it that makes those spaces great? The walls and between them.. the seemingly empty... that gives birth to THIS NOW.
?
Andrew Tipton
I think there is a place, or many, like that in all of us.. place / places that lends as much of itself as it can to our becoming.. to our muchness, or our weakness, or our grace or our apathy. It isn't a clever thought.. but more like a recollection and a acknowledgement of those spaces...
I am thinking about my identity, the WHO, that I feel.. deep down.. at the bottom of all of myself. There is a great deal of who I am, born in ordinary rooms, or while paddling a lake, or in a treehouse... And what is it that makes those spaces great? The walls and between them.. the seemingly empty... that gives birth to THIS NOW.
?
Andrew Tipton
Sunday, May 24, 2015
Mountain Dulcimer Lessons
I remember the first time I listened to my mother strum her mountain dulcimer.
I remember the way she held it gently in her lap, her hands cradling its scratches and its worn-down imperfections.. I remember the glow of the sound, the soft resonance.. simple, droning and melodic. The strings vibrating along the cedar frets.. the lonesomeness of it.. the earthy, essential honesty of it.
I remember feeling the blood pumping from my heart to my ears.. standing there, lightheaded, entranced.. not daring to breathe.
And I remember knowing instinctually, that sound and I were destined for a relationship.. that we were invented for each other...
Somewhere in the roaming out of life, I feel that I stumble upon pieces of my essential self, reflections and fragments of my innermost person.
Hearing my mother play her dulcimer..
Focusing a camera lens..
My first time riding a motorcycle..
Feeling the weight of my first leather journal..
The smell of my dad's tractor..
Wandering through the Redwoods of northern California..
My feet in the stirrups of a horse..
The scent of saw-dust..
There are times when I feel no distance at all from myself... nor from the clarity of my identity.
To be in the place that we are most our essential selves, is to be closest to wholeness.
Following a life that revolves around this identity.. seems to me the only life worth pursuing.
Andrew Tipton
I remember the way she held it gently in her lap, her hands cradling its scratches and its worn-down imperfections.. I remember the glow of the sound, the soft resonance.. simple, droning and melodic. The strings vibrating along the cedar frets.. the lonesomeness of it.. the earthy, essential honesty of it.
I remember feeling the blood pumping from my heart to my ears.. standing there, lightheaded, entranced.. not daring to breathe.
And I remember knowing instinctually, that sound and I were destined for a relationship.. that we were invented for each other...
Somewhere in the roaming out of life, I feel that I stumble upon pieces of my essential self, reflections and fragments of my innermost person.
Hearing my mother play her dulcimer..
Focusing a camera lens..
My first time riding a motorcycle..
Feeling the weight of my first leather journal..
The smell of my dad's tractor..
Wandering through the Redwoods of northern California..
My feet in the stirrups of a horse..
The scent of saw-dust..
There are times when I feel no distance at all from myself... nor from the clarity of my identity.
To be in the place that we are most our essential selves, is to be closest to wholeness.
Following a life that revolves around this identity.. seems to me the only life worth pursuing.
Andrew Tipton
Sunday, May 10, 2015
A Simple Death.
Our hooves,
kicking up golden splinters.
Slowing the world till it cracks, and
announcing every trembling grain.
We are.
Chipping sparks, ripping embers.
We are
waking the shoreline,
bringing the growl to the wolf
and
the grin to the wayfarer.
Stand aside, bow.
Heed. Steed. The chant and cinch
of leather straps, the sweat
of windswept mane,
the heels turned inward, the eyes and heart
awakened.
Of both of us. Even.
Stirring the gods'
envious of the tides lapping at our stride.
I would live here.
Sip champagne from the rooftop porches,
stare eloquently westward,
as the horizon melts...
fade as it does. Too in turn.
I am. imagining it.
And to those who belong to the ghost of the river,
or to the grayness and forests
of Santa Cruz,
this is an ordinary dream. A simple death.
But to us. But two us.
We reach out with young and eagerness.
Cradling its sacred edges,
its delicate, faltering
disappearance.
And marvel greatly.
Andrew Tipton
kicking up golden splinters.
Slowing the world till it cracks, and
announcing every trembling grain.
We are.
Chipping sparks, ripping embers.
We are
waking the shoreline,
bringing the growl to the wolf
and
the grin to the wayfarer.
Stand aside, bow.
Heed. Steed. The chant and cinch
of leather straps, the sweat
of windswept mane,
the heels turned inward, the eyes and heart
awakened.
Of both of us. Even.
Stirring the gods'
envious of the tides lapping at our stride.
I would live here.
Sip champagne from the rooftop porches,
stare eloquently westward,
as the horizon melts...
fade as it does. Too in turn.
I am. imagining it.
And to those who belong to the ghost of the river,
or to the grayness and forests
of Santa Cruz,
this is an ordinary dream. A simple death.
But to us. But two us.
We reach out with young and eagerness.
Cradling its sacred edges,
its delicate, faltering
disappearance.
And marvel greatly.
Andrew Tipton
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
