Either Way. Free.

Andrew Tipton

Walk with Scars

Much of men's lives have been spent living under the assumption that we should fear our own weakness;  that we should avoid and escape even the suggestion of our own insufficiency - knowledge, function, intellect..  whatever it is, we treat weakness with contempt.  By escaping weakness, we have imagined this insane thought that we will somehow literally be stronger...  after all, strength by definition is the absence of weakness.  In our minds, we moved our self to be in conflict with weakness, as if we were in opposition with each other.   And we have practiced this mantra over and over -  defying, denying ourselves the experience of absolute vulnerability.
   Somewhere in our past we built an agreement with weakness that said:  "Weakness is a negative thing.  I will not allow myself to be weak; I will avoid appearing weak, I will not tolerate it within myself."     This agreement is one that I think many men build within themselves..  we want to be strong, we want to be so hard and fierce that we cannot be harmed physically or emotionally.  Yet as we build this intolerance towards weakness within ourselves, we are in reality denying ourselves an essential element of our masculinity - the unadulterated flow of freedom and the undiminished ferocity of true fearlessness.   It is not weakness that is actually our problem.. it is a chronic fear and overt avoidance of facing up to our soft spots.


I have scars on my forearms and on my right hip from crashing on my motorcycle.  Though the pain from those wrecks is long gone, each time I notice those wounds I am reminded of two things:  I am weak (as a human, as a man, as a supernatural being),  and I am absolutely more powerful because of my weakness.   My scars expose the vulnerability of my body, they show me that I am mortal.. that my body was not made to live forever and that I should respect it.   My scars expose the vulnerability of my mind, that I am reckless that I am brash and impulsive - they remind me to use my intuition my intellect, my sharpness.  These scars expose my weaknesses..  weaknesses that are elements of my nature.. yet do not define me as a man.   As I become aware of them I may choose to change -  this change is what makes me a stronger man.  Weakness is the "truth" of self..  it is the truth about us..   it is the blueprint to our faults and to areas in our life where we need more practice and less fear.

There is a quote that says, "What doesn't kill  you, makes you stronger."   Essentially that is a very abridged version of:  "What weaknesses we discover in ourselves and yet overcome with great will, makes us stronger."    I believe many of us have misinterpreted the message of that quote.  We try to avoid weakness and jump straight to the "stronger" part!   Yet by doing so we never actually learn how to be strong.

Freedom is what every single man fights for at the root of his being.   Weakness is an intimate part of that freedom.  
 To be free men, we must be comfortable with our weakness..  not the toleration of weakness, but the unapologetic acknowledgement of our inadequacies.  To be strong men, we must stare unblinkingly into the heart of our weaknesses and choose to be rise above them.        
Weakness is the root of understanding and owning strength -  No man becomes strong without first walking through his weakness.  

Andrew Tipton

The October Sun of Santa Cruz

I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
My tongue, every atom of my blood, form'd from this soil,
     this air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and
     their parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.
Creeds and schools in abeyance,
Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never
     forgotten,
I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,
Nature without check with original energy.

Houses and rooms are full of perfumes, the shelves are
     crowded with perfumes,
I breathe the fragrance myself and know it and like it,
The distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it.
The atmosphere is not a perfume, it has no taste of the
     distillation, it is odorless,
It is for my mouth forever, I am in love with it,
I will go to the bank by the wood and become undisguised
     and naked,
I am mad for it to be in contact with me.
The smoke of my own breath,
Echoes, ripples, buzz'd whispers, love-root, silk-thread,
     crotch and vine,
My respiration and inspiration, the beating of my heart, the
     passing of blood and air through my lungs,
The sniff of green leaves and dry leaves, and of the shore and
     dark-color'd sea-rocks, and of hay in the barn,
The sound of the belch'd words of my voice loos'd to the
     eddies of the wind,
A few light kisses, a few embraces, a reaching around of arms,
The play of shine and shade on the trees as the supple boughs
     wag,
The delight alone or in the rush of the streets, or along the
     fields and hill-sides,
The feeling of health, the full-noon trill, the song of me rising
     from bed and meeting the sun.
Have you reckon'd a thousand acres much? have you reckon'd
     the earth much?
Have you practis'd so long to learn to read?
Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?
Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the
     origin of all poems,
You shall possess the good of the earth and sun, (there are
     millions of suns left,)
You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor
     look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the
     spectres in books,
You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things
     from me,
You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self.

I have heard what the talkers were talking, the talk of the
     beginning and the end,
But I do not talk of the beginning or the end.
There was never any more inception than there is now,
Nor any more youth or age than there is now,
And will never be any more perfection than there is now,
Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.
Urge and urge and urge,
Always the procreant urge of the world.
Out of the dimness opposite equals advance, always
     substance and increase, always sex,
Always a knit of identity, always distinction, always a breed
     of life.
To elaborate is no avail, learn'd and unlearn'd feel that it is so.
Sure as the most certain sure, plumb in the uprights, well
     entretied, braced in the beams,
Stout as a horse, affectionate, haughty, electrical,
I and this mystery here we stand.

Clear and sweet is my soul, and clear and sweet is all that is
     not my soul.....


(Excerpt: Song of Myself _   Walt Whitman)

Transcendental Faded Denim Jacket

   Trouble, love and greatness all begin from here.   There is a reason for everything.  There is a purpose to every moment.    Perhaps hidden, undisclosed, buried deep inside the spark and intelligence of the universe.    But it is there.   We may never see it..   

We might go searching..   but its like the words looking for the mouth or the thought for the mind.

       

Unveiled.  And certain that there is a destiny for the most distant of us.    That we are not only happening but becoming the laughter and genius of the stars.     I imagine my appearance here and as myself taking the shape of action and reaction..    and each time a window shatters, or a heart flutters,  I am a part of that coincidence.      

"Put your jacket on and take a walk"..   says the universe..   and when I do,  the doors open wide and I am part of the concoction.     

    

Andrew Tipton

The Lions Are Sleeping

I was afraid
 that when I left you there, on the corner
you would begin to dissolve into soft unimportant pieces in my mind
float on by, losing your edges like the condition of clouds,
and never return. 
I was afraid that the part of my soul and laughter and belief
 that I sliced off of my heart
 for you
would disappear as well
like it does.
relentlessly. always.  never
to be put right again. 
the heart grows back hard. the veins seal up,
the capillaries wither.  you can see the scars
left over from the memories of beautiful afternoons. and summers
of unabridged anticipation.
goodness
leaves wounds too. 
and it never heals right.  like
it used to be. whole. honest. serenely open. 
And when I was obscene. scream. blood and broken wrist.
from punching holes in the routine.
 it was because of this thought.
of returning to the empty. the spacious comfortable
of complying with the predictable amnesty of ordinary
come and
let go. disappear.
 these hearts aren't made for reliving and recreating every six months.  
I don't want to forget.  the birth of my happiness in regards to you.   
because I don't want to become numb,
and hard
and cold
and lifeless from overuse.
too many journeys along the same path.
until our climb becomes only a stroll,  and the dangerous and mysterious
fade away
into
monotonous
ambiguity. 
Am I a contributor as well?   I do not wish to become one.
of these
complacent ones.
No.  Is this how it is for us?
NO.  For everyone who has loved and begun and ended?
and starts again.  and again.    and again.
replicating the curves and sculpture of every past
love story.   until the soul only knows how to
imitate forgotten and tired emotions.
As I leave, 
I feel myself
release..  part of my spirit and the part of my song
that is irreplaceable. gets buried
in the median between lanes of slow moving traffic, beneath the fallen branches of redwoods.
  I am aware as the blurred, silver streetlights fade
behind me
each of us eventually becomes
only
a soft glow
inside the other
's mind. 
I resent this about the human condition.
without causing a mess of things. 
I am not sure how it will change.
Or how to keep you as an ember inside my thoughts.






Andrew Tipton

Zoe from Bonny Doon

this afternoon is a paradox.  wet pages, and your name scrawled across a scrap of paper,   (the wind will catch it and I will lose every trace of you.)   But in this moment, life is magnificent.   
I can't remember being any more naked than right now.  metaphysically, completely, truly.      and for some reason
this is the only way to smile and mean it ..  while you're ultimately, beautifully, unequivocally vulnerable. 
the ocean is a mess, my hair and thoughts are a mess,  the wind keeps tearing pages out of your magazine, and I watched you draw an enormous heart in the sand before the waves washed it away.     this must be where love begins and takes you.  to deserted beaches,  so that you can have conversations with lovely strangers about the philosophies of happiness.
  I am sure we appear strange.  But neither notices our self.   As the tide comes in.  
Me sitting yoga posed, absent of clothes, poetry in my hands,  and you beside me in your rolled-up jeans and braids  We laugh and speak about travelling across California.   About where we've been and where we're going to be.   And it is simple and honest and delicate.     As the tide comes in.  
I am pleased to be here now.    I was pleased to meet you.       



Andrew Tipton

Clarity.

Andrew Tipton