Every time we drive down a road, we place our own lives in the hands of other’s survival instinct and will to live.  One slip is all it takes, one mistake, a few feet, and nearly certain instant death.  Yet we trust hundreds and thousands of people throughout our life to hold in high regard their own lives, so that ours too will be preserved and continue on.  It’s an amazing thing.

I may die.

Mother may I.

With a sigh I try and cry,

To learn to fly is the only why,

But with a lie I can’t deny it’s flawed from the start,

So it seems I was not so smart.

Alone in the woods, there is no one to not want you, no one to push you away, no one to refuse to open themeselves to you.

There is no one to not tell you what they really think, feel, and want.

There is no one.

No one but nature herself who never rejects.

Even in death she does not reject.

From whenst we come, so do we return.

Alone we begin, alone we end, and perhaps alone between is also best for some.

Impossibly small slices of time after the something-from-nothing beginning of our existence there was matter and anti-matter annihilating each other.  God is the beginning, the bang, the something that replaced the nothing. The matter and anti-matter battle is heaven and hell fighting for control of our newly born universe.  In the end, one was victorious, but just barely.

Great art is a spark of genius fueled by immense quantities of patience and persistence.

I love you. I love your soul and your spirit. I love the beauty that you are, and the beauty that you leave behind, every time you create something.

It is as if you are a flower, floating through time and space, shedding petals as you move along. One minute I see you and you are here, the next you are gone and only a petal is left behind. Perhaps you are still moving. Perhaps not.  I cannot see you now, but what you have left behind I keep, and will cherish dearly as I myself move along as well.

Sleep is the cure for the fatigue of living.

You are a single star in a universe of billions. A tiny pin prick of light in a sea of illumination. One story, a single thread among countless others, woven into the tapestry of our race.

There are other stories all around you. Your family, your friends. The people they know, your town, nearby cities. The cities in your state, states in your country, countries on continents. So many people. So many stories going on right now, this very moment.

Then there is the past. The seemingly endless history of stories. From the decades and centuries of recent times to the ancient civilizations and further back still to the races that pre-date our current evolutionary forms. So so many people. So so many stories.

Individually we are but a sliver of what seems an infinite past and future of people. How can we possibly imagine that those people never die, that their stories go on forever. Is there even a speck of probability that this would be the way the universe works? Matter and energy created, yet never destroyed? The person I am today, I will always be? Living on forever, in some independent existence, with all my memories and identity perpetually preserved? I don’t think so.

I think the likelihood is, that we are all made of stars, and we all shine on, like the moon, and the stars, and the sun. And when they go, so do we.

I am a vessel, a cavity filled with fleshy, slippery parts. Odors and fluids encapsulated in organs all squished together inside a cage of bone and skin constitute my physical presence in this place.  My myriad of parts are connected via tubes large and small carrying various chemicals and impulses throughout the networks of my being. Even now as I type this innumerable processes are occurring within my physical cavity to create the motion of my hand’s recording these words you are reading.

Is that it?  Am I just this collection of slimy lumps held together by calcium, cartilage, and a dermic wrap?  Is there nothing more to me?  If that is the case then when I die, when this fleshy vehicle ceases to function, then that will be the end, forever. If that is true then my thoughts, memories, and individuality will be no more. Just as when I am asleep, I will no longer be aware of existing. I will no longer smell the damp earthy-clean air after the rain. I will no  longer see the brilliant sun warming the east hills as it rises, and I will never again feel its rays radiating down upon my face. To all of the people I know, all who have been on my path at one time or another, I will be gone forever. Whatever words were left unspoken, whatever secrets yet untold, they will remain forever silent. I will no longer be…