Ah, ramble on.
Define the hope that keeps those who see the world from the margins of the earth as it meets both darkness and the light. What keeps the heart's drum beating when it seems that the secrets the idle withhold fortunes from those who would work with all of their hearts for the common good?
It is sheer labor enough to push on, often into the blinding incandescence of a billion egos shoving back, singing the songs of themselves at a feverpitch. Dreams can come true, but they are more likely to flourish if they follow the grain of popular society and those who seek justification. Remember the Mahatma; he did more than only a very few for the rest of us, yet he still died thinking that he had failed in the greater part of his labors. His path was higher than most can ever hope to aspire to, even in fantasy. The aspirations of the great are the seeds that might become oaks centuries from today, and that is why the greatest often feel more lowly than they are perceived by others.
Remember the dreams of the Buddha, the hopes of Mohammad, the aspirations of Jesus, and the ideals of Lao-Tsu. These weren't always lauded, often were spat upon, found themselves exiled, or worse, given death as payment for their works.
Prophets aren't recognized as such by those who aren't in synch with their hearts. That's why they are cast out, seen as antisocial, uncooperative or at worst, unfit to co mingle with the rest of polite society. Not all prophets have found their views canonized in scripture or justified through later reflection. Most, I'll posit, simply died or were slowly killed by societal pressures, seeing themselves as misunderstood, or worse, as untouchable failures.
I have known a few of these, and more than a couple have already met their ends at the hands of misunderstanding or irreconcilable differences with society at large. They always fight hard against what they see as unjust or unwholesome behavior and treatment, and often try to show others the way to healing or change. They do great things, they exhibit strength and beauty through unconventional means, and leave the world a little better. They are most often seen by conventional or unfamiliar others as deserving of their pain or of punishment handed out by life and institutions, even when those institutions might have been seeded by people as unconventional or visionary as the persecuted soul being condemned.
Love is more than a pejorative, ethereal, or trite cliche. Love is the ideal sought after by idealists and seekers everywhere, it is the hope that keeps even the most jaded materialist seeking God or spiritual comfort at the end.
Hope is more than mere faith, it is the flame that is imagined as both warmth and the quenching waters of life. It is the promise that souls cling to, the birthright of all who claim to have felt a closeness to something unseen.
Hope is the light that touches the earth at the margins, illuminating the envelope that is our body, that which is, at this moment, our shared lives in this shared world.

I haven't been on game for a while; lots of concerns and anxiety about the world and universe in general. After school got out for the summer with still no firm prospects for employment in the future, the roller coaster really started buffeting.
Now, Ryan hasn't had things too easy lately, either. He felt gravity's thump while playing with his students at recess on the second to last day, falling on and fracturing the hell out of his wrist. He had been anticipating (with some trepidation) surgery on his knee and now faced another slicing and dicing of his wrist, so, long story short, Ryan and I lit out once more for the upper left corner of Wyoming and lower middle of the great state of Montana.
We again took it upon ourselves to allow only a quick three days and two nights to drive all the way to the heart of the Beartooths and back. Along the way, as usual, we took in beauty and the power of raging rivers, we met grand people and a few really unhappy ones, and were changed by the feel of good earth under our feet and the rush of gravel or asfault beneath our tires.
The nights out there have a way of changing perspective, and if one can rally forces fast enough to get up early again, the mornings have a similar effect. The two views combined are truly life-changing, so if one can bring his own realizations to bear on the world and view thereof, the elixir of that perspective is more powerful than I yet understand.
Ramble on, my dear readers, and may the light of the world illuminate that which is before you.

Conflict: I don't much trust bureaucracy and I don't appreciate the selfishness engendered by many of the current crop of 'capitalists'.
Nevertheless, when someone as self aggrandizing as Rick Koerber is indicted for fraud related to real estate speculation and Ponzi-scheming , one must pause and seriously question the 'Principals (that) Govern' and the culture that engenders such jackassery.
Today's SLTrib article.

The guy just said 'malleable" with relation to the kids in the intervention program! Yeah, I know what he means, but does he really know what he said?
Sigh.

I think that self-esteem is often nothing more than a person's true and free mind being nudged more closely toward the societlally malleable norm...

Up to Snowbird. Things are beautiful up here this year; grundles of snow and plenty of sun. A fine combo for May in the mountaintops.
I'm in a session about drug abuse prevention. It strikes me that the numbers being bandied about as those reflecting percentages of people who need specialized intervention within 'at risk' populations are pretty indicative of those who generally don't feel a part of society at large, at all. I think we're just trying to use psychology to keep people in line with marketing and production norms, rather than trying to make a better place to live and progress as human beings.
What is so sacred about the status quo? The only thing being defended is the structure of society itself and the castes of academia, governmental, and finance functionaries. I worry about the ridgidity being created and ossified by bandying these numbers and studies within such a dysfunctional and destructive society.
Why does it seem that I am the only person who sees things in this way? I am under educated (read: papered) and coming from a very unique perspective (rural, disenfranchised LDS, alternative educator and somewhat asocial), so I'm probably just a wacky voice crying in the way out wilderness.
I really feel this concern, nevertheless.

Shall the youth of Zion falter,
in defending truth and right
While the enemy assail us
shall we shrink or shun the fight?
Holy wow...

Things happen; that's one of the hallmarks of humanity. We respond to what happens, whether it is caused directly or indirectly by people or caused by forces of nature.
I am constrained to act by my own intellect and the according to chemical actions within my head and body. Nevertheless, I act on and am acted upon by my surroundings. Sometimes I feel the need to do something to affect my environment. At other times, I feel motivated to simply observe and take in stimuli and at those times, I usually prefer to take in the beauty and sensations of natural environs.
I derive hope and joy from moving as quietly within nature as I can, even though I feel an overwhelming need to effect change and remold the human world, in social, economic and spiritual ways. Things aren't going very well in human society, according to my observations.
We are, in my observation, a pathetic and sad bunch of morons moving through a maze of artificially variably scheduled and dosed negative and positive stimuli. We are, for the most part, tools of media prompting and bureaucratically administered social engineering.
Depression is medicated. Mental and physical health is modeled by Hollywood movies. Food is micromanaged in order to exact an optimum bottom line and maximum rhythms of consumption . Money is held at an arm's length (at least) from people who seek morality and pursue spiritual ethos.
Still, nature and human nature aren't that far apart. Nature's method is toward a balance between forces, between energy and entropy. Balance between heat and cold, predator and prey, light and darkness. Humanity, though, able to think egotistically and in many ways, beyond the light of today and the darkness of tonight, tips balance in favor of those who can benefit from imbalance.
We unconsciously think that we can outweigh, outbalance and out fight nature.
The same nature that supports our existence when work with it can swing toward night and cold with relentless frequency and pitiless momentum when pushed beyond its limits.
I'm not talking specifically about global warming or nuclear winter, nor ozone holes or species depletion. While those are ghosts of a Christmas future that might come to haunt us with more than just jangling chains and phantasmal warnings, what I refer to is more insidious and like an infecting microbe.
The need for sunlight and clean water are basic to the human soul and heart. While both can be simulated by technology, there is something missing from industrial simulacra. That something can be found at a place less deep, mysterious or ethereal than spherical music or spiritual essence- the difference is in rationale for and consequence of technology and production.
Why do we need to manufacture clean water by industrial means? Our thoughtless pollution of primordial sources. Why must we be reminded of the importance of the energy chain of the sun and earth or the need to reduce pollution of the air by particulates in order to see our star's light? Really, the reasons are found in the same root; pollution and neglect of resources in a race to placate the impoverished souls of people who have forgotten the fount from whence comes their nourishment: the earth and those who inhabit it.
We don't only owe our lives to those who support our existence right now, we owe a deep debt of gratitude to our ancestors. They fought tooth and nail to bring us to where we are now. They had things hard. Survival without knowledge of nature's inner workings is next to impossible, and they had to come by their relationship with each other and the earth through trial and error, over many thousands of generations.
We have a great inherited and researched knowledge of the ways that nature's systems work. We see further into the stars, oceans and soil than any generation that we have memory of. Nevertheless, our survival is as precarious as any generation previous. That is irony.
Why can't we see the lies and deceits that we perpetuate in spite of technological advances? Why must we exist on the edge of oblivion on so many fronts of society? Why are there yet so many cold, hungry, sad, and/or lonely?
When will we seek balance as diligently as we seek power? If power hasn't brought balance and harmony, perhaps if we more collectively seek balance, we might find that which we really need.
I'm not really sure anymore what it is we collectively seek, or if 'collective' is a word that has any place in society, but I seek that which I know brings happiness at the heart.
Love. Agape. Harmony.
The great mystery.
What will happen next? What is happening in the grand scheme, both over our heads and under our feet? I wonder how we will respond.

It's snowing.
Again.
And again.

You may remember the story of how the devil and a friend of his were walking down the street, when they saw ahead of them a man stoop down and pick up something from the ground, look at it, and put it away in his pocket. The friend said to the devil, "What did that man pick up?" "He picked up a piece of Truth," said the devil. "That is a very bad business for you, then," said his friend. "Oh, not at all," the devil replied, "I am going to let him organize it."
-J. Krishnamurti
upon dissolving the Order of the Star of the East in 1929

Ryan and I decided against a quick run up north Yellowstone way because of the late winter storms roiling around these parts. Instead, we did a crazy run to the south and east.
We left on Thursday morn and got home again early in the afternoon on Friday.
Too much driving, and too much beauty passed up like a blur on the side of a road, really. Oh, but it was and is stunning beautiful.






A couple of deer shading themselves along the Burr Trail.






























A downgrade, indeed.













Mount Hillers, the southernmost of the northern Henrys group. Look at this one on Google Earth, sometime. The Laccolithic intrusions coupled with sandstone formations are almost as fascinating from above as they are on the ground. Man. I love this area.








Mount Ellsworth, the southernmost of the Henry Mountains.










These couple of hills near Blanding are the site of several sacred American Indian sites, including at least two huge kivas that I know of, personally. This development hit me like a ton of gravel; I had no idea that anything like this was being considered- Lord, when will the desecration and advantage taking end?







A pretty little Brown from Thistle Creek. It's always a blessing to find a fish swimming in this water, and if I can catch one, it's sometimes even better.

At what point can we hope to drop our collective, preconceived notions of individual wealth, prestige and privilege? Why is it so difficult to see that money, through natural and artificial self-perpetuating laws requiring that we put money before people in order to preserve profit, is the vector through which the pandemic of moral depravity and inhumanity injects itself into every human soul?

Yep. That's Chinese on the bottom of that sign. Not Spanish, not French, and it's a forgone conclusion that one would ever have a regular monoglot open sign.
I'm in Wayne County, by the way. Wayne County, freaking rural Utah. I guess one has to cater to the paying clientele, no?

The kids were a bit restless yester All Fools Day, and as a result, we had quite a lot of steam-letting around the school. These kids aren't very happy that they'll have to go back to the regular schools next years, and they've been really good to us most of the time. But kids will be kids, you know.


Don't worry. They put it all back together. Even fixed my parking brake in the process...

The open road is not always a pleasure.
Wind, rain, snow, and ignorant drivers often combine to make the experience less than transcendent, though in my experience, the road brings hope, ideas and a certain clarity to my mind and heart, even when the hazards of the road insist on encroaching on the more bright points.
There wasn't much hope of anything but failure this morning, as Ryan and I headed south into a gale from the same direction. My flybox had been missing for at least three weeks, and though we knew it prolly wouldn't be anywhere near where I thought it might be, the variety, effort contained therein, and price tag of replacement behooved us to at least attempt the long-distance search.


We moved on down the road past the new county jail, still proclaiming to the world that it was, in fact, a wildlife refuge supported by our license fees and sportsman's ethics (a sordid tale for another day), and toward the Bicknell Bottoms, the probable non-resting place of my precious box.
We talked about small things and ideas that got our minds awake and away from everyday problems like broken furnaces and lost jobs. The blue sky brought me back to hope, ideals and the honor of those things in the face of bottom-line business investment mentality. We blathered a little about the economy and billions and trillions of dollars, about the failure of Good-Old-Boy Republican-style Real Estate as Capital and the inability of the American mindset to admit failure as an aid to adjustment in direction and philosophy. It's great that they've gone ahead and blamed Obama "Socialism" for their corruption, foolishness and preemptive Corporate welfare state policy. Democrats and Republicans may be two corrupted-to-the-core sides of the same zinc-alloy place marker, but the dominant Republican boilerplate propaganda these days makes me physically ill.
Well. That was something. We talked about it, nonetheless.
As we gained elevation and distance from the valley of the shadow of economic meltdowns, we found more familiar and hopeful grist for the mill. We talked about The Yellowstone Fellowship, our erstwhile quasi-spiritual and semi-academic fallow field for writing and nature studies. We worked out some ideas left dormant for a year or so, thinking on what we could do with my extra time and need for a teaching and service (not to mention necessary income) outlet in the face of the extra time coming up with the end of the school year coming.
We got to the Bottoms and looked to no avail. For all we knew, the box might have been there this morning, but was blown by 50mph gusts into the Fremont river five minutes prior to our arrival, but it wasn't there then.
Turning tail and noticing that the wind was starting to turn back into our faces, we marveled at the universe's ability to appear malevolent and at least like the perfect trickster sometimes. Heading into the wind more and more as the trip home wore on, our pleasure in the task of returning home was challenged by the circumstance of the coming storm whipping dust from newly-plowed fields and the recently burned desert to our west.
Hell. There's work afoot and times are getting hard. The ability of humanity to connect with nature and each other is something that will help us get through it, so those silly drivers in their new BMW's and questionable driving techniques (metaphor aside) nor lost flyboxes shan't affect the higher and more excellent purposes at hand.

Here're some photos from the big trip down south. What a trip it was; I enjoyed being unexpectedly in my element some of the time, gloriously and predictably in my element others, and during still other times, completely out of place.
It was fun, and I'd do it again, if I had the time.
Boy it was fun in the SoCal mountains and in the ocean. I still can't believe that I was able head down there at all. It was all a big whirlwind of surprises.












Jenna, my dear sis-in-law's family cabin. They kindly allowed us to crash there for three nights. What a place. I'm half-seriously pursuing moving the fam up there, seeing as my days of gainful employ here in Sanpete are prolly numbered for at least a while.

















Plenty to see and explore in the tops of the San Bernardino Mountains. Lots of people and homes, but still lots of open space and tons of beauty. Something to be said of trying to live with the topography and one's surroundings. There were lots of fine people here and there, at least at this time of the year.




































An old dedication-type monument from when the place was originally developed enmasse.






































































A house on the edge of an area burned a few years ago. Man, that fog was engrossing to watch as it entwined different depths of view. I took at least thirty different photos.







































The bracken fern was still dormant at this time of the year. Plenty of snow here and there, and the evidence was abundant of its full extent. Great color.










I know this probably doesn't affect many as much as me, but the crowds at Dizzyland were really hard for me to get used to. Easy to feel inundated and anonymous, but I'm still not sure what to think of the whole thing...






The botany has always fascinated me at D-land. I don't think I noticed anyone else really look at the plants and flowers the whole time I was there, but I was entranced. It helps that it's still full winter around here, but for a few crocuses, though.





Mother wasn't happy with the willy-nilly jerking action of the Indiana Jones ride, but I sure had fun snapping photos of her and Pa. I laughed and giggled like a loon.







That's me in front, RyanDavid next, his wife, Jenna, and then my dad. Industrial recreation, at its near best!






















Jenna and daughter, Sarah Jane.











Somewhere down there is San Bernardino. I'm sure of it.













Obligatory California Poppies.












Once upon a time, I lived in Van Nuys with my parents. We went to the beach often. I think it made an impression on me. I was deeply impressed by my time in Santa Cruz later on in life, as well.

My Pa and I somewhere near Seal Beach in 1970 or so.













There you go. The other end of my native extreme, opposite the desert rat. ocean, mountain, desert. The entire orographic effect, I tell ya.















Some greenery and ornamentation on one of the more exclusive beach houses at Newport.































My blessed brother, Ryan David, and his boy, Sumner.














Sumner and I drew and talked up a storm on our travels to and fro.





















A view down the hill near Jenna's cabin, toward Lake Arrowhead. What does the future hold? Only the shadow knows...

In a small town, there are certain advantages.
Being near to marvels of technology, having job prospects, and marvelous cultural opportunities are not included in that list, but having friends with livestock definitely is.
We have a muleskinner friend who lives down the street, and he called me with an offer. "Ya got somewhere you could use some manure?" Do I have somewhere I could use some manure? Ha. I've always a use for a load or five of bio-gold.
So the kids and I had a bit of fun hauling and unloading oodles of burro, mule and horse shin. They really are good sports.

Long story short, I spent Thursday through Monday down in Arizona and California with my parents and brother's family.
Beach, Dizzyland, beautiful mountains and splendid deserts were the highlights, and suffice to say, I'll have to fill you in when I don't have a bunch of work and sleep to catch up on.
Tomorrow? No promises, but that's the intent!

On the way home from the big AZ-CA trip, I ran into this fine chap. He was busking up a storm in a shopping area. I stopped to say listen to his tunes and say hi; he was a friendly man willing to talk and have his photo taken.
Happy St. Patrick's day, for what it's worth and all it might mean to you.