Silence deafens the room

Drip
Drip
Drip

As loud as the waters of the falls

Alone she sleeps
Blood seeping life into her listless body

When does the pain stop?

One hour of patience drowning in an eternity of uncertainly

Who do you think you are?
Who gives you the right to strip life from the living?
With only half a life gone, why is the future black?

Turning back the clocks of time in our minds in hopes of a miracle
Now sitting in the cold frozen in this moment
Shivering at the realization of the impending expiration

Now we collect tear drops only to swim away never to look back.
Soaked in a bittersweet pool of bravery that is slowly slipping away

Beyond the grave you will be loved as you were loved on this Earth
With every breath, your warmth enters our body and hugs our heart with all the strength in the world

One more hour, one step closer, one more soul slips away….

In a rare instant, a song comes along that redefines greatness. The power of the lyrics and the penetrating sound of the music provoke feelings deep without our soul. It is at that moment that we begin to feel more, think deeper and lose ourselves in a moment. Leonard Cohen, over the years has written some of the most memorable music of the 20th and 21st Century and has been an icon in the industry. His soulful blends and awe inspiring lyrics have been covered around the globe.

Hallelujah is one of those masterpieces that will forever be a part of musical folklore.
Enjoy this video tribute to a song that somehow finds meaning in all of us.

Hallelujah

Jeff Buckley

Jon Bon Jovi

K.D. Lang

Neil Diamond

Johnny Cash

Willie Nelson

Rufis Wainwright

Kate Voegele

Il Divo

Damien Rice

The One and Only Leonard Cohen

Thank you Yaplakal.com

You and me; we are the pretenders
Alone in the sandbox dreaming life away
We are not going to bankrupt our dreams with money and greed
We are not going to transcend time with selfish ambition

We are the keepers of the sand
The rulers of the playground

This is our time
Our moment to shine in the sun without the worry of life to scare us away

No one can stop this train
You and I are it
We have the answers to questions yet to be asked
We don’t need life to distract us
This maze is simple
The end is happiness in your arms

Your touch is my fuel
Your smile is my salvation
In my prayers, the happiness I find is knowing you are by my side

Growing up I will not do.
That means you are far away
In this dream, we own childhood and you and I are forever the rulers of this utopia in our minds

I miss my boo
I miss this haven of safety

Innocence forever

For this I thank you
You are the light that illuminates the path to righteousness

In your eyes, a reflection of my past
In your words, the confidence to try

It is with all my strength, I bow to your prowess that is your unspoken beauty
Your elegance is in your simplicity
You are a lover of life; a healer of souls

With fondness I thank you

In the winter, you are the angel that warms my nights as the purity of the snow lets gravity take hold and coat the ground with a cloud of immaculateness

With each farewell, a new hello is born
Each new face, a reminder of you

The road is full of pain
Painted with blues and reds
Jesters laughing at misfortune
Clowns mocking the fight
Magicians hiding from the illusion

This maze is a wicked path in all directions

With fondness, you will be by my side, always

Thank you Cameron Crowe for your return to the emotionally driven director that reaches deep into our hearts and reminds us of the values and ideals that bring us happiness and love. It is your vision that has inspired millions. For that and for the term used in the title, I thank you.

Now why am I ranting and raving about Cameron Crowe you ask?

We Bought a Zoo, the latest film by Cameron Crowe offered up the term IPocolypse and it fit perfectly with my latest message. For those of you that know me, I am a bit of a reversal of fortune when it comes to technological advancement. I am not starting a renaissance to stop advancement, but I am doing my part to delay the inevitable. It does not take years of scientific research to know that holding a mini computer (yes a smartphone is a mini computer) against your body 12 to 14 hours a day and next to you in bed all night will have an adverse affect on your health with its radiation release. Therefore, I do not have a cancer tablet, aka smartphone nor do I engage in Facebook. It is a slow evolutionary change but it has put me in a better place.

Give me a copy of The Philadelphia Story on VHS with Kathryn Hepburn and Cary Grant, a couple of candles and a warm comforter and you won my heart for the night.

What is IPocolyspse?

IPocolyspse is the destruction of mankind by way of technology. I certainly cannot foresee the future, but I have a theory that the smartphone is the transition stage from humanity to humanoid life. It makes sense. If all humans carry a mini computer 24/7, through the process of evolution, we will mold the two together to create a civilization of humanoids. Soon two will become one. The idea of human interaction with emotion will be replaced by programmed sensors sending impulses providing artificial intelligence, emotion, calculated reaction and implementation. The element of connection will be a catch phrase from the past and the simplicity of life will be replaced by a series of cyborg interfaces. I know this prediction is well into the future and will not affect us but for the next several generations, the future is questionable.

How much time are you spending with your smartphone, tablet or laptop?
Can you leave your phone at home?

There was a time when most of us had land lines and when we left home, there was a device called an answering machine that recorded anything we missed. My how times have changed. DVRs, Blue ray, surround sound, 3D, Wii, apps and games have all become our friends creating a society of alienated narcissistic loners. Maybe some are happy with this transformation, but this writer is not.

Writing is about release of human emotion. It is about the risk of opening up your heart and letting others inside the frailty that is humanity. The love letter, as ancient as it sounds, has a level of poetic justice that cannot be matched. It was a personal gesture from a prince to his princess in a time of chivalry. It was a declaration of unconditional commitment. Now we send a text saying “What’s up”, “wanna hang” or “we’re kickin it at the IMAX”. Its it similar, quicker, more efficient? Duh, yes but more efficient is not necessarily better.

In the age of computers, efficiency and speed is better.

Now we have a dilemma on our hands.
With the move to speed, availability and efficiency driving us away from human interaction and toward technology solutions is this where we really want to be?

Ask the lovers, the moms, the dads, the artists, the poets, the writers, the dreamers and I think you know the answer.

You can Photoshop a sunset over the ocean with the colors of the rainbow and post on Facebook and Google+ to see how many likes you get or you can lay out a blanket with someone you love and watch the sun slowly disappear under the ocean’s surface to rest for another night.

The future is up to you. It is up to each of us. I can’t stop the influx of smartphone and tablet users. I think many in the back of their mind know the cancer and health risks, but I can do my part to walk away and live the life I want to live.

Are we looking for something right before our blind eyes?
Am I running to or from a wave of love destroying the past and cleansing the path to the future?

Waste is time bottled up in the distance of our minds

I walk alone with you by my side empty streets remind me of the steps embedded in our life’s journey

In the darkness and silence of uncertainty, the battle ensues

Blood will shed and sacrifices made with a vision of victory hailing in the clouds of a new tomorrow

Take my hand and let me by your hero

“A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie.” ~Tenneva Jordan

“Being a full-time mother is one of the highest salaried jobs… since the payment is pure love.” ~Mildred B. Vermont

“Mothers hold their children’s hands for a short while, but their hearts forever.” ~Author Unknown

“When you are a mother, you are never really alone in your thoughts. A mother always has to think twice, once for herself and once for her child.” ~Sophia Loren, Women and Beauty

“Mother love is the fuel that enables a normal human being to do the impossible.” ~Marion C. Garretty

“Mother – that was the bank where we deposited all our hurts and worries.” ~T. DeWitt Talmage

“The real religion of the world comes from women much more than from men – from mothers most of all, who carry the key of our souls in their bosoms.” ~Oliver Wendell Holmes

“I remember my mother’s prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life.” ~Abraham Lincoln

“You don’t really understand human nature unless you know why a child on a merry-go-round will wave at his parents every time around – and why his parents will always wave back.” ~William D. Tammeus

“Mother, the ribbons of your love are woven around my heart.” ~Author Unknown

“A mom’s hug lasts long after she lets go.” ~Author Unknown

“Who fed me from her gentle breast
And hushed me in her arms to rest,
And on my cheek sweet kisses prest?
My Mother.”
~Ann Taylor

“A mother’s heart is a patchwork of love.” ~Author Unknown

“On Mother’s Day I have written a poem for you. In the interest of poetic economy and truth, I have succeeded in concentrating my deepest feelings and beliefs into two perfectly crafted lines: You’re my mother, I would have no other!” ~Forest Houtenschil

“Mom, when thoughts of you are in our hearts, we are never far from home.” ~Author Unknown

“A mother is the truest friend we have, when trials heavy and sudden, fall upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends who rejoice with us in our sunshine desert us; when trouble thickens around us, still will she cling to us, and endeavor by her kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to our hearts.” ~Washington Irving

“Most mothers are instinctive philosophers.” ~Harriet Beecher Stowe

“Before a day was over,
Home comes the rover,
For mother’s kiss – sweeter this
Than any other thing!”
~William Allingham

“Let us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” ~Marcel Proust

“A man’s work is from sun to sun, but a mother’s work is never done.” ~Author Unknown

“Sing out loud in the car even, or especially, if it embarrasses your children.” ~Marilyn Penland

“No language can express the power, and beauty, and heroism, and majesty of a mother’s love. It shrinks not where man cowers, and grows stronger where man faints, and over wastes of worldly fortunes sends the radiance of its quenchless fidelity like a star.” ~Edwin Hubbell Chapin

“The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness.” ~Honoré de Balzac

“Motherhood has a very humanizing effect. Everything gets reduced to essentials.” ~Meryl Streep

“A mother is the truest friend we have, when trials heavy and sudden, fall upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends who rejoice with us in our sunshine desert us; when trouble thickens around us, still will she cling to us, and endeavor by her kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to our hearts.” ~Washington Irving

Do you ever look in the mirror and question whose reflection you are seeing?
You haven’t aged more than a day but you look and feel much older than your years.

Sometimes life just beats you down so hard that it is difficult to mentally overcome all the obstacles being thrown your way. It has a way of spiraling you into a state of depression. One where it is easier to admit defeat than fight your way out of it.

For some it is illness, a damaged relationship, job loss, keeping a family together, a tragedy or a combination of things that piles up on your shoulders that you feel like a thousand pounds of weight bearing down on you.

It is in that moment of darkness that you realign your perceptions of life and begin to ask yourself some questions. How superficial was my life before? All the pet peeves I had were meaningless in respect to the suffering around us? What purpose and meaning do I serve in this life? It is these deep fetching questions that just compound the sense of despair.

Life is hard. I can quote until the cows come home the words of great literary writers and poets, but the words are nothing more than ink on paper. It is when the breaths become harder, the silences more deafening and the loneliness so isolated that reality really sets in.

What then?

You can sift through all your old photo albums and remember your childhood and how you had no responsibility, you were invincible and everything was simple and innocent but those are nothing but mere memories; reflections on past moments. The unknown is in front of you. If life is this hard now, will it get easier? The likelihood is not.

This by no means is a proclamation that suicide is an option or to run away to a remote island somewhere away from all communication. This is the life we lead. We think about our grandparents that went from not having phone or TV to all this. What a remarkable evolution. Maybe we can look back and say times were easier back in the day and now technology is corrupting us, but that is nothing more than a set of excuses.

I don’t know the answer. I don’t even one when you stop being tired. I don’t even have advise at this point on how to overcome. Many are fortunate to have family, friends, values and faith that guide them through what seems overwhelming. Some do not. Maybe clinging on to the few things that are consistent is the right start.

Whatever the answer is, we are listening. I guess in the end, whether you are friend, foe or stranger, if you can help someone, in a way you are helping yourself by given yourself a sense of purpose and achievement in making another life better, even for a moment.

I saw you yesterday hypnotizing my emotional frailty like a circle in the wall spinning away from my mind

Writers and prophets tattoo forever a moment in time etched into the foundation of compassionate retreat

The words spray painted in our minds, dripping of blood from the crying children of yesterday

Home is a friend in need when the need of friendship is the glue holding us apart from a puzzle that has no end

Chimes of the passing seconds erase now leaving only memories hidden over our shoulders in the distance

We retreat to the safety of danger awakened by life and frightened by the notion of accepting our existence wrapped in the cornerstone of realistic fantasy

Dream away your life, live out your dreams

Tomorrow is the only way to hold on to yesterday

Act one, life begins and action….