Now the Revolution! It’s enjoyable to say the least. Alive with the present moment and spontaneous upon these adventures, I indubitably decided to join the scores of old wrinkly nudists from around the globe. I shed my red REI boxer briefs and became a part of the skin, sun, sand, and yes—the freedom!—revolution. Hallelujah! Yes, enjoyable, but in the beginning, cautious. Talk about bare-butt white, one has to be sure not to lie out for too long. But what beats all prospects of attaining a sore-full crispness with a sensitive pink tone is to swim through the cresting seas naked. Being [View Full Entry]

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Why Oh Why? “Never?” “Uh-uh.” “Not once?” “Nope.” “Ah yes. Now how about today?” I smiled. Where I come from it’s taboo. It’s labeled as a counter-culture; a flower child, a hippie, a youth in the presence of a rebellious act. Those who do could easily be looked down upon, or they easily could not. But by any means, it is universally restricted with only a few designated, well fenced-off and signposted locales often deeply out of view over the edge of a cliff or down at the entrance of a wild gorge. She smiled friskily when I spread mine broad [View Full Entry]

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Cramped in Crete The north felt old, beaten and subjected to the rigors of the tourist trade. It was everywhere; the mazes of alleys like a compartment store with a disorderly manager creating row after row of miasmal shelving. With this, I was excited. I was thrilled with the prospects of a search for a Crete bucolic in wilderness and lifestyle. Rich with minerals, Crete is a mainstay supplying the produce for the rest of Greece. And yet, where was this? I was excited to leave. I was excited to search into the lavishes of an arduous Cretan culture. An Image [View Full Entry]

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Through Fervent Seas Peering through the dark, ravished from a night on a bench with the soft vibrations of the ship’s engines, I saw Crete. My eyes shuttered. They wanted rest, to evaporate from the world surrounding and return to the forgotten lands where dreams relate to one another on a gossamer thread. But my mind; it singed my lashes and brows with the ferocity of ancient fable. Crete. I heard so much. I had a conscious tale of the Cretan in my mind. Who was he? Where did he come from? Half passed five o’clock in the morning, the land [View Full Entry]

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Slow roasted gyro spices and the waft of numerous cigarettes intermingle in a sea air aboard the F/B Lato. We leave a 2,800 year old port behind, our captain blowing his horn to a passing ferry less than half our size as we leave the harbor’s entrance. It’s a seaman’s greeting. The response is reciprocated. With the Great Harbor, commonly known as Piraeus, this horn echoes round the surrounding hills. In the dark, they’re illumined with stacks of geometric apartment housing whose lights twinkle as the skies above. Honestly, the harbor is much more beautifying in the dark. Daylight shines upon [View Full Entry]

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In Route From the Frozen Land People move in and out. A stream, often a torrent of rivers, merging at the confluence of the mightiest elements. It is an inexhaustible movement, churned in thought and action, speech falling over the tumults of smooth pebbles to rocky boulders. Whether you’re in the smooth stillness of a calming pool, or stuck in a white mass of water tumbling upon water, you're a part of it, whether here or there, you're a part of this massive flowing river. PDX, better known in a common vernacular as Portland Airport; that maze of the elements, the [View Full Entry]

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Put a smile on my face. I'm home, I have a job. I have family and friends within my life, there when needed, when lonely or drained, when sucked like a Pixie Stick of all the juices that would otherwise bring a sweet flavor to life. And then the memories, the floods and torrents of the moments in the past that brought me to where I am today. I know I haven't lost them, or slipped on that large, wild banana peel placed before me by the callings of everyday life. I am here, present, but distant in thoughts where I [View Full Entry]

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I'm at home, comfortable, within the western world; the western United States to be precise. A fire cackles. Spring clouds approach like sticky glue from a southern horizon, one dappled with the silhouettes of pines. Beside me; a dog on the left and two books to the right. One is by the Dalai Lama entitled An Open Heart and the other a book of poetry by Rumi. In the background, the hum of a fully automated heater adds choir to a Johann Sebastian Bach suite (Mass in B minor), emitted from a speaker recessed in the ceiling. My belly is full [View Full Entry]

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I wound further toward a most northwesterly point. The highway was littered with debris; rock, sand, dirt, remnants of trees from last week’s storm. I could make out the traces of mudslides in route, the black tarmac stained with the enriched brown of fertile soils. Slowing around each curve along the water, I looked as far ahead round the bend wherein revealed a cleared patch of earth, a deep brown scar clean of green mosses and ferns, or a fallen trunk laying in pieces, now sawed and mangled to keep traffic flowing. To my right the Strait of Juan de Fuca. [View Full Entry]

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Like a roasted bell pepper, you’re done: well-cooked, charred on the outside, burnt, spent. But on the inside, hidden within the veil of life’s fire-burner, you are soft and ready—ready for more. It doesn’t come all that easy though. After the months, weeks, or often only the days of travel, you return home to the accustomed life once left behind, and there, piled with new baggage you thought you were ready to unpack, you find yourself overloaded with a new beginning. And despite how many times you attempt to escape from this, seeking the bliss of freedom discovered upon the open [View Full Entry]

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