Drumz an' Cemeteries

[starry-eyed pirate]

Some things can never, will never be articulated.  Some things can only, will only ever be articulated on a drum...

The drum I played at sunset tonight was made by a survivor friend, brother of mine.  I played for about a half hour during the sunset, in my back yard.  Under the great Norwegian Maple tree planted by my great-uncle Richard in about 1939 or there abouts.  As I played I watched and listened.  I saw the clouds against the sunset.  I watched as the shadow fell.  I heard a mother through an open window 2 houses up tell her child not to touch; "DO. NOT.TOUCH!"  I laughed to myself.  I watched a rabbit cautiously move across my neighbors yard.  {Maybe he's heard of me.  ::dove::

 _____________________
If you would have justice in this world, then begin to see that a human being is not a means to some end.  People are not commodities.  When human beings are just to one another government becomes obsolete and real freedom is born; SPIRITUAL ANARCHY.[ This Message was edited by: starry-eyed pirate on 2006-04-15 18:24 ]

[teachback]

It was just all a trick on myself and whoever was around. I mean does everyone who is born get a stone monument ?? To what end ?? I think I would rather have my dead body tied to a tree limb scaffold in some hilly Eastern forest and eaten by birds.

Boy, when you're dead, they really fix you up.  I hope to hell when I do die somebody has sense enough to just dump me in the river or something.  Anything except sticking me in a goddam cemetery.  People coming and putting a bunch of flowers on your stomach on Sunday, and all that crap.  Who wants flowers when you're dead?  Nobody.

[Gah]

The drums call up the spirits and they fill your soul with the momments of peacefulness within you. In Thankfulness and in mourning you share your kindness with your talents to the spirits you have raised. Later relizing it's a DEAD END!!!!

[Woof-a-Doof]

On 2006-04-14 19:04:00, starry-eyed pirate wrote:

  Then I wondered WTF ??  Why not just let things be ??  Why do I need to do anything ??  I mean I had this whole vision of finding my calling and being the artist I want to be and making good money and doing what's right all at once, and then I decided I was simply deluding myself.  It was just all a trick on myself and whoever was around.  

IFD Cycle

First there is the IDEAL. Being what it is, it is perfect. Good is second rate to perfect. And why have perfection get in the way of that which is best? Constantly trying to achieve that is exhausting for the body, mind and the ultimately the sprit. Enter the FRUSTRATION of not being able to achieve that IDEAL...but still try anyway, creating more and more frustration to the point of DEMOARLIZATION. Here we say fuck it while visions of our IDEAL flash thru our minds, further frustrating the situation. But, then because we have that IDEAL, wecan not just let it go...and so the cycle perpetuates it's self.

Some how the cycle needs to be broken...somewhere there is a chink in the armor.

Pirate I have a similar aspiration. No, I am not looking to re-vamp cemetaries...but it's an artistic dream just the same. Point is I have done similar things to myself, regarding my own dreams, hopes and aspirations. I have said Fuck It way to soon...Tisn't very fair to myself or to the dream really.

Regarding the drumming. A friend and I were traveling thru the country and we found oursekves in the back woods of Colorado, up near the continental divide, or was it Boulder?..anyway we stopped for some reason or another. Faintly, in the distance, we heard drums...WTF? Not just a drum....but drums. I didn't mention it to my friend for fear that it was a hallucination. We got back in the car and preceded up the mountain. The drumming got louder and louder. Finally, my friend mentioned the drumming and at last I could say , yeah, I hear um also. It took about 20 minutes to find the source of the sound. My friend immediately started busting on them, making fun of them by calling them tree hugging hippies etc. But I was mesmorized by thier prayer.

I say prayer because 5-6 years earlier I was fortunate to meet up with a buncha Ogala Sioux from N. Dakota that come here during the winter. They held New Moon Ceremonies once a month, which I attended regularly. The drums, as they used them were as you said, to articulate what they could not say...in any language. To illustrate that point...at the time I lived on the South side of St. Pete...Crackadonia. And there had been a group of Crack Dealers menacing the neighborhood and making thier living on one particular corner.

I spoke with one of the elders about it and he said that he would be glad to "take care of them". I wondered how an old man, easily 70 years old could effect a buncha brothas 18-24, but I said Ok, sure. His first time there he and some relative went to the corner, sat, lit thier prayer pipe, offered the smoke to the gods and began drumming and praying in thier native tounge. They did this three days in a row for almost 45 minutes each time. After that, there never any more dealers on that corner the remaining 5 years I lived there.

I developed several theories...#1) Prayer Drums work #2) The brothers may have been crack dealers, but as kids they were raised by highly superstitious mothers #3) The Crack Dealers as children were brought up in one scary ass church...and simply were afraid of the spirit world....Either way, it worked. The odd thing about the entire affair is that while they were doing thier thing...No one bothered them or even approached them while they were there...Fucking Amazing

Regarding the cemetary. I love um! Quiet, unassuming...peacefull places. I recently attended a family reunion in my families old stomping ground in the heart of Georgia. The old church..10 pews has an old graveyard behind it. Many of the old head stones were/are as you described. Once as a child. 3-4 years old, my cousins and I were exploring the graves and I guess I descided to climb on one of them. It toppled over pinning me underneath it. Oddly enuff, that same headstone is still toppled over and has not been moved since the time it fell on me. I asked around as to why it had not be repaired and I got answers like, "Whelp, we kinda think of you when ever we look at it"...It just seemed sad that no one ever thought enuff of the guy/gal burried there to restore the stone....but then again, no one really rembers who it was, and as you said, the inscription was barely legible. It still remains as was after they rolled the damn thing off me as a child.

OBTW Pirate...I visited my parents and looked at the statue my parents have (the one your parents have) and there was no inscription, just a dangling card that said something about "In heart felt appreciation" but it is the same one your folks have, I am almost 100% sure.

Om Shanti Shanti Shanti[ This Message was edited by: Woof-a-Doof on 2006-04-16 03:45 ]

[seamus]

That was the coolest 2 posts I have ever seen on this . A lot of times I go to an old cemetary walking distance from casaseamus and play my fiddle or national resonator,some times people walk by and look then keep moving.Too cool.

[starry-eyed pirate]

Hey Woof!

I appreciate your post.  I wanted to respond to it, but I wanted to have the time and energy to do it thoughtfully.  I have been workin' ever' day.  We're tearin' down an ol' barn so I'm too whooped to do much of anything lately.  Hell, by the time I get home at night it's alls I can do to get a frozen burrito in the microwave.  

Thanx for gettin back to me on the statue though.  I'll have more to write once we get the barn done and I've rested up some. Peace.

 ::dove::

[starry-eyed pirate]

IFD cycle huh ??  I like it.  Your observation, that is, not being trapped in the cycle/dynamic.  I know of a similar dynamic.  It's called the subject/object scheme.  Maybe it's even the very same dynamic but known to me by a different name(this is a common communication problem).  I've read your observations concerning this before Woof and meant to respond much earlier but I have trouble articulating and even understanding the abstractions.  Maybe I should fire up that last little bit of ganja I still got left. Uh...yeah...hang on... (:smokin:)...  

...The object corresponds to the ideal; the thing that is desired.  Frustration and Demoralization is simply the ego, or the subject complaining that it is not getting it's way.  

Sometimes the thing we want is the world or maybe even just some small part of it, like maybe even one person in it to be a certain way...  Of course the world is not the way we want it to be so we try to change it.  We want the ideal(object).  Really.  Is there anything wrong with that ??  Why wouldn't we want things to go our way ??  Well I don't think that there's anything wrong with that.  But one must be realistic, after all.  And one must learn to share.  

Awareness of the subject/object scheme comes and goes.  I aint no monk(though I've wondered plenty) but I see why they spend their lives alone in caves watching the subject/object scheme from afar.  In meditation they understand the metaphysical/pyschological/spiritual mechanics of sufferring.  The chink in the armour may be in acceptance of the universe and relinquishing attachment to personal self. Of course sometimes one must jump out of the way of traffic or be run over.  There is a proper use/non-use for understanding the dynamic.  

There is nothing to gain.  Security does not exist.  The self is an illusion.  

The subject(the ego, the personal self) wants something for itself.  There is no way to accomplish this. The self is an idea only.  We are made up of the same physical materials as the stars.  We are stardust.  We must act to live but we must act with detachment and not chain ourselves to our ideas.

$tr8 sabotaged many of us by trying to pry us loose from our own identities just when we needed them the most.  Some people are now so traumatized by that experience that they live in fear of letting go of old ideas.  I salute all involuntary prisoners of $tr8 for their strength.

I may decide to go ahead and become a cemetery-fixer-upper after all 'cause WTF anyway.

[starry-eyed pirate]

Somethin' like that...

Also dug the story about you and the headstone.  You know like it's cool that no-one ever repaired that stone cause the guy is dead.  The words are barely legible.  His childrens is gone.  It's OK, that is the way of things.  Such is life.  Let the rocks decay.  The Sunstar will one day consume the Earth. Maybe if I do pursue becoming a cemetery-fixer-upper I'll just keep that in mind.  Edie Brickell used to sing: "Ever'tin' is temporary, anyway". Om-Shanti.  ::dove::

[dragonfly]

[Anonymous]

Ya know Woof..in a way it is cool they never fixxed the headstone. In a way you personally gave that person buried there a new life. A new way of being and reconized in this present world. If you had not turned over the stone that peticualr person may be forgotten forever. But you gave them a place to be, a way to be reconized. You created a new existance for this person. People will remember now. Maybe not who, but surely that there is someone under this specific stone. You made this stone stand out from all the others.

Me, Id have to research why, what is the connection. Maybe this person has a history you could find worth in. Possibly a marker of some mystical truth you are intended to learn or discover there. I'd have to find out who this stone belongs to and learn a little about their history. Why did this stone ~ choose me...


Pirate, I adore your observations of this world. You process thoughts/ideas graciously and un-selfishly. I get it~ Thank you

omg, this was so obviously WD writing, LOL :razz: suppose I'll sign in, as DZ, still no clue what my PW on WD is, so .. I'll keep posting as DZ when I visit, which isnt often lately. 1-2 a month is a nice distance=) But it's my B-day, and I knew I'd end up here reading....Here's to the next few days being better than the previous 20 Birthdays.

<~Free LoVe and Naked PeAcE~> Join my cult today!

[Day Zero]

I apparently didn't sign in  :wink:

[Anonymous]

On 2006-04-15 19:40:00, Frank Discussion wrote:

It was just all a trick on myself and whoever was around. I mean does everyone who is born get a stone monument ?? To what end ?? I think I would rather have my dead body tied to a tree limb scaffold in some hilly Eastern forest and eaten by birds.

Boy, when you're dead, they really fix you up.  I hope to hell when I do die somebody has sense enough to just dump me in the river or something.  Anything except sticking me in a goddam cemetery.  People coming and putting a bunch of flowers on your stomach on Sunday, and all that crap.  Who wants flowers when you're dead?  Nobody."

 :smokin:  :tup:

[starry-eyed pirate]

On 2006-04-24 11:36:00, Day Zero wrote:

"I apparently didn't sign in  :smile:

[teachback]

It's so beautiful to watch the sunset over the appalachians from up in the nearby cemetery... Those corpses have a really nice view from up there.

[starry-eyed pirate]

:lol: yeah...we got some nice ol' cemeteries 'roun here...There's a real big one down the hill an' across the ravine from me, overlooks the Neshanock river.  I like to go up there sometimes on my bike and get high.  You can look down the valley to the southwest and see the curves of the river in the lay of the hills.  You can tell where the town is but you can't see any sign of it.  Bunch of real ol' trees and mausoleums, ol' dirt roads and rhododendrons all trained in the ol' school way growin in the real ol' section.  After the last tombstone, near the edge of the cliff theres a light trail that goes down over the cliff to a flat spot, still high above the river.  Lotsa cool little places to get high like that in Western PA.