As I sit and listen to Thrice's The Alchemy Index: Fire & Water I find myself stunned by the concepts and imagery of this these albums, the sheer musicianship and Thrice's ability to translate the elements of fire and water into music leave me at peace.

Today is the day that the new Jimmy and Thrice albums come out. You can bet the next two days will be consumed listening to them.

I cannot wait for the new Thrice disc next tuesday.

It's been so long, and tin cans and string for years
is all that we've known, could it be you're really here

'cause my eyes are open, and everything still moves in slow-motion,
breathless and blue, and behind your eyes the sea
oceans of light envelop me

but things can't be as they seem, I'm so far from home
this must be another dream, but my eyes are open

and everything still moves in slow-motion,
breathless and blue, and behind your eyes the sea
oceans of light envelop me

my eyes are open, and everything still moves in slow-motion,
breathless and blue, and behind your eyes the sea
oceans of light envelop me

Drowning in the attic,
behind a wingback chair,
the silence keeps a bearing on my footsteps,
maneuvering across the bearskin rug,
to the fireplace, a certain
sacred space for the ashen logs.
The hunter green blanket housing your breathing,
a clear description of the distance between your lips and mine.
You have those morning eyes, the seams of your eyebrows
slightly arched to the glow of the fire,
deep in your hazel eyes atop
your lips, hanging open in a breath.
Soon the corners of your mouth will pull back to
form a smile, as you slowly shift your body under
the weight of the room.

To Be Educated

College is constantly being called "higher education." With harder tests, more reading, and challenging subjects, college has always been looked upon by adults as being something one must do to succeed. "You need to go to college to get a good job. You need to get an education."
But what is an education? Is it memorizing the process of the transcription of DNA or knowing all ten sections of a communication brief outline?
I had a class last semester. It was a "poetry workshop," where we sat around and wrote and read poems. Rarely did we have homework, and we never had any tests. Yet at the same time, I had learned more in that poetry class than I had in any other class I had had. How was I educated? Was it the teacher? Was it the class format?
This semester I have an advertising class, which I absolutely hate. My teacher gives us word definition upon word definition and makes us remember model after model, much like high school. But the thing is, I don't remember much from high school. What I do remember is what I made come alive to me, such as the history of the United States.
What my teacher this semester doesn't understand is that rote repetition and memory does not educate a person. I've often asked myself if I will actually apply the many facts and ideas that I have "learned" at college. Or will I just be hired because I showed enough hard work to make it through college and graduate with honors?
The longer I live, the more classes I take, and the more people I meet I come to realize that education is nothing but the resonance of a truth in my life.
As a child growing up, I can remember my parents making me do things and telling me things I just didn't get. Go to bed early, go help your father change the oil, save your money, etc. I rebelled against that advice not because I didn't want to be educated, but because I didn't see any truth in any of those things. Why should I save my money? Changing the oil in the car? I would rather go and play wiffleball with the neighbors. But now, a decade later, I find myself wishing I would have learned how to change the oil in the car. I wish I would have learned to save my money. But instead I chose to follow the desire of my youth. I didn't look for the truth in the education my parents were trying to give me.
The best advice I can give someone who is entering college is to not to look at class as something you have to go to and be bored for an hour, but look at it as an opportunity mature and learn, even if your teacher makes you memorize things. If you have a passion or an interest in something, make it your major. Pursue it, because learning about something you enjoy and finding the truth in it not only A) makes you happier, but B) makes life a lot easier. Remember that its easier to learn from someone else's mistakes than to learn from your own.

10.3.07

Playlist:

Saeglopur- Sigur Ros
Boy With A Coin- Iron and Wine
This House- Edison Glass
American Swimming Lesson - Lovedrug
Hospitals Aren't For Lovers - Bear Colony
Eleanor Rigby - The Beatles
Fix You - Coldplay
M(us)Ic - Damiera
T. Kline's Decline - Days Away
Train Song - The Listener

Why God Doesn't Get My Time

I've been questioning myself and why I spend so much time thinking, reading, listening, and talking about music, as opposed to God.
Music is my passion. I listen to several hours of it everyday, and enjoy every second of it. However, ask me how much time God gets? Usually just a few minutes before I fall asleep every night. Usually, I am too embarrassed to come to Him, because I've went the whole day never speaking to Him or reading the word that it seems a little ridiculous to come to him and ask him to forgive me and help me with whatever situation I am in.

Constantly, I remind myself that music can't save me. Writing can't save me. None of these things I can take with me when I die.

I.
The arts, they start to unravel the past
like the weather undone by God
whom I haven't given enough time to
erase the dirt from my feet
A census on our hearts tells us we've
stopped beating, our architecture
crumbling and our frailty compounded
by the lens we use to examine each other.
But to snap the trance we live in,
would be to break the fibers of our flesh
and let the scales of our eyes fall upon our feet.

II.

Our lives are wrecked by death, utterly elevated
to settle just below where we
want to be.
The youth of an old man more imminent
than the wrinkles that hide his face
from the world, sick
with a human condition called hope,
buried six feet underground.

III.

Read some Emily Dickinson,
and learn to love someone,
other than yourself and
find beauty in more than words.
The inevitability of the indelible mark
some may leave with a kiss on the head
may warm the ice from our hearts,
the wrinkles of your eyelids clinging
to the long black eyelashes
sheltering you from the rain.

IV.

God come down
in a form other than the rain
because the clouds have
hung too low today.