An Angle of Repose

by Dionysos Maskaleris

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Since the time I was born and in all the many places that I have lived
I have traveled a razor’s edge between emotional pain and material pleasure.

 Now in Arcata I sit at a plaza of dancing children and simple farmers
and the sunshine and people’s smiles caress me.
Westwards onto nearby country roads
where I pass small farm houses and audiences of contented cows
I ride on wheels of wind on either of two steeds.
Some call them Bianchi and Kona
I call them Kerouac and Strider and they carry me to the winds of my soul.

 
Now as I walk over dunes of hidden sands - a place of primordial forests
of misshaped trees, lichens and mosses from the last ice age
here the Earth makes love to me.

As I walk through dunes of open flowers
of sand and wind
shifting infinitely upwards from the ocean
this poem also flies up
then flows into and out of me.

 
At this place between the thick dune forests and the open sea
is also the youngest forest in the world - it is the forest of my soul being born.

Though everyday of my life I still travel a razor’s edge
in this place on the Earth - in this place in my life
I have also found an angle of repose
where rests between the wind and the stillness
this poem.

*
‘Angle of Repose’ is a geological term for the most extreme angle that a pile of sand rests before falling.

 
'The Razor’s Edge' is a novel by Somerset Maugham about a man who searches all his life to find the 'Middle Way' a Buddhist term for living a life of not unnecessarily depriving oneself and also at the same time of living a life without greed and excess.

Arcata is a small college town [Humboldt State University] of about 16,000 people in Northern California where I lived for two years.

‘Bianchi’ was the brand of my hybrid bicycle.

‘Kona’ was the brand of my mountain bicycle.
 

Jack Kerouac, author of ‘On the Road’, a Beat classic, traveled as a vagabond and thought of himself as more ‘working class’ and as an outsider from the Beat mainstream. 

Strider [also known as Aragorn] was a character from the Lord of the Rings who ranged the wilderness alone, often for years at a time, protecting borders and fighting evil and was heir and king of a lost kingdom.

The coastal dunes by the Pacific Ocean of Washington, Oregon and California are now rare bio-regions of fragile ecological diversity and unique beauty.

I was a docent for 'Friends of the Dunes', a nature preservation organization in Northern California where I used to lead nature walks through a dune wilderness west of Arcata in Humboldt County.
 

Earth is always capitalized in all my writings because she is the Great Mother and because Gaia Earth is alive and deserves our love as she loves us.
 

{All Dionysos Maskaleris writings copyright or copyright pending}

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***

What i See

{Not copyrightable}

{In my mind’s eye - in my eye’s mind}
{Always hovering around us}

{Energy entities}
{And also}
{Always emanating from outside and from within}
{Upon every ones face - light lay lines}
{Angels and human souls}
{Every ones face}

{All are living mandalas}
{All this - these Energy entities are what i really do see}

 

 

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what i see

 

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