Category: Essay
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Mount Beckey
Biography of Fred Beckey Originally written on 07/11/2009 for a job interview. Somewhat obscure and averse to fame and the public spotlight, with only visions of unclimbed mountain peaks, first ascents, new routes, and woman, Fred Beckey is a climbing legend. Born as Friedrich Wolfgang Beckey on January 14th, 1923 in Germany, his parents moved to Seattle,…
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Memory
I wonder if all 9 seasons of “Scrubs” I subjected myself too, and how I am able to replay episodes in my head on command, has pushed other important, useful information, out of my cranium? I look around this room and have healthy reminders of things critical and vital to the path I chose to…
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Thoughts // Seasons
While lying here with the windows open and ceiling fan churning, I hear the traffic on the near freeway. I feel the warm air layered on top of a subtle chill that is winter relinquishing its hold of this space, and spring/summer moving in. It is in the moment, I realized that with the chaos…
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Something is Missing
What the hell happened to spring? Winter has quickly left our thawed memories and spring has sprung for the time being. Thoughts of rolling white slopes turn to the chaos of natures pointed words. Soon the skies will be filled with dark clouds from far reaches of open fields, across the plains of northern lands,…
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The Story of Joline
In 1993, while taking a poetry class at the U of M, I started an epic poem about mankind’s history, called the “Proven Life”. Though it is still not finished almost 20-years later (which seems somewhat appropriate), the central character was a girl named Joline. Over the ensuing years, she has visited some poems, and…
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Transition – Chaos
I have spent many hours the past few weeks, in quiet contemplation. Setting aside books, news, papers, pen; I allowed the environment, consisting of the wind, rain, snow, temperature, sun, moon, bird calls, raven squawk – any event to rummage around inside and surface an emotion or memory. Years have passed and some memories are…
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Finding Zen / Peace – Part 3
Carving out space each day, even minutes at a time, helps to build a zone within which we can live and escape to when the chaos becomes too much. By escaping, I do not mean to hide and pretend that these things are not happening, or to hole up and ignore the outside world. That…
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Finding Zen / Peace – Part 2
Each day provides 24-hours of space to fill with anything you want. Replete with challenges, obstacles, and things beyond our control, how we adapt and respond creates the experience we take away, and sets up the state of mind and sense of being for the next space. The most difficult aspect of a journey is those…
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Calm
There is a place of calm. A place where what is within and without reach an equilibrium and the two sides agree to a truce. Here the sun shines from everywhere or steps aside, allowing different shades from another palette . I have seen this place. I have taken a deep breath in this place.…
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Spring
Today, on the way home from work, all of my senses, all of my being registered today as spring. The smell of melting snow and things it uncovers, the partial sun, the air on bared skin. Spring. This is what the beginning of spring is. Spring is about renewal, growth, beginnings, life. I am filled…
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Finding Zen / Peace – Part 1
This is part 1 of an essay I am writing. How to find a sense of Zen and peace or moments of tranquility in the corporate-driven world? In this hectic, fast-paced, grab what you can, my time is better than yours world, what can we do with the time given to find a moment to breath? In…
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Haines, Alaska – 2010
In 2010 I had the wonderful opportunity to kayak in the Lynn Canal, near Haines, AK. Here are photos and a narrative. Haines, Alaska – 2010
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January 2012
Early January is not what we remember, nor what we mentally prepared for. October and November clenched dark days and long nights. What snow had fallen, already a distant memory. Earth caught in a transition, a seasonal purgatory as melting snow gives way to the air of spring.
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The End Becomes the Beginning
On this evening of one time period giving birth to another, one cannot help but to reflect back on all that has happened, and the impact these events have on each individually and collectively. What will the new time bring? We will continue to suffer, again individually and collectively? Will our spirit fight through the…
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Tree
In the absence of time and place, compassion takes control and guides the way further down the path. The tree taken from the land has become a symbol wrapped in white lights and ornate glass painted bulbs. The tree spins and dances beneath the rising moon and in that darkness leaving here, I run into…