As the twelfth day nears I make some promises
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under Affirmation, Journal
Later tonight or early tomorrow, Eastern Standard Time, I will post the "Twelfth Day" entry on my little mini-project. Barring an act of a bemusedly puckish God, it will feature a lovely lady who has never before appeared or been mentioned, even obliquely, in my blogs. Neither lover nor close friend, I found this one picture of her quite amusing and felt it would set off my usually earnest-to-the-point-of-imploding-from-his-own-gravitas image.
Also, as I overload my senses with music designed to spin me up a few more levels of hyperactive ("All She Wants to Do is Dance" by Don Henley. "Cradle of Love’ by Billy Idol. "Take Me Home Tonight" by Eddie Money. To name three examples…) I also wish to give my New Year’s Resolutions, but in an unusual manner.
I present to you five mantras, five quotes, that I promise to try and take more into myself to make myself a better person and a better Evangelist for the faith of the poets.
- "Boldness has genius, power and magic in it." - Wolfgang von Goethe
- "Be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid." - Basil King
- "Character is what you are in the dark." - Dwight Moody
- "The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong." - Mahatma Gandhi
- "All God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring." - Chuck Palahniuk
So, I guess, in distillation, I am saying this year I will try to be bolder, more forgiving, less boring and show more character. I won’t promise perfection. That would be neurotic. But I promise a few miracles on this road, well past Damascus and on track for Rome.
New Years’ descending
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under Affirmation, Journal
New Years’ is upon us. Many of my nearest and dearest are already on the other side of that wall, and I wish them all, all of them, great joy, empowerment and hope in the new year.
Me? I have a path and a plan. This time it’s mine, not driven by what others say they want of and from me. Not to say I plan to take the ride alone, I just won’t allow the whim of others to throw me. No shame to those who disappointed me or confounded me in the past, I’m just doing a Crazy Ivan in reverse and setting all focus forward.
In seven and a half hours, the past is past.
Thanks
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under Affirmation, Journal
I just wanted to take a few moments and thank a few of you, all of you, for the blessings I enjoi.
I want to thank my sons and my daughter for just being alive and well and strong. I don’t get to see Peri as much as I would like, and our relationship was badly fractured by any of a thousand insults, real or imagined, that happened along our paths, but she is still a wonder to me. The boys? While each has certain traits of mine, it is miraculous to see their lives unfold before them. Elric and Dante, more homework, less Warcraft.
I want to thank my parents and my siblings, my grandmother, who at 97 is in her waning years but still confronts life with the fire and determination I have always known her for.
I want to thank God for my life and the paths I have trod.
I want to thank the American people for choosing change in a time when they could have easily played it safe and condemned us to four more years of madness. Pray for the new President and his administration.
I want to thank those who have moved in and out of my orbit in this past year, some for a time, some for all time. Love to all, even those who cannot and will not embrace the possibilities of life. Peace, and may your path be as joyful for you as you can accept.
Thanks for the long-time friendship of such people as Theo Huffman, Dan McTaggart, Bob Wasson, Barb Holmes and Jazz, as well as new friends like Liza Lorraine, Annette Kennealy, Guru Prasad and Axilea. Special thanks to those who are just beginning to enter my universe. Welcome to the colours of chaos and delight, I will be the experience you are able to comprehend, for I am just a mirror or lens. If you see darkness, it is your own darkness. If you see joy, it is proof of the beauty within you.
Thank you to everyone who returned my calls, answered my emails and put up with my moods and my jokes. Truth requires communication. Lies embrace the violence of silence.
Thanks to Vox for facilitating me in giving the most important performance I will ever give.
Thanks to the Nancies, Lauri, Ann, Jan, Tigana, Dar, Robin, Karla and Aubergine for the time you spent in my sphere and allowed me into yours. I am richer for it and hope that you are well, strong and content. My loss is my gain, for in grief I find truth and beauty and motive force to express these things.
Just thank you, all of you. I know I have been petulant, demanding, confusing, difficult and occult at times, but my intentions are good and I am still learning. Let me find more ways to be good to the world and those in it.
Amen.
I have returned
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under Affirmation, Poetry, politics
for what it is worth, for what there is…I have finished my exile. Today, November 1st, I am back in this world.
I apologize to you who worried needlessly, as to my health and safety. I am fine, and strong and well. I just needed a time to walk paths I would not normally, to breathe the ether. I have filled my lungs with my native atmosphere and now dive back into the world through which I must swim.
Later today, early tomorrow, at latest, we will begin posting the new CD "truth" to williamfdevault.com
I am announcing that I have pivoted to reality and will be casting my vote for Barack Obama on Tuesday. I still wish it was Hillary Clinton I was voting for, but the decision of the McCain campaign to select so odious a running mate as Sarah Palin has driven me to take action for the survival of my country and the freedoms we enjoy.
New book? Sooner than you might expect.
To all of you who have regularly visited the Amomancer blog and kept it alive and well, I thank you. Your devotion is touching.
I do need to clean up the feeds and referral/subscription subprocesses, they were vandalized in my absence. Trust, like love, is just word until made manifest in action. I live, I learn, I grow and evolve. I am stronger and smarter than I was not so long ago.
Barbara, again thanks for the interview and the concern. Mariya, for the inspiration. Liza, for the understanding. Jazz, the heat. Sarah, the vision. Robert, the trust. Pam, the consistency and strength. Elric and Dante, the clarifying joy. Peri, for being my crucible lens. And to God, for all these things, and all there is.
We still have, by all rational estimates, a few decades to do what is entrusted to us. Time for dreams and the dreamers.
moving beyond memory
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under Affirmation, Journal, Poetry, Psyche
Not possible.
To move beyond memory, one must forget who they are, where they have been and what they have experienced. A persistent vegetative state might make it so, but that’s not a status I have devoutly wished for in this life.
Today is August 14th. It is a crossroads date (someone with my sense of time and history has man) as it is the anniversary of one or more events, that cross paths in my understanding of the world I live in. My birthday is August 16th, Psyche’s is August 12th. For the five years we were together, we tended to celebrate on the 14th as a compromise date.
There are other things that have occurred on Thursdays, on the 14th of a month, even on August 14th, and in my morning contemplations it is remarkable to remember some of them and close circles and utter words to keep promises (I may be slow, often, as I forget or am distracted or given rationale to forget, but I generally get around to those oaths I have made) that I have made, in good faith, altered only by the external forces I have no control over.
In that context, you may want to check out a new poem I posted this morning on Amomancer entitled the mantra of severing, which is about keeping promises, even ancient ones, when they are recalled. There will be those who believe they know of what I speak, but to imagine that, in my entire life, I have only walked one road with one companion to one end and made one promise…that would be a very blissful life, and chaos still calls.
I once wrote that "memory is the curse of those who care". It leads us to a terrible and an arrogant place, where we think the world sees with our eyes and feels with our hearts, and knows us. When I was a child I used to blow my mind by trying to contemplate infinity, but one day I hit upon something more incredible to contemplate: There are billions of people on this planet, most (if not all) of them leading lives as experientially, intellectually and emotionally complex as our own. That many thoughts, that many emotions, that many dreams, and God knows them all, and I can never even know for sure my own heart.
We never move beyond memory. At best, we acknowledge the sprained ankle of life and adjust to the limping.
the return of the triumph
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under Affirmation, Dan McTaggart, Journal, peacat
Not the poem, TRIUMPH, but the sense of victory I have and had enjoyed so much over the past months. A part of me is still in shock, a part of me still writhes in pain, but a part of me is intent on locking in t mountaintop moments and feeding me the morsels and mould of those times.
I don’t claim to know anything about anything, I just feel that, I know that, as sure as God is in the rain, love is more than a transient state. There is much I would do to heal the wounds, much I would do to make things right, much I would do to acknowledge that I have lived, not an illusion, but something so powerful that every atom of my existence is changed for all eternity.
I may feel this alone. But I feel this.
And by this awareness, I am humbled and exalted. I am broken and purified. I understand a depth of emotion I had not known and probably a sane man should never touch.
I had a good working session with Tag yesterday. One question came down to the name of the press. I told him I was uncertain, as I had no indication, no sense, of how keeping the peacat name would be received and whether I would be doing more harm than good for and to people I honestly care about the feelings of. His response? (He’s getting cheeky in his old age.) He told me that every time I work on a project to for or with the press I would be reminded of something, of someone, and I have to ask myself if that’s what I want for the rest of my life and legacy.
My answer, after a moment’s pause, was "Yes".
A look to the heavens, a gesture followed by my now familiar cry of defiance:
"If you want me dead, you have to come for me in person."
Now that is triumph.
Barring a specific request to not use the name by the one person who I would listen to on the topic (and not some asshole who thinks they are speaking for another, I can talk directly to God (the priesthood of the individual is a cornerstone of the Protestant faith, for those of you who didn’t stay awake in Sunday School), no human is too good for my countenance), which I would accept, without question or rancor, peacat press lives.
We have two projects in the hopper, I am awaiting manuscripts on both, including a very exciting combination short story and poetry collection from Dan McTaggart entitled Best Man in Albuquerque.
contemplation
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under Affirmation, As such, Candy Tothill, Dan McTaggart, Dante, Elric, Evangelist, Evangelist Tour, Jezika, Journal, Karla Sasser, Larry Jaffe, Michele Beschen, Peri, Pink Jade, Poetry, The Faerie, Thoughts about Life, music, podcast, the Selke
The drive to see my parents (I am in to actually see my 95 year old Grandmother, who is in failing health) is always an interesting time, as it allows me buffered time to think out loud. Usually I get a lot of thinking and writing and sonic experimentation on the 3-1/2 hour trip.
This morning was no exception. It started as a ramble, dealing with lyrical issues on the new Evangelist CD, but then segued into an examination of my life over the last year. A lot has happened, many events and elements I could not have foreseen. Some gentle, some brutal.
All in all, I have come to a conclusion. This is one of the best years of my life.
I have reconnected with old friends I had no expectation of ever hearing from again. I have taken public stands on the issues of the day, been recognized for these stands, and made connections with people who have the power to affect things. I have loved openly and with abandon a woman who loved me in the same manner. I have broken some bad habits, written some great poetry, recorded some interesting material to posterity, helped a few friends get elements of their lives in order, saved at least two lives (according to the individuals) and published a remarkable book. I’ve learned new words and concepts, examined my own failings and picked splinters from my metaphorical ass.
There have been some downer days and strange pains, but when the scales are weighed, I have to say that if every year was as remarkable as this one, I would be the luckiest man alive. Most people do not live as much and as well in an entire lifetime as I have lived this past year.
I thank all of you who have shared this voyage with me, from the most vocal of friends to the saddest stalkers. From the constant to the mercurial, from the inspiring to the oppressive. From those who will still be a part of my life next year and for years and decades to come, to those who have now passed back into the grey.
I thank you all with profound and spiritual gratitude and wish only to say that, while I compiled a massive list of names to include here, I shall not. Some secrets are best kept. While I won’t lie to you, I will withhold that which would force others harm or pain.
I have some great ideas now to finish up those damn final tracks on Evangelist, and am looking forward to tomorrow with great hope, joy and peace.
I have no quarrel with any of you. If you have with me, that is a measure of you, not me. Being loved and respected is not a measure of a person, loving and respecting others is.
Namaste.
~so while hanging out in your corner...