Category: Rhetoric

Rants, raves, rhetoric and pretty prose. Poetry, philosophy, essays and interjections. Verbal Diahreah. This is a place for words that seek to understand, that attempt to illuminate and struggle to find a purpose. A diction of desire that’s developed from a dream of discovery. A trembling tower of pages precariously perched on the corner of my desk. Pull from the top and you’ll find some of my best work, but be careful for when you reach again the pages are sure to scatter about the floor. When you try and collect them and you see a few brief words that draw you deeper, making you wonder… making you question your own… Maybe you have some answers, some questions of your own, maybe we can figure it out together…

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Action, Disruption and The Climate March

This weekend, in advance of a landmark U.N. climate meeting, thousands of people are expected to gather in New York City to attend the worlds largest ever demonstration in support of action against Climate Change.  This event is going to be monumental and has the power to change the public policy of nations across the globe.  Although i’m not going to be there, I want to say that Nature of Motion stands with those taking part in the People’s Climate March and we will be doing our part to celebrate in Washington State.  Over the last few years, the Environmental Movement has evolved to become an extremity of the Human Rights Movement, and while this has been a bit of a confusing road, this reality reflects the truth – Clean air, clean water, a healthy and stable environment: they’re all basic rights shared not only by humans, but by every plant and animal with whom we share our Earth.  While the march aims to be something of a turning point, if we’ve learned anything from past marches and Human Rights initiatives, it will really be something of a beginning.  The true watershed will be when we adopt the values and morals of an ecologically minded society into our own lives.  Now, I’m not saying that world leaders and government officials can’t make a difference, like I said, the People’s Climate march has the potential to shift public policy worldwide, what I’m saying is the march doesn’t end with them making choices and taking actions, it ends with us.  There will be supporting marches in major cities around the country, and indeed around the globe, but if you can’t take part in one of these, or the march in NYC, don’t despair, I’ve gathered here a few resources and pieces of encouragement to help you keep the march going every day.  Here’s How. Continue reading “Action, Disruption and The Climate March”

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The First Connection

Without a car food is my fuel. I prefer only the highest octane available, which is why the warmer months find me digging weeding, watering and generally caring for the plants that nourish and sustain me. This is work in by the simplest of definitions – labor and sweat.  I put in effort and burn calories, and am rewarded with the like, many times over. Continue reading “The First Connection”

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Migrations

We’re all seasonal creatures. Try as we might to insulate ourselves from the reality of winter, patterns change, and with them our habits and routines. Many of us chase the seasons from place to place, as if they are beholden to a specific location.

Every spring for the past ten years, I’ve rolled down the same small canyon in Utah’s Wasatch Mountains. And every fall, I stumble back, penniless and parched for powder.

As the nights begin to cool and the days begin to shorten, my thoughts look forward to the winter ahead. But before the faceshots, before the early mornings and frozen toes, comes the migration. Continue reading “Migrations”

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Speed and Direction

To move quickly, we must know where we’re going.

Swiftness requires grace, which requires understanding, understanding requires purpose, and purpose requires direction.

In high school, at cross-country and Nordic skiing competitions, we would walk or glide the course as a team, or sometimes, with all of the visiting teams and competitors together. After these walk-throughs, we would prepare by warming up on confusing or technical parts of the trail, and accustom our legs to speed by sprinting along short flat sections.

We did this not only to prepare, but also to familiarize and relate, because without a plan or an idea there’d be no confidence, no assuredness, and our races would be doomed from the start. We’d never know which hills to save for, which parts to book it, and where we could squeeze out every last second. Continue reading “Speed and Direction”

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Waste

Waste is a human concept.  Nowhere else in nature can you find systems that incorporate this belief.  Just exactly when and how mankind created this habit is a mystery, although I’m sure Scientist’s would likely link it to the advent of agriculture or some such revolutionary occurrence.  Waste is a subjective idea, proven by the age-old adage “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure”, and it’s a notion that we have learned to merge with our beliefs of worth and value.  Through this amalgamation we have come to create a concept of waste that can mean many things, but always has a negative connotation.

Continue reading “Waste”

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Ambassadors of Action

 One of my high school teachers once asked, “Without speech, would there still be thought?”  At the time this stoner-esque consideration was profound enough to leave me not only speechless, but thoughtless as well.  I tried to imagine a thought without words and could only vaguely conceive of emotional inspirations that well up deep within us.  Music has a piece of this power, to convey thought and emotion without words, but in a way it borrows so much from speech and sound.

People seem to do a lot of talking, and a lot of thinking.  Unfortunately, they don’t always go hand in hand and at times we seem to say things without thinking about them, and conversely to think of things without talking about them.  Most of the time, this is all fine and well, after all if you’re not hurting someone or something with your pointless drivel then who cares, but words and thoughts have a way of turning into actions, and together these can have a serious impact.

Continue reading “Ambassadors of Action”