I have never served in combat.  I did serve in a combat zone.  The difference is the degree of danger, the front versus being somewhere the enemy is only capable of striking with a barrage of missiles and rockets.

Migraine Aura – Dread by Joana Roja

My disability: migraines.  If it is surprising that the US Military and the Department of Veterans Affairs consider migraines a disability, the reasons are simple.  For many migraine sufferers, the symptoms include temporary blindness, light sensitivity, nausea (which can and does lead to vomiting), body-aches, extreme fatigue, and severe headaches.  In fact, the symptoms can be so intense that a person suffering from migraines can be confined to bed for days at a time.  Imagine how this might affect a veteran – or anybody else – in need of a stable job.  Imagine how being unable to be relied upon to show up to work on time – or at all – would cause a person’s job to be in jeopardy and some employers to think twice about hiring you in the first place.

For some, the migraine amounts to nothing more than a mere headache, but lacking experience, like a man making an effort to understand the pain of a woman’s pregnancy labors, it’s doubtful even explaining it would paint a satisfactory picture.  Attempting it, I would say it is as if every single pain that you have felt your entire life afflicts you all at once, digging at the whole of your being, and all you can do is succumb to it and beg God – any god, even if you don’t believe in God – to make it stop.  Please, please make it stop.  I can no longer count how many times I have entertained how much easier it would be to end it than to deal with the intensity of the ache, and if I ever claimed to fear anything, it would be the migraine.  It is that painful, such that, when I experience a minor headache, I consider it much due relief.

Still, I cannot help but to count myself fortunate.  I find that Migraine Awareness Month is perhaps the most appropriate time to reflect on the good points of the condition.  I know what you must think.  Good points?  How can any of that have a good point?

Come close and I will tell you.

Migraines and Vertigo by Toni Takitani

You see, this condition has giving me something of a freedom I would not otherwise have had I been devoid of ailments.  The wondrous and fascinating thing is that, while I have lost jobs, and thus income, due to the challenge of migraines and what amounts to the seeming lack of seriousness and consideration given to the condition, I have gained something else: time to expand on my creative endeavors.  I have gained through loss.  I have learned things and have had experiences that would have never occurred had I lacked the burden of migraines.  I have made discoveries about myself, made choices concerning my life for the better because of the simple fact that I have migraines.  One reason I chose not to pursue rapping anymore was not that I doubted my skill but that I could not handle the environment, an environment that induced migraines with its gratuitously loud sounds, flashing lights, hazy atmospheres and high stress.  I recall that, after one performance a few years ago, I suffered a migraine so intense that I could not drive home afterwards and had to rely on a friend to get me back.  If that was not a clue to get out of the “game”, I do not know what else would have been…aside from being told my music was just plain whack, of course.

I find that, even with migraines, and even with them occurring more frequently, my life is more stress free than it used to be.  It is in this notion that I see something of a recompense for the fact that I have to deal with pain; that there is ultimately a balance, and that, because of this pain, I am allotted the time to be able to express myself in the ways that I choose.

The migraine is but one more lesson in a long line of lessons that allow me to appreciate the negative aspects of life, even as I rail against them.  The migraine is but one more lesson, which begs the question, how can I take what fortune I gain for granted?

I cannot.

Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining by Paparutzi

Perhaps it is too positive a spin, an apparent and outright denial of the reality of the pain, and perhaps that is what will be made of this.  Or, perhaps it will be concluded that the silver lining is merely an exploitation of a convenient excuse to indulge in my own inherent laxness (which very well could be the case).  Regardless of the conclusion, I can only say to you that, for me, migraines are an invisible enemy and an unconventional ally,  a Yin and Yang, a truth that I must live with day-in and day-out.  While I’ll not claim I am thankful for having migraines – because that would be a step over the line of crazy, and I am close enough as it is – I can indeed admit that I have benefited greatly from my enemy’s touch.  Dead and decayed bio-matter compressed over millions of years becomes diamonds and the waste products of clams become pearls.

My name is Sahm King.  I suffer from migraines and they hurt like nobody’s business.  Even pain has its silver linings, though, and things will only ever be as bad or as painful as I allow them to be.

I’m going to live forever…  Or is that too optimistic?

Tell me something.  What wisdom and truths can you derive from your own pain?

Related Articles:

• New Procedure Can Lift Chronic Migraine Pain Away (ny1.com)
• Placeebo as good as drugs for kids’ migraines (nbcnews.com)
• Migraine, Chronic Back Pain Tied to Suicide Risk (webmd.com)
• Surgical solution for migraine headaches offers relief, hope (channel3000.com)
• 5 Common Migraine Triggers with Excedrin Migraine (musingsfromasahm.com)

Reblogged from crunchedd:

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Here are some great looking pics that you don't see in your next-door ordinary waking life!

I'd say, you were really rucky if you saw these in real life!

Read more… 60 more words

For anybody who doesn’t know, this relaxes me, and I’m serving it up as inspiration…  The Klingon or Mongolian horde kind of inspiration…  Glorious!

“Balance” by Clearly Ambiguous via Flickr.com

I have made love with epiphanies
born of single blades of grass,
and dueled with shadows that,
at once, bore down upon me
with the weight of all my sins
and all my fears,

all as Ra rowed his vessel o’er the horizon,
vowing me safety,
and while Hathor donned her icy crown,
vowing me rest,

and at the top of the world,
as the heavens cried tears
that reflected the humble beginnings
of Two Ladies in dust and flame
bearing themselves through the void,

I could know the answer to everything:

that to Be
is reason enough

to be,

so when a dead poet’s question rings
within your thoughts and plays upon your tongue,
let the last note of the death knell
play itself to the grave,

for the answer to the question is,

to be.

To be,

that is the answer.

Reblogged from Reowr:

Keplers Supernova via Wikipedia

The volcano screams wrath
and paradise springs at her feet;

through tears and cries the tempest
razes the land with rage,
thus the affluence of the earth;

winds of opposing temperament battle one another,
Yin and Yang dueling and dancing,
and the sea swells to wash away the land,
and to shape anew Gaia’s face;

and in the heavens the hearts of the gods burst,
burning away their children,
sending them amongst uncles and aunts
to born we small things capable of
appreciating the beauty in the destruction.

It’s a pity the world has to be destroyed…again…  >:D

Reblogged from CARPENTER'S QUILL:

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Round softly

softly romancing

romancing slowly

slowly dancing.

*

Sweetly entrancing

entrancing stare

stare deeply

deeply fair.

*

Holding tight

tight snap

snap together

together trapped.

*

 Haunting repeat

repeat steps

steps perfectly

perfectly kept.

*

Embrace beauty

 beauty talks

talks music

music box.

Read more… 3 more words

The Parnassus by Raffaello Sanzio

You burn,
yes you burn,
inside,
and your heart beats,
thump thump, thump thump,
and can you explain it,
this agitation that stokes your fire,
as if Ares calls you to war?

Yet when you take up arms,
heeding that call,
attempting to cool the burn,
you find it…
nothing…
nothing at all,
as if the sister muses mock you,
holding a bar of gold just o’er the cliff,
a fiscal disaster
that could only end with
your body broken and battered
on the rocks below.

Such is inspiration,
such a sweet and fickle temptress,
baring herself and never disclosing the charge,
and you but a trick believing that,
someway, somehow,
you have finally caught the eye
of Aphrodite herself.

A-*muse-ing.

Sunset from International Space Station

He runs fingers along her curves
as she turns,
and the nightingales
lend arias to the dusk
as Venus smiles upon them,
and what Diana must think
as she beams with borrowed light;

What joy this must be,
the kind, which bears fruit
from a tree of life
sheltered in an oasis
born of a desert
made of grains shed
from a singular thought:

Let there be Love.

Public Domain – Franz Borgias Mayer | Wikimedia Commons

What I would give,
looking into the eyes of children
whom hunger befriends,
to banish this burden of mine
and place it upon their backs,

that their bellies may be full
and their cheeks fattened
and their eyes renewed of life and hope;

that their wonder be set afire,
a beacon beckoning the muse
to stir the impossible notions
that will one day be made reality;

that their love for their Mother
be shown in the nurturing of seeds
and the tending of the fauna
whose voices may be heard
by listening to the wind;

and that their reverence for good
be paid forward as the arrow of time
so that others like them
may know the same burden as they
and I,

the burden of happiness.

For as long as I can remember I’ve always wanted a daughter.  I have no idea why.  When I was younger, this was always a point of ridicule with friends of mine, who would always question why I wanted children in the first place.  It’s ironic because, now, most of them, who did not want children, have children and I do not.  Which is surprising considering the stupidity of my actions in my early 20s.  Let us just say the Universe has prepared the way accordingly.

This poem is a rewrite of a poem that was originally published in my poetry collection, l’aria onyx.

This is dedicated to Blu, to my future seed, and to every father who is proud and happy to be a father.

Photo by Carnaval King 08 via Flickr

You are not even alive,
yet I can see you set atop my knee,
tugging on and mussing up my hair,
giggling at the silly face I make at you
while your mother, pretending to read,
eyes we children over the edge of her fantasy,
a half smile playing upon her lips
and a gleam in her brilliant, green eyes,
as I reacquaint myself
with the wonders of childhood.

You are not even alive,
yet I can see you at the dinner table
surrounded by your very best friends,
little boys and girls come to wish you
a happy fifth birthday,
casting looks of confusion at your gifts,
little understanding how your heart flutters
with glee that befits your childhood
whenever your eyes trace the hard-bindings,
which captured words in a belly born of the earth.

You are not even alive,
yet I can see you sitting outside,
wondering at the birds and the bees
traipsing among leaves and flowers,
and when I come to you for a spell and a word,
I can hear you ask me
with the innate curiosity of your mother,
“Dad, what is sex?”
to which I know my only reply must be,
as any sensible man’s should,
“Let’s go find your mom.”

You are not even alive,
yet I can hear you in your bedroom
attempting to muffle the sounds of your heartbreak,
and on that day I will crack the door
and lean in, with my fishing pole and tackle box
and say to you, “It’s alright, princess;
come with me, and I will show you,
there are plenty of good fish in the sea.”

You are not even alive,
yet I understand that, one day,
you will be in the world, and I will
know those fateful words:
“Dad, I want you to meet him.”
And when you and he both arrive for dinner,
it will be all I can do to chain the beast to the wall
and to only show teeth when your mother
is not looking my way.

You are not even alive,
yet one day, I will meet your first born,
and relish in the happiness
of having another little one to spoil
and to whom to be a child with again,
and perhaps root on for the inevitable
giving of a taste of what you have given
your mother and I – love.

You are not even alive,
yet, one day, you will be at my grave,
and I hope that you will be able to say
that you miss me,
and that I did right by you and your mother,
and that I really was a great dad,
and that your children enjoy reading
and fishing as much as you and I.

From elfwood.com

What know ye of heaven
that ye speak such things
of thy maiden love,
charging affections
befitting smoke?

And to call that love,
should one conclude
such is want not for what is,
but for what is not?

For if thy love be divine,
a myth unseen and lesser
before the natural beauty
of all that is,
then must thy love be not
what is and, thus,
a poetic evasion suitable
to the fancies of children
who still dream of flying
about with faeries and dragons,
and men and women who dream
of walking streets of gold

after life,

delighting in the

ecstasy of myths?

They went to the scion of God,
who wore the Light as linens
about his form
and wings upon his back,
and they begged of him,

“Oh Fallen One,
who challenged the Throne
flowing o’er the brim
with hubris,
what say you, then,
of good and evil?”

And he thought an eternity
wrapped within the garment
of a moment encompassing
the breadth of the whole
of humanity’s time before
the blinking eyes of the Universe,
and he said unto them,

“What is good and what is evil?
You who would name me evil,
I who challenged the throne,
would say I am so for my way;
that I refused to bend
before my Maker,
and that I refused to kneel
before His slaves,
and that in my disobedience,
I am evil.

Yet in the same breath,
you cry out for freedom;
you cry out for equality,
to speak your truths as you live them.

You would say to me, ‘Evil is denial
of the chains yet we desire release’,
and to that I say you are, indeed,
evil as I.

Thus, good must be its counter,
the acceptance of the chains,
to submit before the master,
and to accept your place at His feet.

Those, my friends, are what I say to you
are good and evil -
submission and liberty.”

Reblogged from Writings of a Mrs:

Reblogged from Busy Mind Thinking:

Reblogged from Meanwhile, Melody Muses...:

She's tired,

so tired,

tired of lists and the

obligatory dance of the

well-worn rut, the

choreography of the

damned. So she's

letting go, letting

it fall, raindrops

baptising tear ducts

in a redemptive soak,

epsom salts of

grace.

Read more… 10 more words

Soulja Boy via Wikimedia Commons

When I was growing up,
I wanted to be hood
- like the klan -
and better off than my father,
real good
- like the Man -
I wanted to enjoy my life
with a sentence behind bars
- that is, RAP…you know, the sweet sixteen -
I wanted chains and whips
- not that BDSM shit,
but the jewels and the cars -

I wanted to grow up to be “gangsta”
but without that bang bang
that put Biggie and Pac
both in boxes on the rocks
and made them memories
and one a subject of
Machiavellian 7 year conspiracy theories…

That is…I wanted to fake it
while getting half baked
with half naked waitresses,
playin’ groupies for the hype
while maintainin’ love for the rhymes
as they lived their lives
jumpin’ from pick up line to pick up line
of coke trying to move up from the D—I-C-K
to the A-List.

And that’s why, today,
I can’t listen to this RAP shit,
’cause I swear I would burn a rapper
like a condemned Icelandic witch
back in 1656.

Satan Smiting Job With Boils by William Blake

There are no words for you
but these:

that you but bleat
and whinny
and consign to the grave your dismay
in the prosperity
and poverty of idols;
that the conclusion
of mankind is gray
as the onset of winter;
that chastity is
the notion of slaves,
and freedom is afforded to we
who will to create foes
of the winds and the earth,
of the flames and the sea;
and that delusions suffice
to satiate the appetites
of the starving.

Give you liberty
or give you promises
backed by chains,
I shall wager
you could never
know the difference.

So spake Perdition.

Reblogged from MT BLU ~ LIFE AND LOVE:

Reblogged from Angies Grapevine:

Reblogged from :

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Don't hold your breath.

You'll miss out.

Why not?

You know you want too....

Make sure there are no bumbles inside.....

First!


The Holler roses are showing off!


A little pride is good for everyone.

Especially you!

Happy weekend from The Holler!

Read more… 5 more words

I also heard about the “Twitter” backlash.

My quick take, then I’m finished.

First off, anybody who says a Mexican-American cannot sing the National Anthem should be deported on the grounds that the person who said that is clearly too stupid to be a citizen of this country.

Second, THIS IS A CHILD!  Seriously.  A child.  You’re going to get on Twitter and talk shit about a child?  Really?  Not only should you be deported, but you should be sent to a CIA black-site and waterboarded for good measure.

Third, and this is technicality.  Isn’t anybody who lives on the continents of North and South America technically American?  In fact, why do we even call people from the US Americans, as if we’re the only Americans?  And when, in history, did American come to mean black or white?  I’m not aware of American being an actual race or ethnicity.

I’m seriously asking.

You’re pretty much a douchebag if you’ve the gall to get on Twitter, or any other forum, and debase a child of any color just because the kid isn’t your race.  Get over yourself.  It isn’t his fault you can’t sing.

Okay, so, it appears that WordPress has some sort of issue with .gif images over a certain size.  I could probably reduce the size, but then it might be too small.

There is a solution, though!

If you’ve downloaded the image and saved it to your own media gallery, do not add the image from the media library into the post.  Do the following instead:

1. Go to Dashboard>Media>Library.
2. Find the gif and click “view” beneath it.  This will take you to the attachment page.
3. Once you get to the attachment page, right click on the image and select “view image” (if you’re using Firefox) and copy the image url or “copy image location/url” (if you’re using Chrome).
4. Once you’ve done that, go back to your post and insert the image using the URL that you’ve just copied.

If you’ve followed the steps, when you post your post, the .gif should work just fine.

In retrospect, I may need to simplify this, somehow.  Any suggestions would be great!

Reblogged from Busy Mind Thinking:

PEOPLE!

You know, I’ve been thinking, I haven’t given out an award in about 8 or so months.  Why?  I have no idea.  Probably because I’ve always wanted to make my own award and give it out.

So I did.

I call it the FAB Award!  What does FAB stand for?  FRIGGIN’ AWESOME BLOGGER!  The first word was originally something else, but I figured nobody would take too kindly to an F-Bomb in the award.  I mean, I would, but I thoroughly enjoy F-Bombs.  All jesting aside, allow me to present to you the FAB Award!

FAB Award Version I

I had to do this off of an After Effects Tutorial.  I figured, why the hell not?  I haven’t seen any .gifs floating around and figured this would be pretty cool as an award!

Okay, first, the rules for the FAB Award!

1. Refer back to the blogger that nominated you for the award!
2. Tell us something about yourself, but not just anything…  Really boast about yourself.  Why?  Because you’re FRIGGIN’ AWESOME, that’s why!  Tell us why you’re awesome, and make us believe it!  You can do this in as many points as you like, but I’d recommend 7-10.  You’re AWESOME!  Show off a little bit!
3. Nominate as many other bloggers as you like.  No restrictions on this one.  You have one or one thousand bloggers you think are awesome, nominate away!  It’s up to you how many bloggers you nominate!
4. Lastly, name one thing that adds to your happiness and why!  That’s it!
5. Don’t forget to save the image!  Or you can just copy its link.  (I’d save it because I’ve this habit of deleting my posts and media files about every six months or so…).

Have fun with this award, if you dare.  I know, it’s kind of rudimentary, and I’ll probably update it in a couple of months (when I can upgrade my computer).

To get this kicked off, I’m going nominate some bloggers I think are Friggin’ Awesome Bloggers!  If I don’t nominate you, it doesn’t mean I don’t think you’re awesome.  It likely means I’m either not very familiar with your blog, suspect you, like me, may not be fond of awards, or I’ve yet to read anything on your blog at all and it would be disingenuous of me to award you not know anything at all about you!

Now for the nominees!!!

12.00

Out of a Pure Heart Ministries

Life and Love

5 Degrees of Inspiration

My Voyage Through Time

R.b. Holbrook

Michelle Proulx – The Blog

Cindy Knoke

Bastet and Sekhmet

The Ranting Papizilla

Lady or Not…  Here I Come

Squirrelly Writer

Legends of Windemere

Liars, Hypocrites & the Development of Human Emotion

Busy Mind Thinking

Kvenna Rad

Why?  Because Science.

The Lyceum

Readful Things Blog

Leanne Cole Photography

Betty Generic

KingMidget’s Ramblings

Calliopes Lyre

Ladysighs

Iamforchange’s Blog

Beautifulorange

WritingsofaMrs

A Window of Wisdom

Shainbird

Virginia the Viruliferous

Faces and Places and Wide Open Spaces

Michele D’Acosta

I’m going to go ahead and throw in Kieran “Baldy” Davis, too!  Why?  Because, even though his blog is closed, he’s still an awesome MOFO!  Word up!

Okay, people!  I’ve nominated you, but I’d like to stress to you that you’re under no obligation to participate.  You’ve all a lot on your plate, I understand, and other things you’d rather be posting, and these .gif images take up space, so it’s completely understandable.  This is just my way of saying to you that you run a pretty awesome blog and, as such, you’re a friggin’ awesome blogger!  BAM!

I only do this once every 1000 years or so, so…yep.

Go forth, my friends, and award!

wikimedia commons

yesterday’s topic:
tomorrow is much too late
to begin living.

Dies righteousness;
comes tomorrow when
sun denies day
and moon betrays night
and hell devours heaven,
beneath earth,
heaven devours hell and
night betrays moon and
day denies sun.
When tomorrow comes,
righteousness dies.

Reblogged from MT BLU ~ LIFE AND LOVE:

Image by Sheila Blige

Death was in the box
until, he too, had a thought
beyond the edges.