Sometimes, most times, men give away their gold at too young an age, giving it to a world that takes that gold for itself and then tosses him aside. This happens at 10 or 14 or 17 or 20. That kid learns that people cannot be trusted. He was praised, consumed, and spit out, and so from that point forward he ends up keeping his gold, what’s left of it, to himself forever, concluding that there is no point in further developing his gold because it will no doubt be devoured.
That boy grows into a man who lost something of his gravitas, who once had some fire in him but now finds himself living a sort of resigned life, a little passive, a little boring, a little safe.
So what to do?
Maybe that man needs a push down a hill or a strong kick in the ass or for someone to get right up in his face and say “show me what you got”.
That man could go dig a face-sized hole in the dirt, lay down, and scream into the earth. He could say aloud every word and phrase that he was always told not to say. He could cry, hard. He could break something beautiful or sacred, push past the limit in his mind and destroy a thing he knows should not be destroyed, finding that edge and going beyond it. He could begin to distinguish between machismo and masculine, machismo being the sort of living that stomps on the chests of others in an attempt to make oneself feel large, or one that drowns out the call to come alive by turning up the volume of the game on tv where others suffer in battle and play as he sits safely on the couch.
He could go somewhere wild and ask the wind what it means to be masculine, how to be both safe and at risk. Maybe he’ll find some of his gold out there that he gave away so long ago. Maybe the wind will tell him, like my friend Doug once told me, that the masculine has far more to do with the communal than the individual, that it is not merely defined by singular attributes of a singular man, but continuously molded around who a man is with other men, other women, and with all of the earth, unendingly informing each other, discovering in the process that he’s not alone.
That man no doubt needs to suffer again, which is something he’s been avoiding since his gold was taken from him. Not the pain that male boot camps offer that have become popular, where men pay absurd amounts of money to be screamed at and belittled, forced through the mud then punched in the gut. The people who run those camps are thieves, stealing what flakes of gold are left.
“Show me what you got” is not a mugging; it’s an invitation. Show me your pain, your resilience, your longing, your desires that you buried decades ago. Show me your faith and rage and where you’ve failed as a father or as a partner and where you’ve outshone galaxies.
Maybe the man gets pushed out, receives the invitation, and begins to pan in his soul’s river and finds little specks of gold, gold he hasn’t seen since he was a boy. That man got a little bit of his gold back and he’s not giving it away to just anyone any longer.
April 18 2026
Shake Stew - Lila
April 16 2026
from the 1935 National Parks Service Design Guide for Seats and Tables
from the 1935 National Parks Service Design Guide for Seats and Tables
April 12 2026
Please enjoy the great Charles Bello.
April 9 2026
No One Will Know I've Been Here
My tracks in the mud will rise, covered by leaves, soaked with water, the imprinted earth will recover into smooth ground. No one will know I’ve been here. What a relief. Seeds I plant will bud, grow, die, forever. No one will know I’ve been here. Love has been given to me, swirls around, leaves me, goes to you, leaves you towards another, forever. Light from the beginning or the end or underneath enters our atmosphere, hits my skin, warms me, some of it reflects off of my eyes, goes back out of the atmosphere into the beginning or the end or underneath, forever. No one will know I’ve been here. I heard words, received teachings, worked with my hands, have these two beautiful beautiful boys who are not actually mine but gifts from somewhere, and I tell them words, teach them, watch them work with their hands, maybe have their own kids. Forever. No one will know I’ve been here. What a joy.
April 8 2026
Yussef Dayes – Turquoise Galaxy
April 7 2026
Desire
When desire comes up against a wall of indifference, gets rejected or made to be small, then stand in the desire if you're able and discern the parts that stumble out of need and the parts that are rooted in want.
When I’m in need I get all eeeeeeeeee with me and please and “don’t you see me?” Need eventually hits a wall, which is a gift, albeit a hellish and painful one. The gift is the exposure that the only actual need I have is to be shown that I am unknowingly crawling instead of standing. On top of hellish and painful it’s also just the slightest bit embarrassing.
Not that I would know anything about that.
True desire, however, is so securely rooted in your being that it cannot be diminished by anyone, not even by your own sabotaging self. It can be numbed, ignored, stuffed down, but it is always in there, ready and wanting to be employed. It cannot die, because when desire dies, you die. And I don’t think desire grows, come to think of it. Maybe we grow in our courage to access it, in our capacities to stand in our already desirous selves.
Standing in desire transforms every thing, every interaction, every day. Standing in desire means that when I come up against a wall of indifference I know it has nothing to do with the true me, the actual me. It will hurt, without a doubt, because desire and longing are inextricably bound to vulnerability, and real vulnerability always involves risk. But the hurt is merely a beautiful indication that I have laid a part of me bear, making myself available to give and to receive.
To that indifference I can take my own fierce indifference, not to them as a person, but to their ambivalence.
Maintaining my desire will either transform their indifference or, if not, I can take it elsewhere to where it will be met and received and enjoyed. My boys will feel it. The art I make will be filled with it. It will radiate from me, affecting everything it touches.
April 5 2026
Lay Down
There are a lot of angry men. Some are angry at women, some at culture, the news, some at their bosses, politicians, some at their spouses or kids. They might listen to Joe Rogan or Andrew Tate, a voice from that camp. Others might be quiet, removed.
Kindly I’ll say why don’t you go back to Ohio and confront your father, or go to his grave and get after him there? Boy do they ever not want to do that. They want their rage, and taking it to the father requires them to act and maybe lose something. They stare past me into a landscape on fire.
It’s not about throwing the father under the bus. He’s already been there for a thousand years.
Maybe crawl under a tire next to him. Tell him I hate you I love you thank you I’m sorry I forgive you. You don’t even have to mean it! Just dip your toe in that river. See what happens.
April 3 2026
“He who knows does not speak. He who speaks does not know.” Tao Te Ching
Mystery invites us to pay attention. Mystery is not interested in explanations or definitions. It’s like a tap on the shoulder. You turn around and nothing is there but also, somehow, everything is there, and so you end up exploring, forever.
“He who knows does not speak. He who speaks does not know.” Tao Te Ching
Mystery invites us to pay attention. Mystery is not interested in explanations or definitions. It’s like a tap on the shoulder. You turn around and nothing is there but also, somehow, everything is there, and so you end up exploring, forever.
works by Lee Ufan
work by Lee Ufan
March 28 2026
BON IVER ____45_____ / Saal 1 / PEOPLE Festival 16
March 28 2026
Assurance by William Stafford
You will never be alone, you hear so deep a sound when autumn comes. Yellow pulls across the hills and thrums, or the silence after lightning before it says its names—and then the clouds' wide-mouthed apologies. You were aimed from birth: you will never be alone. Rain will come, a gutter filled, an Amazon, long aisles—you never heard so deep a sound, moss on rock, and years. You turn your head— that's what the silence meant: you're not alone. The whole wide world pours down.
Has anyone seen the boy who used to come here? Round-faced troublemaker, quick to find a joke, slow to be serious. Red shirt, perfect coordination, sly, strong muscles, with things always in his pocket. Reed flute, ivory pick, polished and ready for his talent. You know that one.
Have you heard stories about him? Pharoah and the whole Egyptian world collapsed for such a Joseph. I would gladly spend years getting word of him, even third- or fourth-hand.
