Hi friends, 

Just wanted to let you all know that I’ll no longer be posting to this profile because I’ve moved all my writings to a new website: http://ramblewithaplan.com/ 

If you’d prefer, I can send you my weekly writings on my current research in consciousness, spirituality and communal narratives straight to your inbox. Simply subscribe here. 

Hope to hear from you in other places online :) 

Peace and good,

I am a speck. 

I come from specks. 

I’ve been to love and pain. 

Love is my home. 

Delusion leads to the destruction of relationships.

I am strong. 

I come from enduring people. 

I’ve been to mountaintops and low valleys. 

Middle ground is my home.

I know that the world spins on without my consent.

I am content. 

I come from chaos. 

I’ve been to heaven and hell. 

Neither is my home.

October 8, 2015 Auburn, California 

Dear reader,

Nearly seven months ago, I set out to write and share a poem every day. The numeric goal was to write at least 191 poems. The “soul goal” was to better live into my given name, Dane, which I found out last year means poem.

The deadline for this poetic quest was my 30th birthday, which is October 8, 2015, meaning this journey of publicly sharing my words and thoughts has come to an end today.

I didn’t reach my goal of posting 191 new poems. Instead I landed at 177 shared “rambles” – as I’d come to call these posts because of their random nature.

These rambles were shared from pubs in Chicago, old houses in Fargo, beside lakes in Minnesota, within jungles in Nicaragua, and from hilltops in California. (One day, I even wrote pieces of a ramble that developed during a busy day of travel through Managua, Houston, Los Angeles, and Sacramento. You can read it here.)

Though I missed my target, I don’t feel like I missed out. In fact, it was the days I failed to post that were some of the most poetic; filled with love, connection, full life. And it has been the experiences that I still can’t put into words that have been the most transformative. Life, in the fullness of its beautiful ambiguity, is tricky to describe. There were days that I would’ve rather posted a blank page and said, “enjoy this digital respite; it’s in the blank silence that you’ll find raw poetry.”

What this writing challenge showed me is that honestly conveying the layers of life we encounter on a daily basis requires attention, presence, gratitude, and curiosity. Some days I felt like I stewarded my name well by embodying these qualities. On other days, I felt like a fraud – in an endless state of becoming.  

Publicly sharing my posts revealed to me how private I’d like to remain. I thought the public sharing would enlist some form of “crowd-enforced” accountability. Instead, it compelled me into being vague in my descriptions of life in its layers out of a desire to protect feelings and perspectives that I didn’t feel prepared to endorse with written word. Many of these rambles contain incomplete vulnerability…which leave much to be wanting. Sorry.

Only the truth, as far as I could grasp it, felt worthy of sharing.

As I continue seeking truth, I’ll continue writing about it in my rambling fashion. And, as I continue to understand what these truths mean to me, I’ll work to convey them to you. This will no longer happen on a daily basis, but, God willing, it will still happen when it happens.  

This challenge has shown me that poems are written and poems are lived. And this is especially true when your name means poem.

Thank you for reading.

Peace and good,

October 1, 2015 Auburn, California 

To start, I drafted some thoughts on how all of human history has been anchored in fickle human memory. Meaning that we inevitably perpetuate what can’t be forgotten. That’s history. 

Then, I thought it’d be fitting to write about the inner conflict of vocational decisions. How strange to feel called to eros when my psyche so loves to be deprived of love. A monk’s robe would wear well on my ego.

It rained today, so there were thoughts about focusing on the smell of dirt and clarity in the sky, but then I got a phone call about a funeral and stepped away from work that suddenly seemed like a planet removed from my reality.

Upon reflecting, I had hopes that I could convey the very weird process it took, mentally, to even write what I’m sharing now, believing that my background elucidation on the chaotic scenario that permits me to move thoughts to paper would be as entertaining as a Wes Anderson film. But, alas, I’m mediocre at best.

September 7, 2015 Chicago, IL

If we lived in a world of logic, we could logically solve our problems.

We could create systems to counter challenges,

And good sense to settle differences.

If we lived in a world of logic, we could end our wars and famines.

We could lend a helping hand,

And decipher the needs from wants.

If we lived in a world of logic, civilizations would be more civil.

We’d honor law and order,

And this order would present as practical.

But we don’t live in a world of logic.

Because we’ve got hearts that thrive in mystery.

We’ve got thoughts that lack clarity,

And feelings that hide in the dark.

We don’t live in a world of logic.

Because we yearn for what we can’t see.

And know that measurements can’t convey everything.

So how do we settle our differences — finding what makes us the same?

When facts and figures are lifeless,

And true value is touted as priceless?

We root in our ancient history.

Recall stories that spoke of who we could be,

If only we could win the favor of gods.

We use story to rally our country to fight.

And narrative to prove our beliefs are right,

Even if we’re only talking to ourselves.

We tell stories to feel and relate; heal and propagate.

And everyone has a story to tell.

Though logic could better solve our problems.

We’re not entirely logical;

Which makes this world a messy place to be.

How do we make sense of anything?

We tell stories.

Why?

September 3, 2015 Chicago, IL

Root your desire in the audaciously unattainable.

Aim for your impossible.

The greater the goal, the greater the growth.

We all become what we hope for after all.

Aren’t we living this same short life?

Let’s live then.

Endure trials and suffering; belief and wondering; dreams and longing.

If we are to grow beyond our limitations we must dare to desire something that will draw us into fire.

August 17, 2015 Chicago, IL

I began my search for nature in Chicago's busy streets.

For a mile and a half I walked along the riverfront and past the Merch Mart and then found some greenery springing up on a mound of dirt that a construction site had placed to the side. The grass was reaching out and up, like a patch of children wanting to be held.  

This was my first sighting of a natural occurrence.

The cranes were out building along the river walk, dumping concrete and gravel into forms beneath the ripples of mucky water.

Eventually, there will be hard surface here, and we will walk where the water used to flow.

Nothing makes me more aware of my love for undisturbed natural beauty as a city that's bulldozed entire ecosystems to make a new, unsustainable, and negligent one.

I took a deep breath and tried to center myself, that’s when a bus shot exhaust in my space. I breathed in toxic air. The oxygen has been claimed by convenience here.

Then, while waiting to be told I was allowed to cross the street by the blinking white man, a dog sniffed excitedly at a mushroom that had shot its way through a crack in the sidewalk. This dog smelled something natural, a fungus, but a natural something nonetheless.

The owner pulled him away from it, scolding his curiosity.

Even the dogs are trained to be wary of what’s natural here.

August 9, 2015 Auburn, CA

I’ve reached a point in this daily writing discipline where I am tired of sharing things publicly. I feel I’m only doing this because I’m just two months away from having accomplished what I set out to do. 

Truth is, I’m a private person and remain intentionally general and vague in most of my writings, which is why most of my writings probably haven’t meant much to you. 

I know that it’s in the detailed specificity of sharing some longing or hope or hurt or joy that readers can plug in and see their own lives being lived outside of themselves. I’ve loved every writer who’s written my pain and hope more eloquently than I could share. Writers are servants to every reader disabled in expression or thought. Great ones say what I won’t and pray what I don’t dare.

Forgive me, reader, for being so half-assed and guarded with you. I know that this should change. This is not what I had in mind. Self-preservation is lifeless, but comfortable. For your sake I will aim to make myself uncomfortable and love you as others have loved me – by scribing the truth that I couldn’t bring my own heart to admit.