Happy Christmas 2008

Since I was a kid I always loved saying Merry Christmas!!! To everybody, specially on Christmas eve. I felt like emulating old pictures like It’s A Wonderful Life and A Christmas Carol. I must admit I always loved “Nochebuena” or Christmas Eve best because I could sense the magical tone everyone acquired during the festivities. My paternal grandmother, whose family hailed from Catalonia in Spain, always prepared a gigantic nativity scene she brought from Tarragona. It included over one hundred porcelain figurines. She decorated a corner of her living room with corrugated brown paper painted with metallic tones of green, blue and red. There was a shining star, as big as an apple on the top of a blue wallpaper filled with stars. It also included the tall figures of the three Persian Kings on camels. Each king had its own entourage of servants and a squire. There was the donkey and the ox resting peacefully. Baby Jesus had a beautiful and delicate countenance. I stood there in awe of all the details in the scene. Somehow I understood the sacredness of the occasion. It was not the kind of mirth or joy that you felt during your birthday or when summer vacation started. It was a different kind of joy altogether. It was a joy veiled in deep mystery. Christmas was shimmering lights against a background of shadows, a flickering candle too fragile to handle yet so warm and welcoming. It has been said that Christmas, like the ancient celebration of the winter solstice, is the triumph of light over darkness. I do believe we humans, regardless of faith, come from a great energy source that manifest itself fully in our experience of love. We are a community of lovers so to speak. The birth of Jesus is an offering of love and hope. The season, the human season, call for community and connection with each other. Love is the most wonderful mystery there is. It dissolves the pain and the suffering that comes from the toil and hardness of life in this planet. To love is to heal, to be set anew by the great Spirit, to have a second chance, to give a second chance to others. This Christmas I will dare myself to stop being cynical about the state of affairs in the world. I have a world inside me that need healing and nourishing. It is time to shine our little light and rekindle the human heart. I wish you all a beautiful Christmas filled with mystery and love.

Harvey Milk: a true hero in my heart

Imagine having to live a life where the very essence of your identity and whole being has to be defended publicly and reassured constantly. Imagine a life where more than often you have to hide how and who you love. Imagine for a second that kind of life. I am gay, I know. I went to see Milk the movie yesterday in downtown Dallas. Sean Penn was remarkable in his portrayal of slain gay rights activist Harvey Milk. The movie, a biopic, was intense and committed to tell the truth pertaining this hero of the gay community. Having suffered a great deal throughout my life for both concealing the fact and revealing the fact of being gay really makes me wish nobody has to go through this ordeal. It has been a life struggle having to deal with homophobia. Homophobia is so pervasive in our society. Many times it is not that obvious, it takes rare forms, it camouflages itself. It feed on fear and ignorance. Harvey Milk reminded us gay humans to fight for our rights, our human right to be free and live a good life. Above all, I think his most important legacy was his courage, his daring outcry against an unjust society. The struggle continues today when in the vast majority of states in America a gay citizen cannot marry or be protected against job discrimination. In many nations around the world people are killed for being gay. I often become indignant and emotional when someone expresses their hatred or intolerance towards gay people. Ignorance and disinformation are usually the culprits of homophobia. Harvey demonstrated with his life that you have to stand up for what you believe is right. He also believed that gay people must come out of the closet so their family, their friend, their neighbors and co-workers stopped making false asumptions about the "gay lifestyle" . When I came out to my parents I was 32 years old they immediately embraced me and assured me of their love. My two sisters do not wish to acknowledge me being gay. My brother fully accepts who I am (He went with me to see the movie). Many old friends stopped talking to me many years ago. The majority of my extended family pretends I am not gay and that I am some kind of a loner for not having a wife. I still do not understand why people react differently being given the same facts and information about being gay. I do know that those who have decided not to accept me fully for who I am simply put do not know me. I will not share the gift of my intense, vivid, adventurous, blessed life with them. Harvey Milk makes me proud to be gay, a gay human who lives and loves in this world. I am grateful for being gay, it has been one of the most important aspects of my life. The gift of being gay has opened doors to self exploring and realization, it has made me more human than anything else in my life. I honor the memory of a human being named Harvey Milk, an inspiration, a hope, a committed citizen, a brother in arms.

Meditation Insights: Perception

My eyes are not a camera. It will not be fair to present all the snapshots I have taken and pass them as reality. I do not intend to reason on the subject of what is reality. The definition of reality is a conundrum, a social discourse, an explanation. Truth is not a picture. Many times truth seems to be a construction, us being the supreme architects. Truth is to be held in your heart. I mean Truth not the presentation of truth. Not the definition of truth, which is flawed by the limitations of language. Perception is a gateway to understanding the mystery of truth. I perceive as a sentient being. I am limitless in my Higher Being. How could I define or contemplate truth as something stationary, solid....the truth is...... I hold to the mystery of Truth. The mystery of truth is a gift to the human mind. The mystery of Truth is a voyage. Dwelling in truth is dwelling in love. May my perception of life and all other things that are not life be perceived in the beautiful mystery of Truth. I embrace the voyage, I am on my way.

A message to my teachers, wherever they might be.

To the Venerable Khenpos Kenchen Palden Rinpoche and Tsewang Dongyal Rinpoche, teachers of love and compassion

Mount Meru Mudra,

Is a castle in the heavens,

It is the commitment of the bodhisatva

is the light of truth,

it is compassion,

I offer my teachers

the first harvest of my love,

and in the festivity of Tsog,

I shall bring your eternal peace.

Dorjes in the sand

Let it be known,
The Great Conqueror set foot in this tropical island long ago,
unseen,
unheard,
unfelt,
He bathed joyously
in the virgin water streams that sprayed
the ancient Caribbean sea rocks,
and blessed all the creatures that were
unseen,
unheard,
unfelt.
He laughed blissfully,
his roaring giggles
sounded like a thunderous mantra
summoning universal harmony,
penetrating with its vibration all minds
unseen,
unheard,
unfelt.
You see,
I have found gilded dorjes buried in the sands.
I have seen endless rainbows when least expected.
I have observed victory banners unfurled in the deep rain forests.
I have heard long lost birds singing Om Ah Hung.
He must have been here, surely, before my people were born.
You see,
He still roams freely through the tropical pathways barefooted,
trident in hand,
radiating indestructible truths,
all pervading kindness,
ever shining wisdom.
In awareness, now seen, now heard… deeply felt.
– Héctor L. Urrutia, Pema Gatob, Puerto Rico

Meditation Insights: Darkness

Darkness is the ultimate generator of dreams and realities. I close my eyes, I dim my sight. I sit quietly in a dark corner of my living room. I am literally blindfolded. I breathe deeply and I go inside, indoors to a dark place full of possibilities. My mind reacts, it becomes restless. Impatient, I would say. The possibilities are endless. I get easily disoriented. I am back at the Mega store of dreams. An infinite numbers of items pass me by. Wishes, hopes, fears, disappointments. All responsible for my reality in the world. But I decide not to put any article in my cosmic shopping car, I am just browsing, window shopping. My meditation has taken me to a place of very little light but a lot of illumination. It is revealing truth in darkness, in a place with no name, with no preconceived notions or forms. I do not need the bright sun, nor do I need the raging fire. They could be distractions. I need silence, visual silence. To love the darkness as well as the light is to walk in balance, well rounded, complete. Funny, there are times where my greatest fears become ridiculous thoughts in the dark. My fear of abandonment becomes insolvent, bankrupt when I sit in universal darkness. I realize my interconnection with all. I could never be abandoned, I am with all. My resentments become senseless fantasies in the dark. Darkness erases away the forms and shapes of past rejections, perceived humiliations, downright indignation. No longer they have power over me for in darkness I have totally dismissed their foolery, their incoherence, their recurrent visitations. That strangest irrational paralyzing fear of not ever finding a significant other is diluted down to a muffled whimper. In darkness I recognize this master delusion, this Gordian knot. I see it clearly for what it is. A denial, a total divorce from my highest self. A misery play fed by my family and cultural upbringing to keep me in line, to clip my large wings, to keep me safe and secluded. I forgive them all. They too were afraid, frightened, scared of an overabundance of an unknown source of oxygen. In darkness I set myself free. I carry my darkness with me. It comes quite handy in glorious sunny days, in breathtaking sunsets, in warm summer nights. My darkness balances me out, it is a proofread, a Grammarian handbook, it corrects incongruity in my life, darkness gives me the full perspective, it sends me to the zenith of the mountain and dutifully shows me the countryside from the city, the trees from the rocks, the burning sensation of ice from the blinding light of the scorching sun. There are bright dark days after all.

Meditation insights: Kindness

Being kind frees your arms, your hands from grasping. I become obsessed with my desires and I become inflexible in achieving them. In my mind, once I have declared a wish, an attainable wish, I grasp ferociously to the idea. I devise endless plans and possibilities to achieve the goal. I create battlegrounds in the mind. I become the proverbial one man army. I defeat myself. A declaration of a wish is but a door to open and see if that is a sincere wish. I have found myself wishing for things, events, circumstances that belong to others, or at least have been suggested by others. It takes time to really recognize your real inner voice. Your inner voice is buried in the dim. Meditation is a beautiful silence. Is a peaceful walk into the forest. You might fight incredible treasures there. You must go in. There are no stop signs in the forest, no traffic lights, no weather stations. In the forest your only guidance is your soul, your universal soul. You walk by it. Kindness is the inner voice. Being kind to all creatures is bliss. Kindness is an integral part of the life force. Kindness is the outer expression of universal peace. Obsession is distrust of the flow of life (I will take care of this thing the universe is not giving me). Obsession is a tantrum, a senseless one at that. Open your arms. Give kindness a chance!

Thank You

In the early morning I go out

to walk the dog

in a wooded area near my home,

the light of the day is fresh

the breeze is crisp and cool,

the sky is so big,

and I wonder who could possibly

had made this amazing world,

the thousand trees,

the soft, dewy grass

the passing birds...

I leave a muddy foot printed trail behind me,

I sit with my dog on the quiet knoll,

silence surrounds me in the woods near my home,

silence, Oh Divine Love, surrounds me near my home.

The Muse

Take my hand that I may help you bring back the holy muse

back into your life,

and at ease she will look

for your lost dreams

and bless your inner fortress

with scents of everloving and firegrass.

There are flowers in your garden you have never seen,

there is an opalescent primrose and a red mango tree,

three thousand petunias riding proud in the eventide wind.

I will light a candle to show her the way,

a pinch of cinnamon and a sliver of amber will do the trick,

We will make wreaths of sage and lavender

to welcome her in.

In the woods,

among the rustling trees,

we will build an altar for her to sit.

Forever sit.

Fall is icumen sing cuccu! To paraphrase an ancient Middle English rhyme I read many years ago.... (It was winter instead of fall but that will do for now). An amalgam of thought have been hovering over me these past weeks. They all come like a boisterous thunder, all entangled and ready to awaken me in the middle of my ever present slumber. The election, the gay protests, the exile, the cold weather, loss, wonder, new environments. Change is constant. The Pink Cowboy is not melancholic as suggested by a reader, he is pensive, a little bit inhibriated by the diversity of change...the proverbial kaleidoscope of human existance a true example of this notion. I can hear a sad song followed by a silly children tune...it's not sadness, at least it's not sadness all by itself, it's celebration, dwelling in my humanity. I cannot bear being someone else in order to calm people's anxieties about me. I am a storm. I am somewhat easygoing and entertaining in the outside, but let me tell you: The fire flickers like a madman in my heart. The amazing display of changing colors makes me think about my life. Splendor before death. I see the changing trees that will be barren in a couple of weeks. Oh Nature!, you are a mother to us all. The Pink Cowboy rejoiceth. My poetry has always dwelled in change or rather the observation of change. To rage before the dying of the light like Dylan would have said. Rage becomes the climax of an irreverent coupling between man and sky. Leaves of many colors, friends, lovers, casual acquaintances, fleeting people on a rainy day, God, you and me.

Derision will not stop the Pink Cowboy

The Pink Cowboy will not settle for stability at the cost of stagnation. My credo is quite simple...do what you must do for your soul. Do not judge me. I too have my very own freedoms. I quit my job a month ago to look for a better life elsewhere. Texas was my open door. I took it to heart to start anew. My soul needed space, it also needed the longing from afar. It needed to exile itself from the Caribbean conundrum of the past 9 years. Thus spake the Pink Cowboy like an euphoric Nietzschian warrior. I was looking for a higher form of supplication. Tired of praying for the commonplace to occur I decided to fly away and place myself out of the carcass of oblivion. I do not to wish to become an entity that spits solipsisms and lays back satisfied at his eloquence. I am boiling mad and I want you to know it. The cowboy is pink not because he is girly or tender or soft. The cowboy is pink like a medium rare steak is pink and bloody before it becomes welldone. I have constricted my poetic nature in order to not sound deranged, maladjusted or unfit. But indeed, I am burning inside like the proverbial candle lighted at both ends. The sheer panic of being known as a problematic depressed sensitive man sent me down in to a hell pit of conformity and isolation. I am taking off my clothes and burning them. If you are insensitive to my daimon go away, do not talk to me. Do not dare to pull me away from my nature, my gods, my love. Thus spake the Pink Cowboy and it all came to be true.

The Restless Man Decelerates

A little bit over a month ago I quit my job as a photography editor and moved with my brother in the Dallas suburb of Irving. Having suffered from chronic unemployment and labor malaise all my life it seems that I bring trouble onto myself by simply quitting when a job gets tedious and unrewarding. That's my freedom. The Pink Cowboy has desires like anyone else, and many of those do cost money. Then again that's my freedom. What I do is not for the fainthearted, it takes guts to live with very little money and to start looking for a job again. I will easily settle for stability but never for stagnation. Once my beloved mother passed away in Puerto Rico I need it to get away from it all. You see I am a native Puerto Rican who never felt at home in that rather chaotic society. My life had become torpid and purposeless. I did not know exactly the remedy for my angst but I knew instictively that I had to leave the island. So Texas is providing me for a space much needed to nurture my nature. That's my freedom. My ever ironic freedom. I see beautiful men in the horizon chanting in unison...some interesting population I plan to civilize.....thus spake the Pink Cowboy.

Beautiful and Slow...Way Slow

The Pink Cowboy does not intend to contemplate the secret life of snails (their hangout bars, erotic massage parlors et. al.) but rather analyze the daily motions of the homo sapiens in a suburban mall. This little adventure in people watching has taken me to the rather small city of Frisco, about 20 miles north of Dallas. Watching the swinging people walk to the rhythms of rush shopping with fast bouncing full throttled legs was truly a sight to behold. The sexy cowboys strutting around with widespread leg distance, their fluffy ladies right behind tiptoeing their way through faux marble floors. I sat a bit disconnected at a sitting area in front of Macy's. Budding Mexican maids stepping out of bounds. Bending down to pick up the garbage from art deco bins. It was a kinetic revelation. Movement announced social positioning. The African American yonder quickly stepped in and out of the mall main entrance in tandem. Lazy kids from North Lake College slided into Barnes and Noble wearing t-shirts in nouveau faded colors. The nerd sociopath hovered over like a disoriented hornet. I sat still, watching the dance of hours rushing like demons. Running amok into some perceived void.

The Pink Cowboy has overloaded his circuits. In days like this I wish for a slow brotherhood of fellow pink cowboys. Breathing the big sky into oblivion.

Daffodils in the wind: Returning to May Sarton

The Pink Cowboy has found his way back to the Princess of Solace and Flowers, the ever perceptive poet and writer May Sarton. The Belgian American had the uncanny talent to look at her life with the serenity and wisdom of a Zen monk. When I read May Sarton's diaries I feel suspended in time, contemplating life in a multicolored English garden. Her loneliness is for some strange reason a delight of the senses. She is the original constant gardener. May rubbed elbows with the most extrordinary authors of the 20th century including Virginia Woolfe. The Pink Cowboy is not only impressed but touched by her candor. Her losses in life are akin to mine. Love unfulfilled, disdain for injustice. At the moment The Pink Cowboy is indulging in one of her most savory journals May Sarton at 70. These journals remind me no to cut myself off from the literary jouney. I have been highly critical of my own work to the point of verbal paralysis. Journals have the innate capacity to convert the commonplace daily routine into a flowing excercise in writing. I have been

keeping journals on and off for the past 20 years. I hate the fact that I have to carry them around (they are numerous and heavy) every time I move. But those words imbedded in them are the blood of my soul, bled durin times of duress and confussion. Sanctified, somehow, by hope of a better day when my dreams will turn into my reality. May Sarton infuses the mind with words that provoke gentle and profound reflexion. She articulates loniliness in such a way it ceases to be dire and abysmal. May Sarton's loniliness is redeeming, dignified, necessary to understand the ebb and flow of life. Solitude is a crown wore by the anointed human being that has passion in his heart and fire in his belly. The Pink Cowboy celebrates her embracing arms of poetry and flowers.

Elm Street Incident

So thrilling to visit the eternal site of conspiracy

theories. So shocking to relive the event. The Pink Cowboy has turned sad and pensive. The whole scenario seems smaller than previously thought. The Grassy Knoll is uneventful these days. People pass by slightly amused. Two crosses in the street mark the first and seciond impact of the bullet. Ever the polite person, The Pink Cowboy took a photo of two rather bubbly young women that wished to prove their Dallas trip by being photographed with the Reunion Tower as landscape. The have heard of JFK. They were dressed like Hooters babes giggling

and puffing smoke. Hey!, it could be a lot of fun for bimbos of every kind to laugh it up at this historical site. The Pink Cowboy felt displaced. Here I was, finally seen it with my own bluesy eyes. This anthological piece of history. I was 1 year old when Kennedy was slained. He was revered by my family. The Camelot couple were of my parents age, so they saw an example of the accomplishments of a new generation. I remember all the Look and Life magazines, newspaper clippings and memorial booklets kept in a small traveling trunk at my grandmother's house. Being a Pink Cowboy, I was fascinated by the advertisements featuring beautiful women with red hot lipstick and gorgeous cropped hair guys in their cabana suits gently walking the beach of the Bahamas.

Lee Harvey Oswald was 24 years of age when he shot the President. At 24, I was working in the Front Desk of a Caribbean hotel. Desperately wishing for fellow pink cowboys to appear in my life. The Pink Cowboy thought on his way home, the Grassy Knoll desperately needs good landscaping.

Finding my way through the Big D

The Pink Cowboy has landed. A strange SimCity he has found. I have never seen so much waste of space in the form of freeways, connecting loops and never-ending rows of retail megastores. I'm mortified by the sheer size of this concrete jungle. My mission to find solace in this monstrous concrete slab called Dallas. Of course those are only my first impressions of this landlocked city. I am on a spiritual mission. I must find friendship, love and a decent livelhood. Well, in all fairness people are friendly. I left my home and job in the Caribbean to move with my siblings living in Northern Texas. My beloved Mother passed away unexpectanly seven months ago. This has been the most profound and perplexing event of my existence. So Dallas it is. Open, big as Barney the purple dinosaur, cars running at 1000mph. We shall see, I suspect there are hidden gems buried in the cracks of the lonesome state turnpikes. In the meantime or rather in the nowabouts, or the landingpad I must write, my life depends on it.