To the right is a quickie computer drawing of a slightly re-invented Dash (and Dot) for the story I'm writing.

Here I'm piecing together the series of intuitions that led me to unlock the occasion of this photograph. Continue>>>

Here's the first installment>>>

I updated the family tree on Ancestry.com but to tell the truth, my own web pages on the Dunnes and the Martins are more useful for putting together a story. 

Another view from the cliffs at Castlewood:

I'd like to do one of those cool slideshows, with the animated doodles, but, alas, all I can eke out this week is a manifesto. I wrote most of it as I was falling asleep the other night; hence, it's a little "spontaneous." But you have to start somewhere, right? 

Writing from Life Manifesto, Version 1.0

Back from another roadtrip, I see I've developed the habit of filling every little minute with a delightful activity. IPhone in hand, I snap and process photos. Check my RSS feed. Facebook. My iPad in hand, I watch videos. Catch up on Word With Friends. Play a few rounds of Drawsomething. Page through Flipbook. Wonder where my creativity went.

My brain is a teeming metropolis, shiny attractions everywhere. Oh the possibilities! But today I realize what I really need is open space. I need to clear away the constant stimulation and create a quiet park -- a zen garden, where I can sit with emptiness. This quiet is where the creativity resides.

Then my city-brain also needs a little urban planning attention -- some zoning. A space for emails, a space for gaming, a space for planning, a space for creative writing, etc. I don't want any of my delights to go away, but they need to be a part of a daily rhythm, not a distractorama.

It's not like I haven't had this conversation with myself before...

The photo above is from my Sunday walk with Tom and Jim along the cliffs out at Castlewood -- a truly magical place, where my brother and cousins and I spent many a hot summer afternoon, unsupervised by adults. We sat on the big flat rocks and didn't do much of anything. If a freight train came by on the tracks down along the river, we would muster up the energy to count the cars.

Tom and I were reminding ourselves what a solemn space it had been. It was a place for being good, because death was all around. One false step on the edge of these high bluffs meant certain death. Playing on the railroad tracks was death. Putting so much as a toe in the treacherous Meramec River was death, as the whirlpools pulled you under. We were little grade-school kids in our Castlewood years, so we were mostly good and let our imaginations do the roaming.

This is what I need in my brain today -- a little Castlewood.

Here's my question. What kind of world do we WANT to live in?

I don't want to live in a world where the armed rich live behind gates in fear of the dispossessed who roam the streets... the dispossessed who are so hated and so blamed for their circumstances that they no longer feel any guilt about just taking whatever they can find to live off of. "THOSE" people. Why should the well-to-do strive to be like old colonialists within their own nation -- controlling all the resources but not daring to go out beyond the wall?

In this vision out of Pilgrim's Progress, life is lived on the "straight and narrow." If you fall off the path, if you make the wrong choice, if you lapse into ignorance or have a bad break... bye-bye.

I WANT to live in a world where we realize that we are all interconnected and interdependent. I want to live in a world where we recognize the fullness of our humanity (strengths AND weaknesses, virtues AND lusty old vices) and recognize that we are constantly making decisions about which fork to take in the road ahead. So many choices, so many chances to screw up. Authorities scream at you about the rules... but they aren't always correct.

In this dynamic, branching world, I want to be part of a community that pulls together around its weakest and most disadvantaged members, even if they wound up in that place by taking a wrong turn, making a series of woeful choices. I've made the odd bad choice myself... and I'm grateful for the assistance of those who helped me along.

Big government, small government, corporations, clubs -- they are all energetic rule-makers. It's what organizations do. Yes, they over-reach. Yes, they go bad. But instead of working to correct the organizations that are supposed to look out for our COMMON good, we run the risk of simply taking sides and locking ourselves within the walls of the organization that best protects our INDIVIDUAL piece of the pie... and promises us the WHOLE pie if we stick with them. Governments, churches, unions, banks... they all run the risk of becoming big bullies. They all build walls and proclaim who is IN and who is OUT.

I want to live in a country that uses its great diversity to solve problems not pit us against one another. Hope is about us working together, not about winner-take-all.

(This was written very quickly -- a rant. It may not make sense if you're not in my head space.)

3/28/12 This never got "published" so going out today, as is.