"Whether or not you believe in the paranormal may depend entirely on your brain chemistry. People with high levels of dopamine are more likely to find significance in coincidences, and pick out meaning and patterns where there are none."

-Paranormal beliefs linked to brain chemistry, New Scientist-

According to the sources at Dictionary.com, one of the prime definitions of paranormal is that which is "beyond scientific explanation" or "not in accordance with the laws of science". With this definition - and abnormal amounts of dopamine - in mind, I must say that I am a believer in the paranormal. I must be so whether or not I believe in Faeries or telepathy simply by virtue of the fact that I do not believe in the infallability of science nor even in the possibility that science is capable of telling us everything about the universe in which we dwell. Science is without doubt a useful tool in the measuring of man and the cosmos and in the improvement of life quality, but in the way that it reduces everything to the material it is also a dangerous one. Science, I am sure, is fully capable of telling us the how of things but not the why.

I would like to suggest the following edit to the final sentence of the above excerpt:

"People with high levels of dopamine are more likely to find significance in coincidences, and pick out meaning and patterns where there are none apparent to those with low levels of dopamine"

The urge to update this old blog (not too old, actually - 6 months of age in just about six days) is upon me and a certain window of time in which to do so has opened before me. As I sit here at the keyboard, however, I find that I am simply not in the mood (despite the aforementioned urge) to discuss recent events either personal or global, nor yet am I currently inclined to discourse on any number of subjects that might take my fancy. What's a blogger to do?

Perhaps this is a good time for the second installment of The Paper Trail, the proposed series highlighting some of the less embarrasing writings from my late teenage years. Yes, perhaps it is.

Todays entry is a short one. Enjoy and please remember these pieces are presented as originally penned with no prettying up or editing.

The Paper Trail

"Come on home." said the little man "We ain't got nothing but love for you."

The slimy green blob regarded the little man and decided it would be best to eat.

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!" said the little man.

R. Cody 2002

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Early this morning, Sarah will be going to the hospital where I was born in San Jose to find some kind of relief under a surgeon's knife. Read this post if you don't know why.

The first light of dawn will find us at the hospital. Not a good way to start the day unless you work there.

The performing doctor tells us that the procedure of removing disks from the spine is a fairly common one - but then, he's a neurosurgeon.

Happy thoughts and well wishes are appreciated.

Shine, Perishing Republic

While this America settles in the mould of its vulgarity,
heavily thickening to empire,
And protest, only a bubble in the molten mass, pops
and sighs out, and the mass hardens,

I sadly smiling remember that the flower fades to make
fruit, the fruit rots to make earth.
Out of the mother; and through the spring exultances,
ripeness and decadence; and home to the mother.

You making haste haste on decay: not blameworthy;
life is good, be it stubbornly long or suddenly
A mortal splendor: meteors are not needed less than
mountains: shine, perishing republic.

But for my children, I would have them keep their
distance from the thickening center; corruption
Never has been compulsory, when the cities lie at the
monster's feet there are left the mountains.

And boys, be in nothing so moderate as in love of man,
a clever servant, insufferable master.
There is the trap that catches the noblest spirits,
that caught - they say - God, when he walked on earth.

- Robinson Jeffers, 1925 -

Like D.H. Lawrence a while back, Jeffers is a poet/writer that I knew by name only until recently. Making my way through the Vintage Books edition of his Selected Poems has been a delight and an education in the power of poetry. The above piece, for instance, resonates with a vision of man and his institutions that, in light of current events and considering it was penned well over 70 years ago, seems prophetic. Click here if you are interested in some brief analysis of the piece above.

That much of Jeffers' poetry is informed by the rugged and haunted beauty of the Carmel/Big Sur region of the Pacific Coast where he spent most of his life is, perhaps, one reason why I find his words so compelling. This is a landscape that I am familiar with, a place where the beauty and power of nature is a tangible thing, a place I would gladly live given my druthers and one which has inspired a number of poems from my own pen - Twenty Seven Years and Big Sur (impressions) to name a couple.

Someday, perhaps, Sarah and myself will leave America to it's vulgarities, sell all those possessions that are not essential, and find a home where our only neighbors are ancient Redwood trees and the whisper of the surf will greet us in the morning and lull us to dreams by night.

That there was something wrong with all his work Le Maistre well knew. Words and music, as the critics never failed to remind him, "just missed" that nameless "something" which would have made them good - perhaps great. Moreover, he was sane enough to realize that the blame lay not with an uncomprehending public, but simply with himself. The spark of inspiration that was beyond question in all his work never gathered to the flame stage. Thus his productions warmed people, but did not light them.

-Algernon Blackwood, an excerpt from the short story, The Man from the "Gods", in The Lost Valley and Other Stories-

I wonder if Blackwood ever felt this way about his own work?

I can certainly empathize with poor Le Maistre. That haiku in the post below(7/13/02) for instance. I saw a tree, already a beautiful thing, gilded by sunlight and made beatific. It was without doubt a haiku moment but did that moment make it into the words? Perhaps there is a dim glimmer of suchness in those three lines. Perhaps. . .

There are some who would argue that words, being the symbols that they are, could do nothing but fail me in my attempt to transcribe the experience of the illuminated tree.

They might be right, too, but I had to try.

pine tree made golden
by the westering sun -
a pillar of fire

I have been submitting poems and stories to prospective publishers recently, both on-line and off. If I was still in the habit of scrap booking my rejection slips (as I did so many years ago when I first started to submit my stuff) there would be two more among them.

Both Glimmer Train and The Manzanita Quarterly were foolish enough to return unused my golden words.

The folks over at Short Stuff, however, seem to recognize genius when they see it and have included some of my haiku and tanka inspired forms in their latest issue. You can take a look at my contributions right here if you are so inclined.

Also, if you are so inclined, wish me luck with my submissions currently under consideration at Deep Tapioca and Night Train. Chances are these two will both come back home but, in the immortal words of Fats Waller, "One never knows, do one?"

The bad emotional weather mentioned in my last post (see below) has broken but these are still painful days for Sarah and myself. Painful for Sarah because she is suffering from a number of herniated discs in her lower lumbar area, the agony of which is keeping her more-or-less bed ridden. Painful for myself because it is well nigh unbearable to see the person I love most in this world suffering. With the aid of pain medication, patience and (most of all) love, we are making our way through these painful days, hoping all the while that relief is imminent. Toward that end we are going to visit a neurosurgeon tomorrow.

I am often dubious of medical science (more appropriately, perhaps, I should say I am dubious of the hubris which medical science often displays) but I am hopeful that the strange cult of neurosurgery can give my Sarah back to herself and me.

The last few days here in Oakland (where I live)/ San Francisco (where I work) have been composed mainly of blue sky and sunshine. Lots of each. It almost feels like summer, which is unusual for San Francisco in the summertime.

Fine, fair weather. The kind of golden hued days that made me feel immortal as a child.

My inner weather these last few days, however, has been punctuated by brooding black clouds, occasional thunderstorms, several inches of rain.

Sarah has suffered with me through these strange days of sunshine and deluge. I thank the Universe for her presence. Even in the murkiest downpour, I see rainbows every time I look in her eyes.