Relentless: Hard, fierce, uncompromising, unyielding, constant, incessant.
     Pursuit: the act of striving; an effort to secure or attain; quest.


    Once upon a time, two people chose to leave out on a journey across America to find themselves. Some places along the way saw these two struggling to understand not only themselves, but the state of everything around them. Some places they journeyed helped them to clarify.

   All along this trek, each of the two lived their lives authentically and in doing so set the stage for an unusual experiment. They would return to a place they had once been... and one of them would offer to risk his own life by being the first to walk through a fire built by indifference, perchance to come out on the other side stronger and wiser. In doing this, he hoped he would be able to instruct, through example, a path for his partner to utilize in order for her to survive when it was her turn. This trial would be long and painful and wrought with bitter entrapment's. He knew going in what the outcome could be; she had promised to stand by his decision and could only dream of a better outcome. War and all it's atrocities ensued; alliances were made and broken; warning shots turned into precision shots; the valley was filled with dragon fire and the sound of clashing swords; dust clouds, formed from memories, came and went and in the haze shadowy figures stood firmly their weapons in hand. In the end, all on the battlefield would fall.
   
    Now, there remains only one.

 She who continues on the Relentless Pursuit, which has little, if nothing, to do with geography. She can still see the intensity of his eyes, his determination; she still feels the passion and satisfaction, the reward, if you will, of continuing to do what is right; still speaking the truth and willing to suffer the consequences; still living life the way it is meant to be lived and not making apologies; and willing to accept the battle wounds she and others may suffer. This is not an easy path to take, but it is necessary. For when someone of principle exemplifies what it means that "it is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees", you listen. In death there is freedom and in righteous action there is liberation. She will take liberation now, so that she may experience freedom while she is still alive.
 
   Being on the road is about going 'to' something, not running away from it. One can also stay right where they are until they feel the need to change the view. It makes not one bit of difference where you are physically. What matters is where you get to in your heart; where you get to in your peace of mind.

Once upon a time, two people chose to set out on a journey. Only one remains.

 Yet, the journey is never over. A new direction begins.


Wendy Dennison

Who says it isn't beautiful?

         I once read that we all start out from birth with an innate knowing of what is right and what is wrong. That somewhere along the way we lose the ability to listen to that voice inside of us. We get confused and bombarded, distracted by all the messages we receive while growing and becoming.
        It has taken me years to get wiser. Not wise, just wiser. To realize it's okay to have been naive, weak, and vulnerable. To stop kicking my ass for having faltered under pressure or to be afraid to fight for what I innately knew was right or fight against what I knew to be wrong. I wanted to be righteous, to use my art to make others think about what we do to one another and what we can do FOR one another. I wanted my conscience to be clean so that I might enjoy the full breadth of what life has to offer. I just wanted everyone to be nice and to be nice to everyone else, but I started to think that an impossible task: a naive pipe-dream, so to speak. Not how the real world is, I was told. So, I found myself reacting to what the "real world" was throwing at me, and I didn't like the person I was becoming.
       Now, I'm learning to step out of the way of my own ego and let go of those things which have, in the past, caused me to change course, stray from the direction I always believed was mine to take.
       I'm learning to embrace the duality of the person I am: a lover, a giver, a truth teller and true believer; able to draw a sword swiftly and without mercy, to see through the facade of another and detest what I see, able to turn my back on someone or something and not look back, never look back. I'm beginning to understand and accept myself entirely.
       Forgiveness, understanding and acceptance, it seems to me, should first and foremost be for ones self. For if one cannot embrace and understand the self in totality, how can he or she become whole?
       We've all heard it said, so many times it's become cliched, that all one needs to live in is the NOW. Do we really understand the depth of such a statement? We cannot undo the past.  How far back would we, I, need to go, and what different path (not necessarily better) would it take us on? Can we worry about the future? I don't know. Are we even guaranteed a future? I suspect not. So, all we really have is the NOW. That's it. Wisdom and understanding are all we can hope for in order to attain peace of mind and the ability to interact properly in a world filled with beauty as well as ugliness.
        What the hell am I rambling on about?
        It's alright to get tangled up. It's human to make mistakes, errors in judgement. What's important is what we learn from them about ourselves and about others, but learn to lay the blame at the feet of those it belongs to. If it belongs to you then it does, and that's just the way it is, not the way it needs to be.
         Everything we've been through in life is beautiful, thorns and all. Everything we've experienced, learned, and suffered is beautiful. It's all necessary so that we may become wiser. It's not about redemption or penance in the religious sense, it's about reconciliation and atonement to yourself for having been a human being on a journey back to the beginning when we all innately knew what was right and what was wrong; and to listen to that little voice inside of you who knows the difference.
          This may seem almost too simple, and for those of us who are in the muck and mire of life's troubles and bullshit it sounds trite, or preachy, or inapplicable. I say it's worth pondering, for Wisdom is the ability to know the difference, as has been said. And beginning to know the difference is making all the difference for me.
   
                                                     Wendy Dennison

Railroad Art

      Travelling from Truth Or Consequences, New Mexico, to Phoenix, Arizona, last week on I-10 I had the opportunity to see something I was so amazed by that I failed to take as many photographs as I should have taken. My mouth was wide open as I stared in awe. Train after train passing by with the most spectacular artwork sprayed and sprawled from one car to another. The colors, the composition, and the perfection simply blew me away. I am still kicking myself for not snapping a shot of a multi-green moniker with gold and tan worms twisting and turning on either side. It floored me.
       I said to Barry, "This is beautiful! It's a travelling art show! It's no wonder the railroads just leave it on the cars. Why it would be criminal to remove it. Makes watching the trains so much more fun."  Barry just grinned and said, "They don't remove it or paint over it because it wouldn't be cost effective. It would cost the railroads too much money." I said, "Good. They should leave it there."
     Now, one might argue with me, call the Graffiti defacement of property. I understand, as it bothers me to see graffiti in public parks, gang tagging on downtown city buildings, and the ugly it does to apartment complex's . But, I still can't express how spectacular it looked on those rusty, dirty train cars as they sped by in the dessert. I thought, "This art is going to be seen all around the country." Bright, abstract, ingenious creations that I could not read, and didn't want to be able to read.
       Graffiti has existed since ancient times. Going back to Ancient Greece and the Roman Empire. Graffiti expresses social and political messages, and a whole genre of artistic expression (Andy Warhol would be proud). I don't think we will ever stop graffiti, but we can hope that it will continue to have a purpose.
        Something that I aim for in my own art is to make people stop and stare. I want to create art that grabs and holds the attention of the viewer. That shouts from across a crowded room and refuses to be ignored. I want it to amaze, to awe, to cause the viewer to stop and contemplate, to wonder, to THINK. If my art doesn't do that I feel as if I've failed. I found myself riveted and held in wonder by the (what I now call) Railroad Art. I couldn't get enough and next time (which will be in a few weeks) I get back on the road, heading East this time, I will have my camera ready and hold my breath that I will see more Railroad Art on the way to South Carolina.
         Gang-bangers, territorial taggers, skaters, and punks stop messing around with your chicken scratch bullshit wannabe disambiguation! The real deal is heading down the tracks from east to west and back again for all to see who take the time to see more than graffiti, but mastery of an art form that has been around for centuries. I bow my head humbly and , oh, how I would love to mural a train car.
                     
                                         Talk to you later,
                                                           Wendy

                   

What If......?

“In chaos theory, the butterfly effect is the sensitive dependence on initial conditions; where a small change at one place in a non-linear system can result in large differences to a later state. The name of the effect, coined by Edward Lorenz, is derived from the theoretical example of a hurricane's formation being contingent on whether or not a distant butterfly had flapped its wings several weeks before.
Although the butterfly effect may appear to be an esoteric and unusual behavior, it is exhibited by very simple systems: for example, a ball placed at the crest of a hill might roll into any of several valleys depending on slight differences in initial position.
The butterfly effect is a common trope in fiction when presenting scenarios involving time travel and with "what if" cases where one storyline diverges at the moment of a seemingly minor event resulting in two significantly different outcomes.”


I believe Mark Twain capsulated this in his darkest and most cynical short story "The Mysterious Stranger" long before Mr. Lorenz defined it in a more scientific treatment. Those simple twists of fate (or should we say, a butterfly effect) that sends repercussions across many boundaries, that skew time-lines into different tangents (you know, the whole space/time continuum crap; too much Star Trek or Back To The Future for us, I guess.) potentially happens to us everyday. We can't fight it, so I guess we must take action in order to avoid being acted upon. To put it as Sancho Panza stated "Whether the stone hits the pitcher, or the pitcher hits the stone, it's going to be bad for the pitcher."; however, in a similar vein Paul Simon said "I'd rather be the hammer than the nail.." Oh, yes we would!

Now, I don't recall clearly whether that Fate City Limit sign, 1 mile,  was entering into Fate or exiting Fate. Apparently we were somewhere close to fate, or destiny. Actually Destiny is a street somewhere in Florida, among other places, and Fate is on the northeast side of Dallas,Texas, which is where we were at the time. Anyway, I digress. All I can remember specifically are Wendy's (my Muse's) eyes locking with mine, two grins, and the camera flash. I suppose that was the day we decided to create this website, which is our relentless pursuit, our journey to rediscover ourselves, our fate, our destiny. Til then......

                                                                       I'm still searching,
                                                                       Barry (Mad Poet) Dennison