"I saw myself on the central mountain of the world, the highest place, and I had a vision because I was seeing in the sacred manner of the world.  But the center of the world is everywhere."

-Black Elk

I don't know what is going on with me.

Perhaps I have found a great spirit.  Perhaps I have found mine.

I once read a book that said sometimes in life to overcome something, or to meet a challenge, you might have to fake it for awhile.  Imitate the experience that you wish to happen. 

Be the change you want to see.

I feel absurd, but I'll just tell y'all.

I am choosing to become change. 

I am changing.  I can feel it.

I have been walking 4-6 hours a day for a week now.  This has given me alot of time to immerse myself in whatever I damn please. 

I have been passing by a waterfall, and past an old church, and over a bridge where a creekwater flows.  I have talked in my blogs over and over about the wind.  And all of these things have actually led me to believe in a great spirit moving within me, and around me.  This sounds crazy.

(Am I having a midlife crisis?  Perhaps.)

(Everybody else whispers, "Yep...")

But how do I feel.  Well, I'll tell you.  Actually, like I am a teenager again.  My body is changing; I have lost another 10 lbs.  I was at this time last year 270 lbs.  Today I weigh 178.

My walk has changed.  I mean my gait; I actually conciously swing my arms a bit more, and I keep my body more erect.  I had a bad habit of slightly hunching over.  Not anymore.

I walk faster.  I had pigeontoed feet for 32 years.  I now choose to walk with my feet pointing forward, and slightly out.  Why?  Why now suddenly?

DING-DONG.

No, I am probably not going nuts.  After all, you people were worried about me.  I am most probably dealing with so many strange and traumatic aspects of life at once, this is my little escape.  Or perhaps, I feel the need to be someone else. 

Or maybe since so much is screwy, I am correcting the few things I actually have the power to.  Is that crazy?

How about this?  Last week, I went outside and found a limb on a tree, and cut it down.  I honed the sides until it was the right thickness, then I affixed some thin cord, and tightened it around the tips.  To make a long story short, I made a bow, as in bow and arrow.

Maybe I am becoming Don Quixote.

My hair is long, 5 inches past my shoulder now.  For the last 17 years, I had crew cuts, flat-tops, or a princeton with a part.  Fuck that, I said.  So I let my hair grow for once in my life. For two years, I have not cut it.  Now I intentionally make my hair look as if I am Native American.  I don't know what style, what tribe.  Maybe I want to become Black Elk.  I have taken to humming a song I learned called "Cheyenne Eyes" which was featured in some Ken Burns movie about Lewis and Clark.  It just makes me feel holy.  I can't feel this way at church, so--so I feel like I am on the path to my spirit.  My great spirit.  What a sight I must be, especially to all the elderly white neighbors.

But I don't feel like a fake.  It suits me.

I know nothing about Native American tribes, their beliefs, their spirituality.  What I know comes, I admit readily, from Time-Life books, and PBS specials.  Which is bupkis...

Maybe I will learn more.  Or maybe it's a phase.

But the strange thing is that no matter how eccentric I have become,  I feel something close to hope.  Something close to happiness.  Something unfamiliar like calm.

What does this mean?

Perhaps this is akin to the old story of the guy who is having a mid-life crisis, and buys a convertible, and leaves his wife, and thinks he needs his letterman jacket--but he is 45 or 50.  And everybody is thinking, "Oh my Lord."

Am I ridiculous?  I'm sure I appear ridiculous to some.  But for some reason, I don't worry about it.  I don't really care.

I don't have the map for this guys.  I am just an average 32 year old 5'9" white guy in Missouri in 2010.  For once, that means nothing to me.  I don't feel like that helps me know who I am.

Maybe it's an external expression of my inner desire for change.  I don't know.

But I feel like I am on the central mountain, looking out in the sacred manner of the world.

Maybe you'll think, "Wow, Joe.  You really need serious help."  "What's next, living in a tipi?" Or, maybe you doubt if my blogs will be mildly about politics ever again, or anything rational which most of us normally contribute.

But this is all I have folks...  I don't know what the intended purpose of these little journals are, but for me lately, it has become my barbershop, my bar, my confessional.  

If I am going too far, somebody just say, "Hey Joe.  Knock it off!"