more from the spirit.

Joseph introduced me to Freud, whom conjured
up a constant chuckle as Ralph turned his vision
into a world made of crippled phalases and
broken mechanisms. Haha! I yelped as Carl
caught my attention and the world of archetypes
mixed well with all of my hinted hallucinations.

Henry comes over and spouts out persective and
philosophy and answers all my questions about
psychology in one foul swoop, as the adage goes.
He quotes Freud's Interpretations of Dreams--
reading it out loud with the perfect frenetic cadence
of a German grob behandeln [Person].

"into the night life seems to be exiled what once
ruled during the day." then he says the soul has
it's origin and is built in strata, and what
we learned before in the organic field apropos of the
construction of the big brain from the anatomic-evolutionary
standpoint of vanished aeon's, is revealed by the dream,
revealed by the child, revealed by psychosis as a
still existing reality. We carry the ancient...

"David Gatsby!!

ummmm Magnivovich....

Mr. Maivocivocios!.....

And I awake to what sounds like a uni-lingual nurse chewing
her gum in between syllable pronunciations.

Wha!! oh yes I'm in a doctors office. I must have
dozed off.

That was some party last night.

The christening of the backyard, and the return
to a social existence, was it...?

Yes! Monday morning, nine A.M. and my head is
spinning with creative fervor.

It seems my unconscious was practicing me for this
meeting with the doc.

It's got me wondering what's in store, as the last
meeting heard talk of surgery, and something
about "were running out of time".

I remember pounding my fist on his desk and barking
out something like " I wont hear anything of the sort doc!"

Yes, that was how it ended three months ago.

I look up and catch the doc giving me a good looking
over. He watches every detail. How fast I stand-up.
My posture, the way I move. As he's sizing me up he grabs
me by the shoulder and gives me a big smile and
say's "your still working out I see."

This lets me know that were already on the same beat.

He understands how serious I take life, he understands
the work I put into my body, even through the letters
he's received about me getting fed up with medications,
would have one think otherwise.

I notice the doc too looks healthier, he must have put
on a good fifteen pounds of hardened flesh.

Curious.

We find a seat and I take my thinking position
ready to record all the 'doc's words.

I immediately apologize for the lack of blood-tests, correspondence,
and the like, telling him I needed a break of everything medical.
" I"m sure you understand, it was getting to me.
I needed to separate myself from all things medicinal,
Doc, i exclaim.
I needed to disinfect."


He laughs out a huge bellow. And says " it's for you."

I shrug as he goes into his usual medical foray.

Yet this time I sense something different.

He knows that I want desperately to get off of the "wonder"
drug Remicade.

And he assures me he's not under any influence from the drug
companies.

Weird. I'm impressed that he figured out I was cautioned by
the sway of the dark side over my favorite doctor.

Humm. This is getting interesting.

Next he tells me he's not ruling anything out.
He's embracing a more holistic approach to healing.

This from the top Gastroenterologist in the field.
One of the leading physicians of Crohns disease.

He says' fuck Remicade, but, at the moment it's all
we have.

He tells me how his job is to translate all he has
learned and is learning about medicine into layman
terms so as the patient can understand, equally what
he knows.

He is not ruling out psychotherapy, diet, medicine, he
says we don't know enough to put all our butter on one
slice of bread.

My jaw hit's the floor as I realize that this man sitting
in front of me is the real deal.

After sixteen years of battling with doctors I have finally
met a man who is willing to explore all directions leading
home. He's cashed in his ego and his growing at a rapid
pace. This explains the weight gain I say to myself.

He sums it up by telling me he is fascinated by the disease,
after hearing him talk about it, so am I.

I tell him I have a love of science also, and if I wasn't
going into Film Animation, it would have been astro-physics.

He tells me Animation is a science.

And a doors opens up and my mind, body, and soul
are standing in front of a what seems to be an infinitely
tall mountain with a hundred million holes in it.
Blasting through these holes is what seems to be raw energy;
bursting through it and into me.

I realize I'm looking at the harmony of existence,
and at that moment as i struggle to move forward
I cease laboring altogether and create.

With that single thought the holes fill up and
the mountain looks bold and beautiful a
silhouette against the light of infinity.

And I am cured.

All of this before breakfast.

As I take my shirt off to absorb the elements,
as I sit on my bike and peddle downhill with the
wind at my back.
I start to wonder when the dream I was
having in the waiting room ceased being a dream,
and try to determine the exact instant reality took over.

I look around me at the comings and goings of what usually
would look like the chaos and discombobulation of the
city, suddenly it finds a rhythm, a method.

And I realize that no matter how hard I try, I will
never come to understand the complexity of the universe.

I wonder what I would do with that information anyway.

Try to awaken humanity out of the big sleep they seem
to be in.

As I'm terribly allergic to crucification I find the
task impossible.

What then, in God's name is the remedy.

Fun? Creation? Happiness?

I arrive at my destination, I'm fifteen minutes
in advance of my next appointment.

I lean my bike against a bench, sit and meditate
along with the napping ducks.

I remember a word of advice read backwards
in crayon on my elementary school lesson planner.

"Creation is play, and play is divine."

I seem to have found my answer.

I laugh out loud and scare the ducks out
of their afternoon slumber.

Perspective is everything. If you're not having
fun, you've either stopped moving. Or
your sick with fright.

Swallow your fear or take a nap.

Napping is stopping.

Dreaming is life in fast-forward.

Fun is life, laughter is a reminder.

Dreaming is everything, which is possible.

The bigger the dream the more rewarding
the game.

To stop is to die. The faster one moves
the younger one is.

Win the race.

The ducks land with grace as the sun moves
behind a cloud.

I hop on my bike and vow never to hit the breaks
again.

It's all downhill from here. And I feel a force
is with me.

Someone yells at me "attention" as I drift through
a yellow light.

I arrive at work and immediately quit due to the
lack of forward momentum.

The only reason I could give the grieving businessman
is "Consumption is being standardized,
and we are in need of a creative dissent."

He hadn't slept in weeks and believed it a bad
apparition. Superstition.

I hop back on my bike and choose the open road.
A welcoming place, the big circle.

I hoping this time that I indeed do fall off the
end of the world.

Maybe I'll never land.

Maybe I'll end up in some kinda never never land.

what a grand idea!

...gatsby~

dear committee, I am well.

It has been six-teen years now, since I was diagnosed with Crohn's Disease. It came to me in the night, with sweating and cramps, the summer before high school and my first job were to begin. It was to be my coming of age, and I was to jump into the world head first. It was supposed to be a time of boundless energy and possibility. Yet that humid August night I found a reflection staring back at me wild and wide eyed, consumed by an emotion truly foreign to a twelve year old boy ;, fear.

In the beginning the symptoms were subtle, observed as anti-social by my peers. As I was a gregarious person, popular, never without friends, involved in a variety of recreational activities. Suddenly, I found myself alone and in pain. I was half my size, and strange. I was withdrawn from the world, obtuse and irritable. It was as if I was living in a plastic box where all the outside sounds were muffled, and the images blurred. It was here that my first philosophy was born. I told myself that if I can conquer loneliness, I can do anything.

It was a difficult three years of high school and the part time factory work was physical .; the workers hardened and of a particular breed, did not make it easy. It was a test of endurance, strength, and courage. In these factory walls was where living beyond the bounds of disease took shape. In those austere surroundings the basic life that was in me took over. In that stark landscape I learned what hard work was, I learned how tough life could get. I saw how people could sense your illness and become afraid, whether they’re conscious of it or not. Some people, even those you considered friends, take the opportunity to benefit from your struggle. Looking back I see myself moving, it was as if I stopped my flesh would die, all intelligence was gone, I was living an inward journey.

This recent episode I have had with Crohn's was with me during my greatest accomplishment. It was alive and wild inside my belly at the summit of my boldest dream which was a four-year trip around the world. At my meridian hour I gained a perspective that took me quite by surprise. It seemed I was looking at the world from the wrong angle, I wasn't seeing it at all! At the summit I found clarity. This disease was not working against me like some sort of evil nemesis.
It is a part of me, challenging me, willing me to seek out a deeper purpose. As travel, movement had been my expression of self, compensation for the experience I had missed. Animation and film will be an outlet to share the inner journey I had lived.

In battling this disease I have began to take control of my body. Through diet, exercise, and meditation I am starting the beginning motions of a very complicated revolution. I have begun a blog in the hopes of encouraging understanding of disease and personal health. With my recent success of casting Crohn's back into remission at record speed, I wish to give hope to the silent majority, people living with disease. I wish to share the knowledge I have gained through new media, to show kids who have been recently diagnosed that the disease feeds off of negativity and that by looking at Crohn's from a positive perspective is the first step to a rapid recovery. I hope that by getting people aware of their bodies, their health , they will in turn gain an awareness of the environment, and realize that the two are intimately connected.

In living with Crohn’s I have found that stress opens the door to a flare-up, at least in my case. Traveling, although glorious, and beautiful, can be very stressful. This is what sent my disease into overdrive and had me coming home half-broken and out of tune. This bursary will eliminate that challenge of earning money to live on, and allow me to focus all my attention and energy on this next bold objective ; a university degree in film animation. Growth is life, and I intend to grow with this disease as my ally. Only by accepting it and working with it will I be able reach my maximum potential. In accomplishing this next goal I will be demonstrating to all, especially myself , that with hard work and the right attitude anything is possible, especially your wildest dream.