Dad's Wedding

So I went to Aspen for a few days.  In spite of me thinking the whole theme was a bit silly, I had a GREAT time.  It wasn't so silly when I got to mount up on Fury, once my special filly,  in 1880's style Wyatt Earp garb sporting a thin handlebar mustache and ride to a "babbling brook" to escort my new sister down a slippery slope to the narrow bridge before watching my dad get married to a super-cool chick.  Neat.  The next day I got to play ski-bum and hit the slopes with my dad and his new bride while the wind swept from over the continental divide.  Follow that up with driving 128 miles an hour in my childhood DREAM CAR (Porsche 911 Carrera 4) in the snow up to McClure Pass with my dad making permanent fingerprints in the passenger seat leather, and you've got one hell of a passport stamp vacation. Here's my dad's wedding announcement in the Oklahoman yesterday (I thought you might get a kick out of it.. I did):

Donald M. Smith of Oklahoma City, and Krissa K. (Van Pelt) Halter from Denver, exchanged wedding vows March 28, 2009 in an event reflective of the spirit of the Old West.

The couple was married near a silver mine site in the ghost town of Ashcroft, 10 miles from Aspen.

In keeping with a Victorian theme, Krissa wore a shearling wedding coat, stovepipe boots, Italian leather riding slacks, a ruffled shirt, and a black cowboy hat. Don wore an 1880's style, formal, wing-collared shirt with a string bow tie and a long black frock coat. Guests were brought to the wedding site in a 20-person sleigh drawn by Percheron draft horses.

Don, his two sons Michael and Brian, and his Best Man, Mike Young, rode their quarter horses to the wedding site from up the valley in two feet of snow. Krissa, her mother Gertrude Van Pelt, her daughter Heather Van Pelt, and her Bridesmaid, Holly Gomez, rode to the wedding site in a small sleigh pulled by Clydesdales.

Reverend Luke Back of St Paul's Cathedral in Oklahoma City officiated, as the couple stood on a narrow foot bridge over a babbling brook. Together, the wedding party read prayers of Celtic spirituality written by J. Phillip Newell, their friend and expert on Celtic spirituality.

During the procession and recession, the children of Don's cousin, Cara, beat a Native American drum and struck a Tibetan song bowl. After the ceremony, Krissa mounted Mac, the quarter horse Don gave her as a wedding gift, and Don mounted Blue.

Hand-in-hand, they rode through the snow to the 130-year-old Blue Mirror Saloon in Ashcroft, where they hosted their guests with champagne and hot cider. The couple is honeymooning in Egypt, riding Arabian horses in the desert to reach the pyra mids at dawn.

The couple will reside at Duck Smith Farms in Logan County, Oklahoma, and at the Lazy O Ranch near Aspen. Don founded Smith Cogeneration, a developer of highly efficient power plants. Recently, Don founded Smith Algae Biofuels and BioFeeds.

CO2 emissions from his natural gas-fired plant in Oklahoma City will feed algae, which will pro duce diesel oil. The algae will also generate the type of oils rich in omega 3 fatty acids, which will be fed to a new blood line of cattle, developed at Don's ranch north of Oklahoma City.

Don, a Harvard graduate, began his quest to improve the environment with economic practicality as an assistant professor of economics at Southern Methodist University. 

Oh, my dad (and Krissa) changed his (their) last name(s) to VanPelt-Smith.  THAT was a surprise.  I think it's sweet.  But it brings up a couple of things.  First, I noticed how much my father's last name has played a symbolic part in our relationship.  He has frequently wanted one of his son's to carry on the family companies, most of which have used our last name in some pseudo-hyphenated way with another word that makes it sound really cool.  PowerSmith.  HydroSmith.  Smith Cogeneration.  DuckSmith.  (Okay, that doesn't sound all that cool, but we were kids...).  He even spoke about turning Quoddy Bay into QuoddySmith, and we recently named the "Algae Company" Smith Algae BioFuels.  Anyway, as he changes his last name, I start to realize how silly it really is to want to "keep things in the family." I guess I might see things differently when I have kids, but I question whether we put too much emphasis on family.  Are we any more connected to family than we are to friends or even strangers?  And why?  Because we share genes and eye color, and have gone through our experiences in close proximity for many years?  But in the end, aren't we all connected in such a way that is so much greater than this genetic and experiential bond?  I believe our connection through God, the Light, our spirits, that "iron string" is far more meaningful than the bond of chromosomes and proximity.  After all, love is really love, right?  I don't really believe there are degrees there.  Like Papa, in The Shack, who is "especially fond" of EVERYONE.  This is not intended to say that we aren't closer in our relationships to our family at all.  I certainly am much closer in my relationship to my mom and dad than I am to, say, Mickey Rourke.  And that has a lot to do with me being their son and our proximity as I grew up.  Anyway, it's interesting how when he decided to change his last name, I found myself less attached to carrying on the last name, even though the name didn't change at all.  Strange. 

Oh, and the second thing.  I've decided to one-up dad and Krissa.  They each changed their last name, and I have decided to change BOTH of my names.  I would now appreciate it if you would all refer to me as VanPeltSmith VanPelt-Smith.  Perhaps DOCTOR VanPeltSmith VanPelt-Smith.  Yeah. 

Quick Overview of the Past Month

 Okay, just to get started again, and sorry to myself for the delay in writing, here's some neat shit about the last month:

• Busted my surfboard on my elbow in a nasty shore-break out front. 
  
• Had some wonderful parties at the bar.
  
• Four wonderful friends moved back (many left).
  
• My dad got married.  I got to play cowboy, got to play ski bum, got to play race-car driver, got to hang out with new family.   
  
• Got the chance to see a person I love and have missed dearly in Denver.  Ahhh. 
• Semana Santa.  Licores locked up, but didn't stop the crazy drunkenness throughout this super-religious country.  Not as crazy as everyone warned.  
  
• Neil and Megan are freaking pregnant!  No shit.  Not lying.  Mike and Hayden and now Neil and Megan.  I'm going to be an uncle TWICE over. 
• My mom and Ron came to visit.  Awesome.  Absolutely loved every minute of it. 
  
• Saw Arenal, my first active volcano that I remember.  Got to watch her strip-tease. 
  
• Started a new tradition of "Boogie Days and Boogie Nights."  
  
• Injured my shoulder getting rolled in out-of-my-league waves in Caldera. 
  
• Got super-sick again, this time just a stomach parasite probably from the few gulps I took in Caldera.  That sucked.  
  
• Read a LOT.  "The Shack", "Inner Revolution", "How to Practice".  Got some good shit from it all, especially The Shack.  

All in all, it's been perhaps one of the craziest months of my life, and that says a lot.  I'll publish more detail starting tomorrow.  And I'll get back into writing daily, or at least every other day.  Starting tomorrow.  

Neat. 

Feeling love. 

Dog Days of Summer

It's hot. 

Pictures from Fred's Party

Here are some pics from that party 10 days ago.  They were taken with Robin or Amy's camera (not really sure which), from the Carolina Crew, so they are heavily biased towards, well, a handful of crazy Carolinians and those surrounding them.  You can see more on my post on my facebook page.  Honestly, this may have been one of the best parties I have ever been to.  Aaron Nazrul and the Boom Booms played for hours, and during the breaks Martin DJ'd.  Ridiculously fun and diverse crowd, all of whom were friends.  I certainly had had a few by the end, but I'll admit that I started wearing the pink boa before drink one.  Thanks Pat.  Still don't know where the jester hat came from, but Amy likens me to the tooth fairy towards the end of the night.  Fun stuff.  

Dinner with the Reitanos and Creation

I had a wonderful dinner two nights ago with some new friends, Simone, Michael, Brianna, and Zach, along with Mike and Donna, up in the posh Los Suenos resort in Herradura... Lots of awesome philosophical discussion.  Brianna writes and records songs, and has an amazingly soulful voice that you can check out here, if you are interested: http://www.myspace.com/brireitano.  Mike is an artist as well (http://www.savlenstudios.com/), and so we had some interesting discussion especially about maintaining purity of art when you are also using it for a source of income or to become "successful."  It seems to me that, as soon as your definition of success, in ANYTHING whether artistic or otherwise, depends on other people (for money, fame, "living forever", popularity, power, control), you immediately give up some of your freedom, and therefore "purity" in whatever you do.  It seems to be no longer from your spirit, but instead an intellectual approach to what might appeal to someone else.  Some good discussion, though, about needing to afford paint to paint, followed by a quote about how a truly free man can be free even when in prison.  In any event, it was wonderful conversation.  

Are we all artists?  I guess I'm kinda defining artists as those who use creativity in action, although that may be incorrect.  I had trouble coming up with the "otherwise" in the sentence containing "artistic or otherwise" above, because it occurred to me that, in a way, if we're doing something that comes from our spirits, it's literally creative... Created.  Not caused.  Created.  Everything else is caused by a long chain of programming.  Coming from the spirit, though, seems to be just, well, created.  

But here's where I was stuck for 28 years... creation is intellectually impossible.  The Causal Theory, which is a fine piece of logic that I may be horribly misrepresenting, states that everything is either caused or is random.  If something is not caused by something else, how can it be anything other than perfectly random?   Actually, if you want to get into it, randomness is intellectually impossible as well.  I'll try to explain, knowing that I am not good at this.  Imagine a needle that swings back and forth between the red side and the blue side.  This needle can be caused to stop on blue or on red.  If it is not caused to stop on blue or red, the only possibility is for it to randomly stop on one or the other.  Otherwise, why did it stop on one and not the other?  We, like the needle, are either caused to stop on one decision, by experiences, evolution, or some other long or short chain that lead us to be pre-disposed to the choice given the circumstance, or the choice is made randomly.  It can't be anything else.  However, if there is perfectly even odds between red and blue, neither can ever be chosen.  SOMETHING must cause the needle to choose one or the other.  There must be SOME reason for it to stop on blue instead of red.  Which leads us to only one real possiblity... that everything is caused.  Creation, literally, is infinitely impossible (sorry God), even in randomness.  The beginning of the universe, for example... If it was random, why didn't it set something in motion that eventually made me have three arms?  We know it didn't, and if we start to explain, we start with "Because..."  Reason.  Cause.  Precedence.  Every question of why is answered with a cause or an "I don't know,"  which simply is our inability to list the causes back to, well, interesting...    

And my God does this fit in well with everything else I've been thinking about lately (maybe it's time to stop thinking again).  Intellectually, all is caused.  And yet how many of us believe in free will!  How many of us feel that we actually have control over ourselves, our actions, our thoughts, our emotions, our world, our future, our fate!  

Here's my feeling, and I can't explain it logically or rationally.  I've stopped trying to rationalize things, because it doesn't work on the spiritual plane.  Just because we can't explain it, and it defies our logic, doesn't mean it doesn't exist.  There must have been a start.  I believe that perhaps the causal theory fits here in our human experience, but with a minor difference.  Everything is either caused, or is spiritual.  Creation lies in the spirit.  Free will lies in the spirit.  Most of what we think of as free will is actually still part of the long chain of causation, programmed into us by some force outside of ourselves.  We can explain how we chose one thing or another, but the vast majority comes down to things we have been taught.  It is only those things that we have not been taught that are truly creative.  Only those things that come from our spirit are uncaused.  

But now it's late, and I'm tired.  I believe everything happens the only way it can happen, and yet I believe in free will.  I believe in creation, in spite of my intellect telling me that it's not possible.  I think these are the reasons why the mystics have found it so difficult to explain happiness and love.  You can't.  They can not be brought into the human experience.  Perhaps like "pure art."  As soon as art is brought into the human experience, it is no longer created, it is caused.  

That's a leap I didn't intend to take.  And I don't know if I believe it.  There's probably middle ground here.  But it's too late to go further, and this train of thought blog has to end somewhere.  

Did you hear that Mike got stung by a scorpion?

Scorpions and Crabs and Jellyfish

Here's something about scorpions and crabs and jellyfish...

Scorpions:  A buddy got stung by a scorpion on the beach today.  Rare, I know.  Here's the thing... He transported the scorpion all the way from his home to his car to the bar to the beach on the ankle strap of the leash on his longboard.  Went to put on the leash, got stung on the finger.  Ouch.  Here's a neat fact... To decrease the pain, you can rip off the tail of the scorpion and rub the gooey fluid that comes out on the wound.  Mike did it, and it helped.  And then we went surfing.  No waves today.  No waves at all.  But I went out twice.  And paddled.  So, that's what I know about scorpions. 

Crabs:  It rained three nights ago.  It REALLY rained.  And it was the first time in months.  The neat thing was that the next day, our bathrooms here at the bar filled up with land crabs.  Little blue and red creatures that live in the lawn usually.  I and a six year old blonde haired blue eyed little boy went and got the broom from the kitchen, and one by one, I would get them out of the bathroom, and he would take over and sweep them out of the bar.  It was like hockey with crabs.  Not a big deal, but when I got home, I opened the door, and literally 30 crabs scattered as I turned on the light.  They were all over the house, and scattered into every possible hiding place.  Not so bad for me, really.  While they can climb walls (I know, strange), they don't seem to enter my bed, at least while I am in it.  But JAKE.  The poor thing spent all night jerking his head from scamper of tiny crab legs on concrete to scamper of tiny crab legs on concrete.  He doesn't chase them, as he has learned that they hurt when sniffed.  All the more reason to keep an accurate account of their locations.  Update: they're gone.  After one day.  Word is they migrate to the mountains in the dry season.  I guess they got confused for a day, then realized it's too damn hot down here.  

Jellyfish:  Surfers get stung a lot in these waters.  And peeing on the sting helps.  It's not an old wives tale.  Enough said. 

One Year Later

One year ago tonight I wrote in my journal "I saw my first sunset tonight, and it was beautiful."

One year ago today, I had the biggest transformation of my life.  I had finished an eight day retreat in Northern California, called the Hoffman Quadrinity Process.  It was the catalyst that spawned an enormous change inside of me to become as I am today.  The final day of the Process, as we call it, I made a vow: To share; to connect; to love; to lighten up; and to live by my authentic self.  The following day, a Saturday spent partially on Stinson Beach, partly at the Sandpiper Inn, and partly on a trail by a river nearby, a significant shift happened within me.  I had only really become aware that I existed in the previous week: I saw for the first time my spirit, previously hidden from consciousness by a dense cloud of human experience-created patterns.  On this particular Saturday in Stinson Beach, that spirit, I, became the home team.  And my human experience, including my emotions, my intellect, my body, and all of the programming I have received, both positive and negative, were only visitors along for the ride with my spirit.  I woke up.  And I felt love. 

In the last year, as many of you may have witnessed first-hand, I've gone through many human changes that in one way or another reflect the internal change that occurred over that week, and especially on that Saturday.  I quit my job (twice), I got a tattoo, I bought a Jeep, took a roadtrip, broke up with my absolutely wonderful girlfriend of six years, moved out of our home, moved again, sold or gave away everything I've owned, moved again (this time out of the country), found desperation, faced the prospect of bankruptcy, got sued, got dengue, learned to surf (caught my "glory wave" as others called it two days ago), learned to cherish being alone, and watched.  Especially watched.  And watched.  I've gone through peaks and valleys, I stray for sometimes weeks at a time, only to wake from sleep and return to myself with forgiveness and compassion.  I find awe in sunsets. But more than anything, I love.  And that is wonderful.  

So today I spent the morning alone.  I reminisced some, I questioned a lot, I ran through some visualizations, and took note in the simple beauty around me.  I became very sad.  I miss home, I miss my friends, I miss my family, I miss Kris, I miss Grizz and Mav.  I miss Tone, and Deanna, and Sues, and Annette, and Frankie, and Rin, and every other single person who had their own experiences at White Sulfur Springs with me one year ago.  The connection I share with them is so beautiful and so deep.  But in that sadness is love.  And while I'm not with any of these wonderful people now, or the countless other friends and family, I don't feel pain.  Sadness without pain. Missing without longing.  Love.  

So, as I looked back today, I wondered whether I am any different now that I was before that week at WSS, or if I have only changed everything around me while I have stayed the same.  I feel more love.  I feel less anger.  I feel at peace.  I don't have much anxiety.  But is it better?  Am I now or at least moving toward something greater?  After spending hours checking in with myself, I have come to only one answer: I don't care.  I'm on the best path I can choose, and if nothing else, I am learning and growing in ways I never grew before.  For better or for worse, I believe I am me.  More me than I have ever been.  And that's nice.