Simplicity – It speaks in a softer voice, but its message can be profound and fulfilling. Smooth soft colors. A silhouette leaving out the unnecessary details. It is as a silent moment with a true friend.

My last photograph of the year (most likely)
The last light after the last sunset in 2017 was enough to light up the remaining leaves on this barberry bush. Taken with my real camera, still unable to capture the experience fully.

A few things I already knew but learned again in 2017 (For use in 2018)
To forgive myself for things beyond my control.
Continuing to live life does not mean you have forgotten those you have lost.
Allow happiness in, it is easy to turn it away or to believe you do not deserve it.
More action less, or more carefully chosen, words.
When you are close to epiphany or solution fate will always throw things in your path and make you work for the revelation.
Experience and let it all in. From the smallest grain of beach sand in hand, to my philosophies, and pondering the reaches of the universe, where while I write this galaxies collide and new stars are born.
Knowing that I can always be a better human and working on that every day of every year

Kevin 12/31/17

Wishing all a wonderful 2018 !!!

Pride is a complex emotion directed at one’s self. It can lose wars and destroy relationships, or it can revitalize and carry us when there is nothing left. Pride is an auspicious animal, when we fall it helps us to stand, dust off, and carry on. It may also be the last vestige to bring us to our feet when we wake. But it can also blind us to our surroundings, causing us to disregard others feelings, lack in empathy, hurt without recognition, and create a barrier stopping us from letting feelings in or out. It’s all in the balancing of the beast, pride must be tempered so as to allow us to love fully and also prepare for the battles ahead.

Sometimes we must swallow our pride and let others under its shell to truly feel and be felt at the most basic level. Family, friends, lovers, it is important in life to have a certain number of people that know all of your depths good and bad. Life cannot be fully lived without it. Of course this comes with the risk of having our pride hurt and for others to use this knowledge against us. So we must choose wisely but not allow fear to keep us from living.

Sometimes we must wield our pride against those that belittle and point out our faults trying to make us question our worth taking away our sense of peace and happiness. It can do this for us, like a shield it can be battered and dented, but at the end of the day can be hung on the wall while we commune with the ones we love, the ones that love us.

In my life I have noticed many people will help you and give advice based on their level of happiness and pride in life. They want you to be happy, as long as you are not happier than they. Their own pride keeps them from truly opening their hearts to share with you their true wisdom and knowledge keeping their deepest most valuable beliefs locked away. Sometimes it is obvious, sometimes so built in to their psyche invisible even to them.

Out of pride I have a certain fear of sharing this writing, but if I don’t then I am not being who I truly am.

Kevin A Moore

A contemplation, a poem, something I just thought I’d write.

Every heart has a first beat at a moment in time
A miracle of science or a miracle of faith if you like
Its journey is moving ever forward
Its expedition makes only one stop

Such determination and strength it must have
Ceaselessly expanding and contracting
Beating Pumping Burning its fuel
Its responsibility only grows as does its host

A beat may be skipped for reasons good or for bad
It will be pushed to its limits with fear and unknown
We ask it to race for our hungers lusts and our passions
It does slow when it can but unyielding grinds on

So amazing its power we give it a separate life
When true love is found our hearts join as one
Babies kittens and puppies it melts on its own
We follow it when uncertain
With loss and grief breaks
Often times right some wrong
It loves when there is no love
It might run when it is called

But without stop the small wonder keeps beating
Seconds
Minutes
Hours
All day All night

The heart keeps on striving until the last breath of life

Kevin A Moore

On teachers having guns: I love teachers, they have one of the most important jobs there is and a difficult one at that. Teachers, underappreciated, overworked, underpaid, frustrated, frustrated for resources, frustrated with difficult children, and frustrated with inability to give the time and attention to help to the children that struggle but try so hard and really deserve it. Mocked, laughed at, and ridiculed by kids all day, not because kids are bad, just because that’s what some kids do. Frustrating. Carrying the weight of these pressures and at the same time adding the huge responsibility of protecting our children with deadly force. That pressure is just too heavy a burden. It seems to me like another tragedy just waiting to happen, just a matter of time.

Teachers are already Heroes, they do not need the added pressure of being Action Heroes as well, teaching the children is an enormous responsibility all by itself.

Kevin A Moore

I have plenty to say about the acquiring and ease of accessibility of firearms, but I’m going to leave it at that for now.

By thinking and contemplation we conjure ideas.
By writing our ideas down to ourselves we make it real, we bring it into existence.
By sharing our writing with one person or everyone we lay it bare, we own it, open to judgement good and bad.

Kevin A Moore

International Women’s Day began in 1917 in Russia, then in 1975 was recognized by the United Nations. Along with suffrage and other equal rights, sexual discrimination during employment was named even then.

We need to recognize and maintain our equality. There is so much to be gained in protecting the rights of every individual equally. The growth and awareness that would come with meeting on equal ground would change the planet as we know it. It would afford a trust that has never been known between the genders allowing a sharing of knowledge and insight on a grand scale without fear of reprisal or repercussion for either gender. Only good things would come of it. I stand beside each of you, better than no other, just a human

This goes for relationships as well. To some guys this may sound emasculating. It is not. By trying to dominate, control, or own your partner, you lose your power. You will never truly know them, you will never have all of them which is given freely when you become one on the same level. The power in this type of sharing goes way beyond controlling someone’s movements and actions. Equality does not change the fact that men and women are different, it actually enhances the differences

With everything happening in the world, in the media, all around us, it couldn’t be more obvious that the change has not been made more than 100 years after this holiday became recognized.

I wrote this to share some of my feelings, I did not write about many of the more important aspects including the violence and criminal behavior that must be stopped by any means necessary. We need to come together to make this happen, join hands, join voices.

Kevin

Moonlight

Blue is the halo that surrounds the moon
At this moment time hesitates
Not in awe but in wonder at its beauty
In the wondering of meaning and purpose of being
The blurred colors of life will return with the day
Like cars passing close on the worlds freeways
Phones ringing pinging blinking cars beeping voices blending
The cacophony of the city rises to the sky around and above us
At this moment there is the moon and its halo
Some of life’s answers are glimpsed in these moments of reflection
The moon is a true friend as it climbs into the sky
Full and bright at its best screaming see me I am here
Quaint and kind as it wanes and finds its way to the horizon
It leaves us for days but always returns when we are truly lost in darkness
At this moment there is the moon and its halo and tonight we walk in its light

KA Moore

Sleep Walking
Fast Talking
Suffocating
Communicating
Voice Calming
Disarming
Touched with Grace
Beauty Taste
Outer Space
Sleeping Sound
Slowing Down
Peace I’ve Found
Feet on Ground

-Kevin

Slightly blurry photo of the original painting –  Painting and Photo by KAMoore