The Lady Bug

One of the hardest parts about being a man is making mistakes.

You set out to sea with dreams so big you never really knew how far you could reach. But what happens when the ship hits land and the journey has hit a new twist. Old dreams become bitter battles of glory like medals without a names.

The second hardest part about being a man is knowing your mistakes.

You feel you've been through the world and back more times than columbus. You got life, philosophies, or even that nice persona in tact. But truly you don't really know more than you're willing to learn.

The third hardest part about being a man getting up and facing your mistakes.

If I were not capable of being good then I believe there would not be an interior struggle to fight the bad inside me meaning if I were truly to lend to my emotions of being a lost cause then I would totally be "lost" and unable to see it. I would be content or yet never uneasy with my bahavior. The human conscience or "heart" is gold, but there's a lot of debris along the way before you reach the purest form of a stone heart.

I've seen the mountain. My nausea increases. The trail binding towards the sky harbor. So unevenly paced my feet control my hearts satisfaction. Is this my first walk or has it been years since I've been on this trail. Surely, I look to my left and my right. I see many pass me by with ease and some with many sorrows/burdens. I find strength though I do not possess it. Maybe it's the innate gifts men are born with. The desire to dream and conquer.

I look to my Father's eyes. Oh weary man you've seen the top of the mountain and you've seen the bottom. You've known the tip of wisdom and the jagged edge of destruction. Please tell me,

"What is the best part of being a man?"

He never spoke, but his walk showed.

His lips never moved, but his will was never mute.

The walk is the climb and the climb is the walk.

It's not so much what you see when you get to the top of life's Everest's, but what you receive on the way down.

For we are more than we think. For we are what we were designed and created to be. The most important part of the walk isn't the start, but the finish.

I take a breathe. Wipe the sweat from thy forehead. Plead with myself for one more try and awaken the inner spirit. Was my inspiration just a dream or was it just destiny written within my tired soul?

The walk is steady, the walk is ready... grace appears as a lady bug lays peacefully on my shoulder. Does luck stand on my shoulder or have I just happened to stand on luck itself. I am the man that's coming down the mountain, I am the answer and I am the question.

What is the best part of being a man?

The Shape Of Life

The stormy beach. Shipwrecked hearts that land ashore.

Tide that rises as it pleases.

The coldness kills. A pain that ills.

Blame it on the helpess. Blame it on the faithless.

When hands for prayers are hands for fists.

When eyes for sight are eyes for fright.

Believe in pillars of sand and turn water into wine.

Still no peace rests at bay.

Shield me from the torment. The water stings.

The platform of life is molding, I'm rolling.

My edges bent. My wrinkles sprained.

Rust becomes gold in the warmth of the sun.

When what's old reminds me of the new.

My colors change.

My old shape fades.

The shape of life turned me into stone.

The chiseled piece of rock I call home.

The Waiting

Is it the mystery of life... getting what you want when you want it?

It's not a lie, but a truth that most of the greatest miracles and desires come in the moments where we least expect them to happen to us. I know we live in a "now" culture, but it's not just in a social media. It lies beneath the skin. The hardest truth to find comes directly from the purest of hearts. No man can read or tell the script your heart writes in secret.

I've found sage wisdom through the disasters of false hopes, desires, and honesty. What we desire most in a moment may not occur in the prime of your own timing though you are willing to bet your soul on it's prize. Truly we are fortunate we don't always get what we want when we want it for if we always did I think we'd look a little less human and possibly a little more selfish... or better yet ungrateful in due seasons.

Maybe it's to every moment it's own, maybe it's not. Sometime's grace is the second coming of an opportunity dealt in a delayed time just for us to come around and hit this one out of the park.

Losing isn't always losing forever, it's simply waiting for the right day for it to rain.

-Emanuel

Bob Hope

"You haven't failed until you've given up"

I've been watching tons of films with an elderly man who calls himself Bob Hope. He's become my new friend and I guess I've become his new friend too according to his words this morning. Bob is a very special person, I don't know him as well as my mother does, but I sure admire him. Sometime's I wish I could be more like him, he holds what he loves with such vigor that it can sometimes drive others crazy.

His love/words are in constant "repeat" and maybe that's what love should be.

My mother does private care and I've been able to watch him for a few hours a day for her. It's funny how much just a few words, a few hours, and even a stare of a smile can change your life. He was in an accident in his youth and it has affected him in his sixties with this condition to repeat a lot of the same words as an elderly man, but surely he has not forgotten the most important things in his life to him.

His parents, "West Side Story" the movie, and Pizza.

For it's not so much what we're given, but what we do with with what we have. To love those who have been given to us on a daily basis.

As far as I know I think with him watching "West Side Story" over and over again I could never get tired of it like the time we shared with our beloved Maria. His voice shimers lyric and melody over characters parts as the television plays on. His tears fall exactly when my own heart breaks during the film and we can both agree we had a good time sharing in this story together.

Bob asked me to come visit him next week. He told me he had a great time hanging out with me. I told him I did too and that I'd be there.

He may be in constant repeat, but I'm beyond honored to have been included in his life. I guess I haven't felt so welcomed by another human being in a long time that it changed something in me.

Bob changed his last name himself and I'm starting to think why can't I do the same. Why can't I do the same about my life, the people I love, and the things I care about so much. Why not?

Why can't I be... Mani Hope.

Shooting Star

I've seen things that I cannot ignore

Life behind the wheel. Life behind your will. I've lost count. I've lost faith, not love, but the words that reoccur and the issues that lie unheard. My fingers frail time after time not to write, but to truly exist. Words I know from the heart though come unanswered I still send. Something's don't need to explain. Something's need to do.

I'm bitter not because I chose to taste, but for the weather that carries it's chill in my mouth. I own not the right to my soul, but what fills it's appetite. My shoulders burdened though my spirit roams free. Another captain at sea with one wish at home.

Let not hindrance come upon restless souls for it causes grief in me for the exploitation of such injustice on thy fellow weary spirits. Close my eyes to lay me down and let waters flow like icy waters of the sierra. Won't you carry me for this song expired and love I've played its part in your symphony. I count all as lost if I have not yet known my role. For it was nearly to come back to you time after time. Words may end and there I begin.

I've seen things that I just cannot ignore.

-Shooting Star

"So Alive"

The foggy white van we call our second home pulls our instruments from a trailer driving through the darkness trail blazing our way up Northern California. The highways become the hand on a clock and the scenery is the only entertainment available. You fall asleep in your row and thank God you can lay your head down for a few hours. You revisit some of the same truck stops, you see some progress in change, or you just read through pages to get on with it. How do you live life when all you could do at times is watch it? I struggled to find that hunger or vision that my eyes stare at out the window that keeps my mind sane in silence. It's been about four years since our debut at Joshuafest in Plymouth, Ca and it's our first stop on the Live Love Guatemala Tour.

When you play music and travel you always seem to end up playing with many of the same bands, meeting the same people, crew etc. Something that chaps me badly is passing people by without a hello or people you consistently see who you never conversate with. I like to notice people and I guess it's important for people to notice those you seem to see quite often. We may very well never be in this state, city, or place ever again. Somethings in life only happen once and I know our days are counted.

As time goes on you seem to realize that you aren't neccesarily where you use to be years ago playing at 9am in the morning at these festivals just to get on the bill anymore. I'm reminded of a band called "Last Tuesday" announcing our set on their prime set-time for us. I remember how much that meant to us and we were grateful to share the love for our friends in All Day Drive and Wintzend during our set this year.

We are indepted to fight the resistance, but also lend the hand that was also given to us.

We opened the set with "All That I've Got". We weren't going to use any gimics or tricks everyone else was using these days. Just four guys playing everything that was coming through the speakers. No tracks, intro's, or usual band pretense ideas. We'd set out to play our songs right where the came from, the heart. Ofcourse you forget a few parts or hits, but it's just like learning to laugh for the first time, it comes so natural. The crowds kept coming as we hit "Time To Live Again" and the rain just started to pour down like confetti at a party. I can't remember the last time I have ever felt so alive in my life like I did that day. It's like possibly falling in love for a few split seconds. It's then that you know you are home and that this body is only just a tool to express it's voice.

Our mouths breathed out cold air, our bodies rising with steam, and our faces washed with graceful precipitation from the heavens. The smiles were evident across our eyes with one another in enlightenment.

We were like kids... we were playing in the rain.

-Mani

Like Wild Horses

There is a myth among my mind that strikes reality and aspiration. My brother's wife Laine always looks out into the desert fields of the Gila River Highway(Maricopa, Arizona) where you drive about thirty minutes to hit the nearest suburb from the small dusty town we both reside in.

There is a story of Wild Horses that live among the desert mountains, plains, and heat. These beautiful creatures don't belong to anyone and they in my heart are in complete liberation. The feeling is dawning to my soul always on the edge of my seat with my face pointed towards the sand searching for just one. 

I've been inspired to write a song about something that's been in me that I've been hurting to get out. Sometimes songs aren't about what we choose to write, but what they choose to be. The mere image of such freedom, myth, or beauty is one that lies within the unexplainable, but also the unheard.

Like Wild Horses, Lord knows I beg to be the same and more so to be as beautiful as they are to me.

-Emanuel