Ben Coe

Smashed Glass

Ben Coe — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 02:51:24 +0000

let the tree come crashing down
let it smash your glass house into a thousand pieces
slowly walk over the bits mashing them into your barefoot soles
melding the pieces of what was into your foot pads like a sponge to red wine
there is no need to fight
there is only need to draw in this moment
fully accept what has happened and make it yours
fill up your chest and shoot light out your soul

Spend More!

Ben Coe — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 01:21:00 +0000

I realize that the “system” (society) has it all wrong in at least one way. The system indoctrinates us to be fearful and play it safe, to just get a job, to squirrel away money. By design it wants us to do a small part and then to sit back idly while enjoying television. It doesn’t want us to do more on a daily basis. Then some day when many days like this have passed there will be enough that we can sip on our savings throughout the rest of life as long as the system continues to be stable.

The very nature of this system implies that there isn’t enough. The value it proposes is saving – to spend little and save as much as possible.

The problem is that it’s looking at it all backwards. It’s looking at our capital as the man-made financial capital. What it isn’t taking into account is the unlimited amount of capital, true capital, you have brewing inside – your personal energy. This is the capital that is all yours while you’re alive on this planet.

In my own experience, I have found that the more I spend in terms of real capital, personal energy, the more I get back in return. The more I push myself away from fear and playing it safe, the greater the personal reward. The more I push myself to CREATE, the more people notice my work and appreciate it. I mean, you can just feel this. Think back to the last time you really threw caution to the wind and did that thing you just love to do. People can see it on your face. And no matter how much energy you were putting into it, you had an unlimited amount more to give even if you were tired. The feeling of squirreling away is the opposite of this. It isn’t the feeling that makes you come alive. The feeling that makes you come alive is saying “Fuck it, I’ve got to do this thing!”

So, to hell with the old way. Down with the old system of being scared and cautious and living life to squirrel away. Instead, I say reach deep down inside and find something you want to pour energy into… something that will make you come alive and then just throw caution to the wind. Spend all the personal energy you have on it! Spend it all! Then spend some more! Because you know what?! You’re not going to run out. The more you create, the more you will have. And the more you have, the more we all have. It seems paradoxical but you’ll find it to be true.

Onward

Ben Coe — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 16:48:32 +0000

Be patient and stay true to your course
even if at this point you don’t know what it will yield
to know that you are walking the path you need to walk
to know that you are clearing the brush
uncovering your secret path
and eventually, by staying true to this calling,
you will go exactly where you need to go.

Thank you Steve Jobs

Ben Coe — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 02:31:20 +0000

I’ve been amazed by how much love and respect one man has generated. And this love for a CEO of a massive corporation at a time when corporations are loathed and protested against. It proves to me that even when building something at a large scale, you can imbue your products, culture, and message with love and attention. It must be incredibly hard to keep that pure, but it can obviously be done. I can’t think of another business leader who will garner this much admiration on passing from this earth. Well, I join the ranks and raise a glass to you Steve Jobs. Thank you for making technology beautiful and awe inspiring.
**

“That’s been one of my mantras: focus and simplicity,” Jobs told Businessweek in 1998. “Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.”

Synergy

Ben Coe — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 03:54:14 +0000

For you I will build a campfire
I will outfit my backpack and carry it through the day
I will share my water, hat, and empty space
I will even share my special treat

I will show you what I have seen
and bear my excitement
I will expose my emotions
and converse from my soul without fear

Your power and energy
cycle powerfully within you, it is your source
and yet it magically feeds me as well
just by being near it

On a normal day
you are so strong it just surrounds you
and is made available for others to pick up

So on the off days when you are down-
a part of the natural cycle
I will provide for you
I will listen and help you up because it is not hard
because you have given me so much on the other days

You live life like a flame
beautiful and bright and lighting the world on fire.
Colors and patterns dancing about
Magically

I love you and want this for you
because I know that you are me as well.

P.S I’m talking to *you*

What Burning Man Is

Ben Coe — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 04:18:05 +0000

i am a man that feels a deep connection to an ancient past. That feels the river of history flowing through me. Though I appreciate what we’ve done here in modern times, it is not that which guides me. It is the timeless, the connection to the deepness. I feel myself in a cave with candle light and making cave paintings.

Rituals… I can feel the need for them and sadly they are largely missing from my life. They need to come back in. I have felt this before. But how do i create ritual that invites others to go deep as well?

Perhaps this is a call that others feel, possibly unknowingly. And perhaps our answer to it is Burning Man. Possibly that is why it was created and why it continues. Burning Man is the tribal ritual, the beckoning for individuals to go deeper, to gather around a campfire and to go deep and in that space to create possibilities for ourselves and those around us. The participation is the crucible through which we change. To challenge yourself by putting yourself in a harsh climate without showers, to stay up late, to dance around fire, to plot and plan for months for this journey, to sacrifice your money and time off – all seemingly insurmountable challenges and yet so many walk the gauntlet. It is modern tribalism surfacing in the United States – a manifestation of the deepness.

Burning Man does not live quietly because it speaks to a timelessness and depth that lives within each of us. And once awakened within it’s like the need for water. It’s been creeping up to the surface through the years and just now it is finding how to exist within modern society. It is miraculously alive. It has manifest in Burning Man and now encourages all of us to do the same elsewhere – whether it be in our small towns, our social circles, or our work. Burning Man is nothing more than a place that exists within each of us, almost entirely hidden to most of us, but when it is found… look out!

Tapping the Root

Ben Coe — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 03:02:52 +0000

Tap the underground river of life, the throbbing source of energy.
Tap it and drink straight from it.

Do not be encumbered by the “Society Layer.”
We must not be afraid of life in it’s raw form.

Where information flows freedom follows

Ben Coe — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 02:32:08 +0000

In your personal life…
In the organizations you are part of..
How can you open up the channels of communication to let information flow more freely?
Where are the kinks, the hot spots, the blockages?
How can you move that blockage? Get a different angle on it? Maybe you can open it up from another angle. Find a door to it on the backside, walk into it and open it up from the inside. Now you can walk all the way through it.
That blockage isn’t permanent.
This is the process of verbal, mental, and organizational acupuncture.
Open up those channels.
Let the information flow freely.
Let it go, flush it through.
Where the information flows, freedom follows.

The World Needs You, man

Ben Coe — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 00:15:11 +0000

I’m not sure for what. I just don’t know. I don’t know what you need to be doing. Or how you need to spend your day. But it needs you, I’m sure of it. And I need you. We need you. If you just keep going, just keep searching, just keep listening you will find the Resonance – the great but silent sound of the source pulsating through your body.
Just keep swimming. I believe in you.

Deep Within

Ben Coe — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 02:35:48 +0000

Deep within
you will find everything you need to know

deep within
you will feel connection to the world and everything in it

deep within
you will encounter the truth
you will be exposed
bare to the world
vulnerable but throbbing with power

deep within there is no separation from the other
just awareness blending at the edges into other awareness

deep within there is a point
there is energy
there is passion
a push and a pull

deep within
it just is