Expeditions

I’ve got my map and compass
It’s good to know where I stand
I’ve got a charged up cell phone
I’ll keep in touch when I can

My fanny pack
Ain’t gonna lack
For what I need
I’m ready for
That open door
My fanny freed
To ditch the hoods
Explore the woods
Mountains and streams
To hug a tree
And try to see
Nature pristine

I’ve got a drink of water
I wouldn’t want to run dry
I’ve got granola trail mix
Ain’t got no room for a pie

My fanny pack
Ain’t gonna lack
For what I need
I’m ready for
That open door
My fanny freed
To ditch the hoods
Explore the woods
Mountains and streams
To hug a tree
And try to see
Nature pristine

In walking with nature you will receive
Far more than at first you might have believed

I’ve got a brand new cam’ra
Hope it’s not smashed by the bears
My pocket knife is useful
I can slice apples and pears

My fanny pack
Ain’t gonna lack
For what I need
I’m ready for
That open door
My fanny freed
To ditch the hoods
Explore the woods
Mountains and streams
To hug a tree
And try to see
Nature pristine

You’re standing on the mountain
And flying with your eyes
You hear the mystery calling
And touch an endless sky

You’ll never catch the spirits on the mountain
You’ll never hold what’s hiding in the shadows
The songs of old are screaming through the canyons
You’ll never see them dancing right behind you

There’s secrets near the surface
And questions in the air
Who came here from the old world
With answers they could share?

You’ll never catch the spirits on the mountain
You’ll never hold what’s hiding in the shadows
The songs of old are screaming through the canyons
You’ll never see them dancing right behind you

I shall dance upon the rocks
I will dance among the trees
I am dancing with the sun
I am dancing with the breeze
I am dancing in the stream
I will dance in solitude
I shall dance among the clouds
I will dance to be renewed

Are spirits just emotions
Reactions in my mind?
I celebrate the journey
Connection I may find

You’ll never catch the spirits on the mountain
You’ll never hold what’s hiding in the shadows
The songs of old are screaming through the canyons
You’ll never see them dancing right behind you

It’s a gangway, a gangway track
It’s a long way, a long way back
Time to set up camp
Time to light the lamp
Take a fair way, a fair way tack

Divvy the privy time or live with the skivvy slime
Sever regret, sever regret
Divvy the privy time or live with the skivvy slime
Never forget, never forget

In the lakeside, the lakeside night
In the fireside, the fireside light
Time to share the loot
Time to tell the truth
Skip the landslide, the landslide fight

Divvy the privy time or live with the skivvy slime
Sever regret, sever regret
Divvy the privy time or live with the skivvy slime
Never forget, never forget

End the flagship, the flagship greed
Stop the friendship, the friendship bleed
Time to clean the mess
Time for more with less
Plant the kinship, the kinship seed

Divvy the privy time or live with the skivvy slime
Sever regret, sever regret
Divvy the privy time or live with the skivvy slime
Never forget, never forget

I smell the roses as fast as I can
I taste the gourmet from drive-thru food stands
Patiently is my torture
Busily is my shield
Escaping a future
With truth revealed

I’m on overload and I don’t care
I’m at red alert and I ignore it
I’m on overload, a psycho-scare
I’m at razor’s edge and dance before it

I hear fine music 200db
I see the sunset on prime time TV
Listening is a stranger
Idle chat is my friend
I don’t see the danger
Growing within

I’m on overload and I don’t care
I’m at red alert and I ignore it
I’m on overload, a psycho-scare
I’m at razor’s edge and dance before it

Got in a rat race screamin’ fast
Turns out that first place ends up last
Lost on the uptake streamin’ fun
Turns out my headache ends up numb

I feel a closeness with big sitcom stars
I talk to family by phone in the car
Quantity is my master
Quality is my slave
I keep racin’ faster
Into my grave

I’m on overload and I don’t care
I’m at red alert and I ignore it
I’m on overload, a psycho-scare
I’m at razor’s edge and dance before it

If we can lose the ad hominem
I welcome everyone to come in
With science efforts that you can join
Let’s aim for truth above taking coin

Don’t want to seem like a bureaucrat
When I doubt claims that are in a chat
I’m standing ready to change my stance
Based on empirical evidence

No straw man is attacked, no base-rate fallacy
There’s no non-sequitur, no masked-man fallacy
No cherry picking there, there’s no red herring here

Lookin’ for logical fallacies
Checkin’ out rational sanities
Don’t wanna be a wannabe
Skippin’ the oracle fantasy
Stoppin’ the magical lunacy
Workin’ for high integrity

I have a double-blind test for you
I always welcome some peer review
Need my analyses all in line
So theories will stand the test of time

No false authority, no divine fallacy
No false equivalence, no slope that’s slippery
No moving goalposts there, no special pleading here

Lookin’ for logical fallacies
Checkin’ out rational sanities
Don’t wanna be a wannabe
Skippin’ the oracle fantasy
Stoppin’ the magical lunacy
Workin’ for high integrity

There’s a hole in the mountain surrounded by heavenly views
See wildflowers and snow peaks and eagles traversing the blue
There’s a hole in the mountain that never can be overlooked
Tubal Cain calls you forward to write a new page in the book

Into the mountain of adversity
Into the darkness of antiquity
Time has been frozen for a hundred years
Holding the echoes of a hundred fears

There’s a hole in the hist’ry
Surrounded by various clues
Digging into the myst’ry
The truth is beyond overdue
What you take in the mountain will actually be your reward
It’s a fear-based reflection a visitor cannot ignore

Into the mountain of adversity
Into the darkness of antiquity
Time has been frozen for a hundred years
Holding the echoes of a hundred fears

A relative miner sings
While working in the depths
You’re listening closely brings
Shared dreams under the breath
A vision for treasure springs
While cheating your own death

Into the mountain of adversity
Into the darkness of antiquity
Time has been frozen for a hundred years
Holding the echoes of a hundred fears

I dance on the roots
Of towering trees
I tighten my boots
For crossing the scree
With salmon below
I’m fording the creeks
With spikes on the snow
Ascending the peak

No waypoint, no guidepost, no pathway to see
No clear-cut way forward, no flow to the sea
But not all who wander are lost from success
Discover rare beauty, connect on this quest

Connect to the wild things and learn about the land
Connect to the stardust, explore to understand

The sands of time cross
The old river bridge
The storm at the falls
Gives chase up the ridge
The shelter of trees
Sees me through the hail
But that chilling breeze
Finds me off the trail

No waypoint, no guidepost, no pathway to see
No clear-cut way forward, no flow to the sea
But not all who wander are lost from success
Discover rare beauty, connect on this quest

Connect to the wild things and learn about the land
Connect to the stardust, explore to understand

The story of rocks
Spans millions of years
The raven may squawk
As I conquer fears
The canyon is steep
I find a way to
A river so sweet
With rarefied views

No waypoint, no guidepost, no pathway to see
No clear-cut way forward, no flow to the sea

No waypoint, no guidepost, no pathway to see
No clear-cut way forward, no flow to the sea
But not all who wander are lost from success
Discover rare beauty, connect on this quest

Connect to the wild things and learn about the land
Connect to the stardust, explore to understand

She’ll kick your teeth in and slash your head
She’ll twist your ankles, leave you for dead
She’ll send the hornets throughout the grind
She’ll bring the blisters, mess with your mind

Oh Mildred, oh Mildred
She gives you a wry smile sipping her tea
So polite but wicked tenaciously

She’ll bring the gut punch and scrape your knees
She’ll bring the windstorm and make you freeze
She’ll start a landslide and hide the trail
She’ll ice the log bridge, pelt you with hail

Oh Mildred, oh Mildred
She always makes you look like a weak fool
She has special ways to be deeply cruel

Sweet mother of Treebeard, come save us
For Mildred is master of our doom
Her snakes and her serpents are coming
We’re climbing a mountain of her gloom

She’ll bring a rainfall that feels like tears
Bring you a darkness that stirs your fears
She’ll make your friends doubt, stab you with thorns
She mocks your journey, no time to mourn

Oh Mildred, oh Mildred
She gives you a wry smile sipping her tea
So polite but wicked tenaciously
Oh Mildred, oh Mildred
She always makes you look like a weak fool
She has special ways to be deeply cruel
She’s so cruel

If you can return to your homeland
Then Mildred will offer a priv’lege
You’ll drink to survival and triumph
And she will remember your courage

A series of pictures arrived from deep space
A journey at the speed of light
Eight hundred million years in flight
Intelligent creatures on planets like earth
Their story came in song to me
A record of what came to be

Calling out to anyone list’ning, the death of our star has come
Once we were a glorious empire and now our life is done
Know that we did celebrate kindness, remember the love we knew
We have seen astonishing beauty, we hoped to share with you

They managed together to live without war
With symbiotic neuro links
They lived effectively in sync
They talked to each other through rhythms and tunes
A song revealed their dreadful curse
It echoes through the universe

Calling out to anyone list’ning, the death of our star has come
Once we were a glorious empire and now our life is done
Know that we did celebrate kindness, remember the love we knew
We have seen astonishing beauty, we hoped to share with you

A series of pictures arrived from deep space
Some algorithmic layers combined
Artistic scenes and tech designs
They selflessly cared for their planets and tribes
In tribute to their place and time
We sing their sacred verse in rhyme

Calling out to anyone list’ning, the death of our star has come
Once we were a glorious empire and now our life is done
Know that we did celebrate kindness, remember the love we knew
We have seen astonishing beauty, we hoped to share with you

Can’t leave the holodeck
To fix the holo tech
I washed the green pill down
I’m stuck in farm-ville town
Omega activate
I hope it’s not too late
Rowing my boat ashore
There must be a backdoor

Finding the controls to this simulation
Making changes grand in this automation
There’s one subroutine I will keep just the same
There’s one algorithm that’s more than a game
The emergence of you, the expressions of you
The unaugmented you, the emergence of you

Apparently I’m free
But really I could be
A programmed avatar
I can’t tell insofar
As I am trapped inside
Who here is bonafide?
Is this world optimized
Or pseudorandomized?

Finding the controls to this simulation
Making changes grand in this automation
There’s one subroutine I will keep just the same
There’s one algorithm that’s more than a game
The emergence of you, the expressions of you
The unaugmented you, the emergence of you

At the fountain of youth I’ll drink from data-flow
Fake entropy can be fake reversed as you know
Fast-forward through routines
Take good times nice and slow
I’ll sequence ev’ry bit
Any way the wind blows

Is this life one big stage
Or one great endless cage?
Can puppets climb the strings
Plug in a pair of wings?
I’ll upgrade to my prime
No more wars, no more crime
I’ll enter laughter code
In the hereafter mode

Finding the controls to this simulation
Making changes grand in this automation
There’s one subroutine I will keep just the same
There’s one algorithm that’s more than a game
The emergence of you, the expressions of you
The unaugmented you, the emergence of you

The expressions of you, the unaugmented you
The emergence of you, the emergence of you
The emergence of you

Fanny Pack

Spirits on the Mountain

Divvy the Privy Time

I'm on Overload

Fallacies

Hole in the Mountain

Connectivity

Mildred

Death of a Star

The Emergence of You