Chapter Nine: Return to the Field
The moment I was considered a suspect in the death of officer Nagle they put me in jail. That’s what we call it in here when they lock you up in administrative segregation, ‘going to jail.’ In general population and on minimum custody, which was my custody status in December of 1999, you’re given limited freedom of movement within the prison. You’re allowed to walk to the chow halls, the laundry, library, recreation yards and dayrooms. Prisoners operate the farms, working the kitchens, laundry, production factories, field squads, clean-up crews and office clerk jobs. You are responsible for showing up to work on time, as well as ‘lay-ins’; or appointments, to medical, school, or classification committees. It’s like being in a small city, a closed community that functions similarly to any other in society. Just as those who break the law are arrested in the free world, so it is that you go to jail in administrative segregation when you violate the rules in prison.
The TDCJ has the most oppressive behavioral modification system of any prison system in the country. In GP you are classified a custody status – minimum, medium and close – according to your conduct. The same goes for ad seg, except the living conditions in seg are drastically worse. In ad seg you’re caged in a cell for 23 hours per day, and all physical contact is prohibited. Everything you’re entitled to, from food to law library books, is brought to you and given through a tray slot, or small hole in your cell door. Before you exit your cell or a ‘staging area’, such as the recreation rooms and showers, you must place your hands behind your back and out the tray slot to be handcuffed, then two guards armed with riot batons escort you wherever you’re headed. There aren’t any televisions, you do not work, visitation is held in another cage with bulletproof glass separating visitor from prisoner, and you recreate alone. When they first place you in seg your are on level 3 – the bottom of the barrel – and have virtually no property. You get 3 hours of rec per week, 1 visit per month and only hygiene and stamp purchases from the commissary. The idea is to subject rule violators to extreme sensory deprivation and gradually reward their good behavior by upgrading their level status. With each step you get a little more property, recreation, visit time and other minor privileges until you make level 1. The average stay in ad seg is about 5 years if you play by the rules, but for many prisoners there’s zero hope of ever being reintegrated back into the general population.
When Nagle died it had been 17 years since the last TDCJ guard was murdered on duty. Being the prime suspect, I was Enemy # 1 in the system and given High Profile status. They sent me to Michael unit. It’s the prototype farm for units like McConnell, Connally and Polunsky, and even though it was built in 1986 it was already falling apart. The wardens and majors greeted me off the prisoner van and walked me to my new house on 11 building; a video camera focused on me every step of the way. For the next two years a video camera was required to be rolling anytime I was pulled out of my cell or my tray slot was opened for any reason. The big wigs in Huntsville wanted all of my movements documented just in case some angry guard decided to retaliate. The administration was protecting themselves against a potential lawsuit, as guards have a propensity for administering their own ideas of justice.
The camera didn’t stop them from trying to make my life hell on Michael unit. I was isolated in 11 building with PHD (pre-hearing detention), solitary and transit inmates in temporary seg. For the first few months guards on both shifts randomly appeared at my door to curse and threaten me. My window faced a sidewalk and they frequently beat on it as they passed, waking me up at all hours. The camera was supposed to be on when I got my meals, to make sure I was fed, but some of them would spit in my food before they turned the camera on and handed me my tray. As a level 3 I didn’t have much property, but what I did have, like personal photos, letters and books, I often found strewn all over my floor when I returned from rec or shower.
These and many other psychological games were played on me to break my spirit, crush my will to live. Little did they know, I already felt dead inside, so their tactics had almost no effect. After a few months of staring blankly at them, walking around my cell naked (my own little mind game for the shy ones), and eating their spit, they seemed to catch on: I just didn’t give a fuck.
Most of my peace and quiet time on Michael was spent reading novels. I had about 15 books that I read in no time, then I borrowed books from the dudes down the run. To pass stuff I made a ‘fishing line’ out of unraveled boxer shorts and a long ‘fishing pole’ out of tightly rolled up magazines, then we’d “fish” under the small cracks of the doors. They say necessity is the mother of invention, and that’s readily apparent in ad seg. The degree of creativity and ingenuity you see in seg is incredibly impressive. Dudes make speakers, homemade wine, multi-outlet plugs, and many other crafts out of virtually little material. An old warden once said, “You put 3 convicts at the top of telephone poles over shark-infested waters, give one a sack of dope, one rolling papers and another a lighter and I guarantee you all three will be high in an hour.”
Reading kept my mind off of my hopeless predicament for the most part, but dark thoughts often swarmed my head. I’d written my family and told them I was a murder suspect, but almost two months later I still hadn’t gotten any mail. My dad and brother wrote back immediately, but the TDCJ was holding my mail, unbeknownst to me, and I just felt unloved and lonely. Besides, my mom hadn’t written since the previous summer, and I wouldn’t hear from her until April of 2000. An emptiness engulfed me and thoughts of suicide seemed more and more inviting. A really sweet psych lady showed up at my door one day and asked me how I felt. I told her I was tired of living and she replied, “But you’re so young and intelligent, Robert. Don’t give up on life when you have so much left.”
She had no idea who I was, what I’d been through or what I was facing. Once I told her my story she feebly said, “Oh my… oh my…”
The Rams were playing the Titans in the Super Bowl. Shorty, an ex-Mexican Mafia gang member, lived across the run from me and he gave me updates on the game. By halftime I cut out my light and fell asleep. Cheering and clapping woke me up. As I lay there in the dark I could see and hear Shorty through the screen of my door. Suddenly, a dense, black cloud appeared above the foot of my bunk. I was paralyzed by the most extreme fear of my life; all I could move were my eyes as its shaped shifted. A menacing face formed as I watched it with horror. It finally slammed into me, breaking the paralysis.
I have no recollection of ever opening my eyes or waking up after I absorbed the presence. I heard Shorty talking to someone down the run and he was still at his door when I jumped out of bed gasping for air. Sweat poured down my body and I shook violently. I went to the sink to wash my face with cold water. Could it have been a dream? Why didn’t I ‘wake up’? Never before or since have I been so terrified, and it just felt so real.
In March of 2000 I was transported to Beeville and went before the judge for the first time. I also met my attorneys for the first time. I was indicted on charges of capital murder and my lawyers brought me up to speed on the case the prosecutors were building against me. I pleaded not guilty, then got to speak privately with my lawyers for about 3 hours. I told them everything I knew, without implicating anyone else, and then told them I was seriously contemplating changing my plea to guilty and asking for the death penalty. They were shocked. John Gilmore, my lead counsel, was animated and near tears when he spoke to me. “Robert, I can’t tell you what to do. I can only advise. Your story breaks my heart, man. You were screwed by the system. Please, let me help you?”
John Gilmore is a good man. I felt the sincerity in every word he spoke, so I conceded. After our talk he asked the judge to have me moved closer to his Corpus Christi office so he and Joe Collina, my other lawyer, could visit with me and discuss trial strategy. In June of 2000 I was moved back to the Connally unit, this time as an ad seg prisoner.
On Connally I was again housed on 11 building, but this time they put me upstairs in a solitary cell around other ad seg level 2 ‘overflow’ prisoners. 12 building was filled to capacity. Even though I was still the most hated inmate in the system, the seg guards on Connally weren’t nearly as hostile towards me as those from Michaels. Well, at least not most of the time.
My quality of life slightly improved on Connally. I knew a lot of the dudes out in GP and they had coffee and stamps smuggled to me, plus many words of encouragement. My window faced the population chow halls so I could watch my old buddies coming and going each meal. Rusty sent word that I should let him know if I needed anything. I was due to make level 1 in a few months and I didn’t have a radio in my property, so I asked if he could help. In the 10 months between being segged and finally making level 1, I went through terrible music withdrawals! I sang to myself often and engaged in games of ‘name that tune’ with my neighbors, but I was desperate for some tunes. Rusty made sure I had a radio by the time I made level 1, which I was totally grateful for.
The summer of 2000 broke records for extreme temperatures. Rumor came down that dudes in GP, where there’s no air conditioner, were falling out left and right, and several had died from heat exhaustion on chain buses. That year the South Texas temps were regularly over 100 degrees. With the humidity the heat index was closer to 115 degrees daily. Living on 11 building felt like being in an oven. There wasn’t any air-conditioning, and as level 2’s we weren’t allowed fans. The ventilation system only pushed in the hot air from outside. Imagine the blazing sun heating up those metal ducts on the roof all day, not to mention the concrete walls, and not being able to open your window! We had to plug the vents up or we would’ve died from heat exhaustion. I used to block off my window with my jumpsuit, lean my mattress against the wall to block the heat radiating from it (those walls would get so hot you couldn’t keep your hand on them for more than a few seconds!), place all my property on the bunk, then flood the floor with toilet water. I’d lay naked on the floor to cool off, but it was so hot that the water would evaporate in a couple hours tops and I had to flood again. My mattress absorbed so much heat that I couldn’t sleep on it the entire summer. The floor would finally start to cool off around 4am, and most of us slept from then until about 10am. As far as living conditions go, the summer of 2000 was by far the worst and most miserable of all my time in prison.
The level 2’s around me were being rotated back to 12 building, the only air-conditioned buildings in all of TDCJ, every 30-45 days, but I was stuck on 11 building until late September. I’d made level 1 and, at first, they just moved me downstairs into a PHD cell with an electrical outlet for my appliances. The solitary cells didn’t have them. Then, I complained to the major about the library refusing to bring me book orders, which as a level 1 I was entitled to. They had a policy, though, that no library orders were filled for 11 building. The major moved me over to 12 building, A-pod-1 cell, and I just didn’t know how to act in the air conditioning!
Being in seg, where I didn’t have to work and everything was brought to me, afforded me the opportunity to sleep whenever I wanted, read to my heart’s desire, and contemplate life’s imponderables. As I alluded to in the previous chapters, my faith in Christianity faltered on McConnell unit. In seg, I reread the bible in hopes of restoring my faith, rediscovering a purpose in life, but it didn’t inspire me the way it once did. In fact, I noticed many discrepancies that I’d missed before. The story just didn’t add up to me. I shared my thoughts with chaplains and the convict Christians around me, yet no one could help me make sense of the doctrine. My questioning mind was a threat to them and they tried to discourage me.
In search of answers to my deeper questions, I delved into other religious texts such as the Koran, Odinism, Greek philosophy, Eastern philosophy, history and whatever I could get my hands on related to spirituality and mankind. I read Charles Darwin’s ‘Origin of Species,’ which made me think of the élan vital, the mysterious life force that propels all life. Friedrich Nietzsche taught me about the relativity of morals in “The Genealogy of Morals,” how each culture believes their ways are the right and true ways. I ruminated over everything I read, but the spirit eluded me until I finally concluded that if there is a Supreme Being, a deeper purpose or meaning to existence, it’s impossible to know it. Agnosticism best fit how I reasoned, so I abandoned pursuit of the spirit.
The issue of race preoccupied me in segregation. Several of the peckerwoods on Connally funneled racial literature (propaganda) to me and I immersed myself in it. I read Hitler’s “Mein Kampf,” and David Duke’s “My Awakening,” which broke down race issues in America, crime statistics by race, and the physiological and psychological (cultural) differences in the races. White racial literature like “The Turner Diaries,” “Might is Right,” and pamphlets by organizations like the NAAWP (National Association for the Advancement of White People) colored my views on race (pun intended) and fueled the fire of my hate. I reflected on my experiences from population, where blacks and other races exploit, rape and rob weak whites. I observed the behavior of the various races around me. The black revolutionary and militant prisoners spewed their venom for the white race, calling white people “devils” and the source of all their problems. For them, violence was the only solution to the white problem. One black dude in particular used to cell warrior with every white dude he saw, screaming threats and expressing his deep-rooted hate, which I ignorantly thought was a reflection of most black people’s views.
Although I wasn’t so stupid as to believe all of any race is bad, I developed deep racial views while in seg. It burned me up that I was blamed for all of black people’s problems, especially considering I grew up in worse conditions than many of them did. I was against racial mixing and procreating because my mind had been poisoned to think it “diluted” the “pure white genepool.” I believed that there was a Jewish conspiracy to propagate egalitarian politics so they could kill off the white race.
I didn’t realize it back then, but all of my anger and hate regarding race was misdirected and ignorant. I was so pissed off at the system for throwing me away that I needed somewhere to focus my negative energy. As the years passed I opened my eyes and matured, slowly growing out of that convoluted ideology on race. Today, I realize that there is no pure race; we all share DNA and we all sprang from the same source. But even if there was a pure white race I wouldn’t be a proponent of eugenics or separatism. While I do acknowledge small physiological and larger cultural differences amongst the races, I don’t think any race is better than the other. I treat everyone the same when I first meet them; I don’t stereotype people based on race or anything else, but rather I give people an equal chance to show me who they are as individuals. I understand that more often than not socioeconomic factors play the largest role in how people are treated. The rich and famous have it made; while the poor outcasts from both the ghetto and trailer park have it rough.
My hope is that as society evolves, we’ll erase the things that separate and divide us such as race and class that we’ll grow together as a consciousness to greater heights.
I’ll never forget what Flash, the wood who did most of my tattoos, once said to me. We were on the yard and I went on a tangent about how black people in prison prey on weak whites and how the woods needed to start unifying. I said something rather insensitive and ignorant. Flash pulled me to the side and, where only I could hear, said, “Young Pruett, one day you’re going to grow out of that bullshit. Don’t believe everything these “superwoods” tell you…. Use your head, man.”
Flash knew a thing or two about a thing or two.
Judge Joel Johnson presided over my case and he knew I wouldn’t get a fair trial in Beeville, a community of prison guards, so he changed the venue of the trial to Corpus Christi. In January of 2002 I was moved to the Nueces County jail in Corpus Christi. They placed me in Super Max, another single man cell similar to ad seg except there I had a shower in my cell and access to pay phone.
From the beginning the odds were stacked against me at trial. There I was, poor white trash covered in tattoos, already serving a 99 year sentence for a murder conviction. Now here comes these good old boys in their fancy suits representing “the people of the state of Texas.” To be qualified as a juror in a capital case you’re not only required to be for the death penalty, you must promise to consider the defendant innocent from the very beginning. The prosecutors have to prove the defendant guilty to you ‘beyond a reasonable doubt.’ The job of the qualified capital murder case juror is to weigh only the evidence presented across the witness stand; nothing more, nothing less. Yet, how many of those 12 jurors looked over at me that very first day as the indictment was read and considered me innocent? How many were immediately won over by the charismatic prosecutors who spoke like your buddy down at the bar when they said, “We just want justice in this case?” Throughout the course of the trial the judge asks the jury to leave the room for fear of them hearing or seeing something inadmissible. Each time they left the room in my case they had impatient looks on their faces that asked, “What’s this murderer trying to hide from us on a technicality?” I think most jurors find criminal defendants guilty even when the evidence doesn’t support a guilty verdict because they don’t believe the good old boys from the state would drag everyone down to the courthouse and waste all the hard-earned taxpayer’s money if they didn’t KNOW the defendant was guilty. Rather than presuming a defendant innocent and forcing the prosecution to prove their case, many jurors want the defense to prove the defendant is innocent. The way the system works, from my vantage point, is not ‘innocent until proven guilty,’ it’s ‘guilty until proven innocent.’
When I first arrived on the row I was 22 years old and internally defeated. My neighbors said that the average stay on the row before execution was about 6 1/2 years, but given the nature of my case I figured I’d be dead much sooner. I certainly didn’t expect to see 30. This didn’t bother me in the least; death seemed to offer a welcomed release from a life of great adversity and pain.
Death row is housed on 12 building, the ad seg building, on Polunsky, and operates under the rules and guidelines of the Administrative Segregation Plan. The first thing I noticed when I walked onto A-pod and into 23 cell at 11:30pm that first night was the utter silence. A stark contrast to the 24/7 noise pollution on an ad seg pod. Dudes in seg like to bang on their doors and beat out rap songs on their tables and bunks; they get their entertainment “cell warrioring” (screaming threats and curses at each other behind the safety of their cell doors), playing kid games, flooding the runs, lighting fires and seemingly competing to see who can be the most raucous idiot. They have very little sensory stimulation, and many have zero hope of ever returning to population where they’d be forced to account for their disrespectful behavior, so they behave with a blatant disregard for each other. Dudes in seg create drama because they are bored. They also like to chunk spears and bodily fluids at each other and the guards. It’s a hostile and annoying environment. So, it was a culture shock the day I landed on the row.
The night I pulled up, my neighbors pitched in and sent me a care package: toothpaste, tooth brush, soap, deodorant, shower slides, coffee, writing supplies, stamps and some food to snack on. It’s a ritual here and one that I observe when new arrivals show up, regardless of what they’re here for. You don’t have anything when you show up for at least a month as you wait on them to issue you a commissary/ID card, and dudes generally try to help each other here. There’s very little of the racial tension and division on death row that I experienced in GP. Here, you see dudes of all races eating together, making birthday cards for each other, and just supporting and encouraging one another in a variety of ways. Sure, it might get loud at times during the day or on an NFL Sunday (especially if the Texans or Cowboys are playing!), but it’s usually quiet once the lights go out around 10pm as guys get wrapped up in their letters, books, music and various projects. And while there have been instances of violence towards each other and the guards, it’s nowhere near as frequent as in ad seg. I once heard death row inmates described as “one happy family.”
In fact, the differences between ad seg and death row are so great that the guards who work 12 building, were 2 of 4 pods house ad seg inmates, all say they hate working ad seg pods. They love working a death row pod because the ambience is laid back and relaxed….. most of the time.
My analysis of this phenomenon is simple: The men on death row are faced with their mortality, unavoidably aware that their time on Earth is limited as appeals are denied and the people around them are killed with alarming regularity. Many are remorseful for their crimes and the lifestyles that led them here. They retreat within themselves and search for the peace of the spirit. Some feel like they’ve caused enough hurt in the world and they just don’t want to perpetuate the vicious cycles of hate and violence. Many here prefer to use their time to research their cases and fight for their lives, exercise their minds and bodies, and search their souls for eternal truths. We do feud with each other sometimes, something that’s inevitable when you live and die together for years, but as Jeff “Rabbit” Prible says, “We’re all on a sinking ship like the Titanic; they’re killing us wholesale. It makes no sense to bust more holes in the ship and fight amongst ourselves.”
Humans are social creatures. Everyone needs someone to talk to, who they can relate to, who empathize with, loves and supports them. Many dudes who end up in prison have families that stick by them at first; they write letters regularly, put money on their commissary accounts and even visit. Most of the time this support diminishes as the years pass until, eventually, it stops completely. People in the free world simply go on with their lives and forget about us in here. It’s rare for a dude in prison to have continued love and support from a family member for any extended period of time.
As for my father, brother and I, well, we never had much support from our family since we were arrested in 1995. Cousin Chris, Lema’s oldest daughter, has written an occasional letter and card, and Dewey has helped out from time to time, but the rest of them abandoned us. In fact, Chris is the only family member, aside from my father and brother, to testify on my behalf at the punishment phase of my capital murder trial in 2002. Our family is filled with outlaws, many of whom have been in and out of prison multiple times since 1995, and over the years they have become a distant memory to us.
My mother struggled mightily after we were all snatched away from her in the wake of Ray’s death. She stayed with Junior’s bunch in Beaumont for a little while until they ran her off, then she lived with Dewey for a few months. He kicked her out onto the streets and she was forced into the George Foreman shelter in Houston, along with my sister and her infant daughter Stephanie. Throughout her entire life, my mother has depended on others to help her, and to this day she wouldn’t be able to survive without government assistance.
Mom has never been much of a writer, but she did try to keep up with us via letter for the first year or so. I’m not sure if it’s because she just has a hard time expressing herself or if it’s just too hard for her to think about us being here, but her letters have come few and far between over the years. She does try to get over for a visit when the opportunity arises, but she’s disabled and can’t drive so she needs someone with a vehicle to bring her. In recent years I’ve been fortunate to be able to see her and my niece Stephanie a couple of times a year, on average, but it’s not unusual for years to pass without a visit from her. As a consequence of this infrequent communication, our relationship has struggled. There’s no anger or animosity between us; it just feels like we don’t really know each other anymore. Don’t get me wrong. I still love her like always, and she loves me unconditionally. I know better than anyone that my mother tried her very best to do right by me; she just had no idea how to control me, and I was too stubborn to listen to her when she tried. And it wasn’t easy for her when her boys were snatched out of her life all at once, leaving her alone in the world to fend for herself, so I haven’t held it against her for not keeping close contact with me throughout my incarceration. I can’t imagine what it’s like to walk in her shoes. No matter what, I know she loves me and prays for me to come home… I love you with all of my heart and soul, Momma, and nothing will ever change that.
My brother and I have stayed in close contact from the very beginning. I’d say we write each other about twice a month, depending on our moods. Steven was 25 years old when he came in and he’s in his forties now. He’s come a long way in that time. Unlike me, he’s never been a trouble maker. He had his moment when he got involved with a prison gang and that costed him a few years of his life in ad seg, but for the most part he has tried to educate and prepare himself for his first parole hearing in 2015. I’m proud to say that he finally got his G.E.D, he’s learned the plumbing trade and has become head plumber in his unit. He continues to learn and grow in hopes of regaining his freedom someday. We’ve had our ups and downs over the years, like all brothers do, but our love is as strong as when we were kids and struggling to each night. It’s one of my greatest hopes to see him walk out of here, have his own family and enjoy the rest of his life on the streets. He’s not a criminal, never was, and I have no doubt that he can hold a job and be a productive member of society…..Brotherham, blood is thinker than water, and I will always hold you near and dear to my heart.
As with my brother, my father and I have maintained steady contact over the years. His first few years in gp were spent on the Allred unit and he didn’t get into much trouble at all; just a few fist fights, but I don’t think any of them led to disciplinary action. He was placed in ad seg a couple months after I was because he wrote a letter to my brother that the TDCJ construed as threatening to their staff. About five years later he was confirmed a gang member and ended up spending about 12 years in ad seg before going through the GRAD program (The GRAD is for ex-gang members. It takes 9 months to complete after you renounce your membership from your gang) and being released to the general population this year.
As I’ve said, I’ve completely forgiven my father. I don’t hold any negative energy towards him. First of all, life is too short to hold grudges and be weighed down by hate. Secondly, I know for a fact that my father continues to live in regret and guilt for how he handled the situation with Ray, not to mention the many mistakes he made raising me. He sometimes writes these very long letters to me, beating himself up, telling me how much he hates himself, how terrible a father he was, and how he wishes he could erases it all. He’d gladly switch places with me, and it’s his greatest hope that I’ll get off the row and my brother and I will be free again someday. I still love my father with all of my heart. He did try to do the right thing and work for a living after he was released from Missouri in 1986, but he wasn’t able to free himself from his own anger issues and it costed all of us our lives. Of course, I know I didn’t help much, and I know it was my behavior that led to it all. The point is, my father was a product of his environment, as we all are, and some of us weren’t strong enough to overcome and rise above all the negative influences that shape us. Randy Pausch (The Last Lecture) said that we can’t choose the hands we are dealt, but we can choose how to play them. For the most part, my father and I both played our hands in the worst possible ways. But, in my opinion, it’s not the mistakes and bad choices we make in life that defines us, but rather it’s whether or not we have learned from them and have become better people as a result… Pops, I know life hasn’t been kind to any of us, but I hope you know that I know where your heart’s at and that I love you and always will.
While I was in the county jail in Corpus my lawyer John Gilmore put some money on my commissary account. I rarely got money while in GP. I had to hustle for everything. I saved most of what John sent me for when I got to death row so I could buy the basic necessities. It turned out that the TDCJ threw away all of my property while I was going to trial, so I was without a radio, hot pot, fan, all of my books, and, saddest of all, irreplaceable family photos. With John’s money I was able to get most of this, but I braced myself for what I thought would be a hard road ahead.
I’ve been fortunate to meet, befriend and love many people from all over the world since I got to death row. It has been interesting learning about all of these folks, their cultures and sharing life’s experiences with them, along with some very deep dialogues on philosophy, religion, politics, science and the mysteries of existence. They helped open my mind to a world that I didn’t know could exist inside of these walls, allowing me to be a part of their lives and live vicariously through them, showing me a side of humanity I’d long lost faith in. The vast majority of these people eventually faded out of my life, for one reason or another, but I’ll always treasure the awesome memories and experiences we shared.
About a month after I got here I received a letter from Ines in Switzerland. She extended her hand in friendship and invited me into her family. She offered me the love and support that had been missing in my life. I was blown away by her compassion, genuine kindness and empathy. She’s a huge opponent of the death penalty and a formidable instrument in the fight against it. She accepted me for who I was without judgment because she loves people and wanted to help someone in my situation. At probably the lowest point in my life Ines appeared with open arms and she has stuck by me ever since. And I assure you it hasn’t been easy on her, riding the roller coaster of my life, yet she has an indefatigable spirit and has shown remarkable patience, loyalty and love for me from the very start.
A few others have come along in recent years and showered me with love and support. Tony is a chemistry teacher from England and has been a brother to me. Like Ines, he welcomed me as one of his own family. Over the past five years we’ve had a blast delving into science, politics, and history together. The man has an extensive and impressive knowledge and is totally cool to hang out with. We share a strong camaraderie and he’s always been there for me when I needed him most. Someday, we’ll get to relax in his favorite pub and laugh about all of this over a few drinks….
Heather in Australia started as my father’s penfriend, as he met her through Ines, but over the years she has written my brother and I as well. Recently, she has been an amazing friend to me, tirelessly writing detailed letters to politicians, lawyers and organizations the world over on my behalf, fanning the flames of my hope of freedom somebody, and reminding me that altruism does exist amongst humans….
There’s Theresa in Germany who shares my love of reading. Her love for kids is exhibited by the wonderful children’s books she’s written. Her repugnance for the U.S. justice system and its flaws echoes the sentiments of many Europeans and inspires hope that the U.S. will someday abolish the death penalty. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed discussing literature, politics and life with her….
Niki in Dallas is an anomaly in this state: she’s adamantly against the death penalty and a strong advocate for its abolishment as well as justice reform. Over the past couple of years she has been a constant in my life, writing and visiting regularly, helping my mother and niece get down for visits, befriending my father and brother, and just being someone I can count on. She was shocked and indignant upon hearing my story, and ever since she’s been an unrelenting force in the fight for my life. It’s because of her determination and persistence that David Dow’s group at the University of Houston recently took my case. She has become one of my best friends in life….
Amy in California has been a dominant and compelling force in my life the past couple of years. She’s a free spirit with the awe-inspiring love and compassion of a Bodhisattva. From the very beginning she has touched my heart with her connections to nature, the universe, people and life. Her poetic and philosophical musing resonate within my soul and have helped awaken my own muse. She’s the type of person that you can’t know and not love. In so many ways she has taught me about what it means to love and live in the moment. She exudes an energy and light that has often left me breathless…
Before I arrived on the row I struggled in many ways. Part of it was feeling so alone and unloved in the world. The above mentioned people, as well as the others who have come and gone, and even the new ones appearing, have allowed their collective light to shine into my otherwise dark world. It’s astounding what a simple letter or card from someone who cares can do to soothe a melancholic soul. The love, compassion, empathy and kindness I’ve received since I got here has helped me change my attitude towards life, encouraged me to fight for life and inspired great hope.
I love you all from the bottom of my heart.
It took years to awaken from my depressed slumber. At first all I cared about doing was reading, following sports religiously, playing games like chess and basketball, and distracting myself with mindless activities. I felt sorry for myself for so many opportunities I missed. I was simply existing, and more than once I contemplated dropping my appeals and being done with it all. At some point, I decided I would just play it out, try to enjoy my experiences as best as I could until they killed me. It was nice having Ines and the others in my life, being able to make commissary and eat better than the slop they serve, not worrying about my coffee supply running out, and the letters and visits were pretty badass. Yet, I never tried to fight for my life those early years. I was merely living to die.
I met Lee “Tiny” Taylor in 2003. We shared parallel lives. He was nine months older than me and had grown up on the east side of Houston and in Channelview living a life similarly to my own, although we never got to know each other out there in the free world. We shared many interests from books, music, sports, the love of the outdoors, and even women and enemies in life. His views, back then, mirrored my own. He was also certified as an adult at age 16, a few months after I was, and he’d been thrust into the same violent world of prison with a life sentence. Tiny killed a black inmate, a gang member, during a riot on the Telford unit in 1997 that pitted 14 Bloods against two peckerwoods. It was a total case of self-defense as Tiny simply did what any young wood is taught to do within these walls when threatened: fight for your honor at all costs.
Not long after we met, Tiny and I went down to level 3 together to protest the living conditions here on the row. We were extremely violent, lashing out at the guards, making it clear that we weren’t to be treated like the lambs of the row. Major Nelson ran the building at the time and she asked, “Just what in the hell is you boys problem?” We wanted to be left alone. Period. Move us next to each other, let us live as best as we can until we die, and just leave us the fuck alone. In exchange for that simple request we promised to stop hurting the guards. She agreed.
During our rebellious phase Tiny and I built a bond and rapport that was unshakeable. He incorporated my live-until-they-kill-me attitude, and over the years we truly exemplified just that. Some of the greatest times of my entire life were spent right here on the row hanging out with Tiny, Jeff Prible, Bob Dylan, Richard “Psycho” Cobb, Boxcar, Pennywise, Bandit, Ghost and Third on A-pod, C-section. We practically lived together as we stayed hooked up on the “mics” 24/7 (we discovered how to talk to each other through our radios on the “mics”). We listened to sports and music together, shared our deepest thoughts, darkest fears and all of the good and bad times of our lives. We played games like Risk, Monopoly, chess, checkers, trivia, hang-man and derivatives of them all. We went on mental excursions together, turning out our lights and closing our eyes as we went out hunting, fishing, skateboarding, swimming, fighting in wars, and even heading out to the club to meet chicks. We invented a game called Death Row Idol in which we competed with songs, poetry, jokes, skits, and stories, then we all casted our votes to see who’d be voted off of the gurney. We laughed and cried together, sharing intimate memories, regrets, hopes and dreams. I grew to love those guys like brothers.
Sadly, only Jeff fought his conviction. The rest of us had no hope of surviving this experience, so we just tried to enjoy our moments together until that fateful day arrives.
After Major Nelson made warden and was transferred to another unit we were all split up. By then Tiny and I, among others, had grown up a little and calmed down considerably. We decided not to fight to stay together, but we still found ways at various times to get moved on the same pods together. It was good to move around the building, though, and meet new people. We used to say that we were tired of befriending people only to watch them be murdered and torn away from us, so we didn’t try to make new friends. But I later realized that we were just living in fear. We were denying ourselves the chance to know and love people. The truth is that I’ve met so many great dudes here, people like myself who didn’t have much of a shot at life, and I’ve grown to love them and enjoy every moment I get with them. I don’t worry about the future anymore. You see, everyone alive will someday die. It’s unavoidable. But what I’ve come to learn is that while everyone dies, not everyone alive truly LIVES: And these days I’m in the business of living.
Since A-pod, C-section and my new attitude on life and living, I’ve been fortunate to know and love many people here. Allow me to try to capture the essence of all of them….
Bob Dylan was also a brother to Tiny. He made us laugh with his witticism, coining terms like “reflicted,” and the dude could build anything with his hands…
Boxcar bared his scars for all of us to examine, encouraging many to do the same, and even though he’s older than most of us we protected him like our little brother….
Psycho was and still is a rebel soul, reminiscent of my own youth, and he makes you want to hug him with his stance on love and attachment to others. It’s not just a biochemical and evolutionary process, dude…. ;-)
Bandit invented the mic system. It was his sound-effects and voices that helped color our journeys into our minds…
Ghost was probably 125-150 pounds lighter than Tiny, nowhere near as ferocious, but he really believed he could pin Tiny. The Ghost stories still make me laugh…
Pennywise was sometimes hard to understand, but he is so much fun to hang out with and he does have love and loyalty to his friends….
Crazy J grew up an orphan, like Psycho, and lived through some extremely traumatic experiences that no child should, yet he has overcome so much in life. His sharp wit and awesome sense of humor, not to mention his love and loyalty to his friends, makes him one of my favorite people to hang out with. His love for his daughter is something to behold…
Kevin also showed me great loyalty, sticking his neck out there when very few would’ve. Along with Psycho, Kevin was there with me through some of the most intense and exciting times here on the row. We rose above this place and dared to live an existence that few would risk. I can still hear his Yankee accent and his laugh….
Big Will was also certified as an adult out of Houston at age 16, but he was about five years older than Tiny and me. Still, I relate to him in ways that few here understand because he was also a white teenager when thrown into the lion’s den. He takes life in stride, loves to laugh and raise the spirits of those around him, and if he’s your friend then you have a true friend to the end. Has anyone been able to top his Cartman from South Park imitation? I think not….
Lil Chucky, we all love you, man! His recital of the song “Hurt” by Nine Inch Nails expressed his own hurt and still echoes….
Rick and I have been through some shit together, but made it through it all. He taught me that actions speak louder than words, while showing me a lot of love and loyalty, not to mention understanding…
BD is our resident Viking and Warlock, and he’s also proven his love and loyalty time and again….
Mark Robertson might just be the smartest dude I’ve ever met, and I’ve learned so much from him, including the aphorism, “If they’ll do it with you, they’ll do it to you…”
There are many others that have left lasting impressions on me, people such as Pablo, Fat Joe, Big Foot, Randy, Gus, Rob “Dead” Will, Lil Will, Jedi, and even the new guy, Buckshot, who will win at NASCAR someday, I’m sure….. Unfortunately, the order of the day here is death. The state has relentlessly snatched away so many. Tiny was killed on June 16, 2011… they got Kevin and Billy in May 2010… Woody seemed happy to go in September of 2007… Budders also high-stepped it outta here in September of 2011… Wolf reminded me that “as long as there’s life there’s hope” before he was taken in May of 2005 with Chi-Town… A few months before they killed Mark Stroman, who got here around the same time I did, he told me they’d killed over 200 people since we drove up. Images of these dudes and countless others flash through my mind at times; I can hear them laughing, remember things they did and said, and more often than not it just seems senseless that the state killed them.
The thing is, they aren’t killing the same people who committed the crimes. It takes years for the appeals to run their course and in that time people change. Sure, some are just dangerous as the day they arrived, and I’m not saying everyone’s some kind of angel, but so many have grown and matured in here and found their true Self. Many have realized the errors of their ways and would be productive members of society if they were given the chance. Even with a life in prison, these guys had much to offer humanity, not to mention the loved ones left with the scars of their murders.
Those we leave behind are the real victims of the death penalty; the dead rest in eternal peace.
It wasn’t until about 2006 that I began to wake up and start fighting for my life. The people who loved me in the free world helped inspire me to fight. I reasoned that if they cared enough to help me, why shouldn’t I do all that I can? If they believe in me, why shouldn’t I believe in me?
One of my best friends in life is Ronald Jeffery “Rabbit” Prible, and he believes in me. Jeff never bought into mine and Tiny’s live-until-they-kill-me mentality. While we all partied 24/7, Jeff would break away from the mics and work on his case every single day. I truly believe the guy is innocent, and he has never given up hope of being reunited with his family and kids one day. Jeff is similar to Amy in many ways, particularly his genuine love and compassion for all people. Even if you’re someone who means harm to him, Jeff loves you and will give you the shirt off his back. He’s a natural comedian, would rather laugh than cry, and he’s loyal to his core. He often says I’m the brother he never had, that he loves me no different than I came out of his mother’s womb. He used to beg us all to knock off the bullshit and fight for our lives before it was too late. He enjoyed hanging out and having a good time as much as we did, but there was nothing more important to him than returning home to his kids and he would not and will not give up until that day arrives. His passion and determination helped light my own fire.
What the state is doing here is completely wrong. Not only is the system flawed and more than a few innocent are killed, but it’s a stain against humanity when society kills in the name of justice. How do you teach someone it’s wrong to kill by killing? The death penalty is about vengeance, hate, and ultimately, fear. Hopefully one day the death penalty will be abolished. Until that day arrives all of us who are horrified and outraged by the primitive and barbaric killings here should stand up against it. No longer will I sit around complacently waiting to die….
Years ago I was asked, “What would you change about the world if you had the power?” At first glance, there are countless answers to that question, and most of the answers would likely be met with nods of agreement. Things like poverty, war, suffering, disease and all of the negativity seems to be a part of most people’s laundry list of things the world would be better off without. When I first contemplated the question, I, of course, thought of these universal problems, but also of the grave injustices that I’ve faced; how horrible the system was in handling me. I’ve often wished it all away, that I could’ve been born into a better environment, with more opportunity, and somehow could’ve avoided the life I’ve lived. Somehow, most of us think that the world is imperfect, that if we were in control and had created the universe it would be a better place to live.
Put a gun to my head right this instant and ask me what I’d change about the world if I could and I’d stare you right in the eye with complete equanimity and say, “Nothing at all.”
All me to elucidate. I think everything is happening for a reason(s), even if it isn’t readily apparent to us. The world as we know it is comprised of opposites. Whatever you can imagine, there’s an opposite to it. Male/female, left/right, hot/cold, particle/antiparticle, positive/negative, and light/darkness. We think that if we could rid the world of all the negative energy that it would be a better place, but think about that for a second. How do we ever truly learn something without the pain and struggle that comes with it? We are strengthened by adversity. If something doesn’t kill you, it makes you stronger. You rip up your muscle tissues with exercise to grow stronger, physically and mentally. In my experiences many of the mentally toughest people I’ve encountered have grown up and lived in the worst of circumstances. Ghettos, barrios and trailer parks. A perfect example of this aphorism would be the caterpillar in its cocoon. If you reach down and cut it free before the butterfly can struggle and break free on its own it will die. It needs that adversity that struggle, to exercise its wings first before it will be strong enough to spread its beautiful wings and fly away.
Don’t take this to mean that I’m opposed to change, social reform or that each of us shouldn’t do our parts to make the world a better place. If you feel compelled to an action you must follow your heart. I’m not suggesting any of us should let a hungry person starve or discontinue the peace talks between warring nations. All I’m saying is that we live in a realm of opposites, a balance of Yin/Yang principles, and this is just how it is. It’s through the hard times in life that we grow the most that our characters are defined, and I believe people would be much more satisfied and happy with their lives if they could keep this in mind when the going gets tough.
Take a look at my life. My parents conceived me when neither was mentally or financially prepared to raise another kid. They loved me dearly and tried their very best to raise me right and teach me NOT to follow in their footsteps, yet I was sucked into a life of drugs and crime and wanted to do things my way, since I knew it all already anyway. Ultimately, and here’s a lesson for your kids, I made the choices that led me to prison. Had it not been for me my father wouldn’t have murdered our neighbor, I wouldn’t have been out robbing and accumulating a juvenile record and destroying so many lives in the process. I take full responsibility for my life. Sure, my environment conditioned me and influenced the life choices I made, as did my genetic proclivities, yet, there’s no excuse to be made for my selfish actions. Others in far worse circumstances than my own made it out of their environments and made something of themselves, whereas I failed miserably. I wasn’t strong enough to overcome my milieu or myself. And so I ended up in prison for the rest of my life, wallowing in states of despair, self-loathing and self-flagellation. My entire life has been a struggle through extreme adversity.
And here’s my point: I am who I am today because of the life I have lived. If you take it all away, put a silver spoon in my mouth or decrease even a fraction of my struggles and life’s experiences, well, I would be a completely different person than who I am at this moment. And today I happen to love the person I am and the direction I am continually growing towards.
Who am I today? Well, after 10+ years on death row, and 17 years total in prison, I have grown in many ways. The first few years on the row I spent distracting myself, creating diversions to keep my mind from focusing on what needed to be internally worked on. I lived with a tremendous amount of pain and pent up energy. The anger and hate I had for others and our justice system were projections for what I felt about myself. As my understanding in psychology expanded and I began to journey introspectively and resolve psychological scars that tormented me, to seek balance and peace within myself and the universe, I could finally begin to learn to live again. I had to battle my demons in order to restore psychological balance. For instance, it wasn’t until I got to death row that I realized my ignorant and hateful views on race were a reflection/projection of how I felt about myself, that I’d constructed a complex ideology totally rooted and parallel to the things I most disliked about me. I used to go on tangents about the criminality exhibited by the black youth of America, how it needs to be addressed and curbed, but the truth was that I was talking about myself the entire time and didn’t even realize it. It’s a truth that we project onto others the things we most hate about ourselves. Carl Jung said that our shadow selves, the part of our psyches that we store repressed emotional themes and the aspects of our personalities we dislike, is represented by what we hate/dislike in others. You are what you hate. The only way to heal is to face your shadow self, as represented by the demons, dragons and antagonists in all mythology, fairy tales and literature, to uncover and disclose these repressed complexes and resolve them. I battled my demons for years –and still do as I’m far from complete – before I could begin to live in peace again. Somehow, I believe it took me coming here, living the life of extreme adversity that I have, in order to conquer my shadow and grow in the ways I have. It’s not to say that people can’t and don’t learn in other less extreme situations, they certainly do, or even that everyone in prison makes the effort to learn and grow, but for me personally I needed this. I needed to have my life ripped away from me, to face a hopeless situation and experience great loss and pain in order to finally break through and spread my own wings.
So, I no longer recoil from life and the struggles I face. I feel like the harder it gets the stronger I get, and I embrace the tough times as opportunities for change and growth.
Another way in which I believe I’ve grown involves a revolution of thought. As I’ve recounted here, I’ve explored the depths of my being, the realms of philosophy, theology, history and literature as I sought spiritual understanding and awareness. I abandoned the Christian faith because I was reading the symbols literally, and I couldn’t reconcile the physical and historical impossibilities to my consciousness viewing them that way. I had always thought that if I searched long and hard enough I would discover the One True God. In my mind’s eye it was a personal God, an anthropomorphization of some sort of white-bearded diety with the personality and characteristics of a human. Every single religion I delved into I did so with this attitude and, consequently, none of them added up. I disregarded them all as contrived fairy tales to help people grapple with death, struggles in life, and to, ultimately, control the masses.
Robert in California introduced me to Joseph Cambell and his classic “The Hero With A Thousand Faces” back in November of 2005. Campbell was one of the world’s finest and most knowledgeable comparative mythologists. He had studied people and their cultures, religions and traditions from all over the world for about 60 years, and he left an extensive body of material expressing his illuminating discoveries. Through Campbell, I realized that mythology/religion, in fact the entire spectrum of human art, creativity and thought is a product of our collective unconscious, a term Jung used to mean the psychic connection all humans share. There are various functions of mythology. To reconcile our consciousness to the preconditions of life, namely, that it feeds off itself. You must eat life to live. The Native Americans had many rites they observed before the kill, an agreement with the animals, as do most cultures. Another function of mythology is to guide us through the stages of life from childhood to the grave. The symbols of mythology parallel to psychological functions as well. Take the story of The Frog Prince. The little girl loses her ball into the dark water. The frog appears with her ball and says he’ll return it with one condition: kiss me. She makes the deal and gets her ball back, but doesn’t keep her end of things and skips off home without kissing the frog. So the frog appears all over the place in her life such as the dinner table, bathroom, and her bedroom. She finally completes the deal and the frog turns into a handsome prince. You see, the ball is a sphere and it symbolizes the girl’s wholeness of being, a balance in her psychology. She loses her ball in the dark water, a symbol for her subconscious, where we keep our repressed aspects of our personalities. The shadow self is represented by the frog and she must enter the water area and come to terms with her shadow, kiss the frog, in order to restore her ball, wholeness of being. Then what happens? The dark and ugly shadow self (frog) turns into a complementary aspect of her personality, her animus or male part of herself. There’s a balance now, and this is the aim of many of these mythologies.
From Campbell, Carl Gustav Jung, Sir Walter Frazer and many others my old questions about the incongruences of religions/myths began to fade. Religions and myths are not intended as historical accounts, and we are remiss to interpret them literally. When people do this they begin to think that one way is the right and only way, and such foments religious intolerance. This is the number one cause of wars throughout history. It explains the conflicts in the Middle East, the intolerance and ignorance of many conservative Christians, Muslims and Jews, the crusades, the witch burnings, inquisitions and all of such horrors by those who believed their way of viewing God was the only way.
A closer examination of the religions/myths of the world showed me the many parallels and common motifs between them. They are all using different languages, but the essence of the symbols are universal and, interpreted as metaphors, they point in the same direction. Think of Jesus being tempted in the desert by Satan. So was Siddhartha (the first Buddha) by the deities of fear and desire, Kãmã-Mãrã. The Buddha attained enlightenment under the Bodhi tree (wood) and awakened to his true Self, Oneness of being, whereas Jesus achieved atonement with the Father under the wood of the cross. At-ONE-ment with the godhead. Both paved paths to spiritual awakening, and either is useful if we can learn to read the symbols.
What I discovered is that all these myths are saying the same things, just using different metaphors. In the Poetic Veddas of the Hindus it says, “Truth is one; the sages speak of it by many names.”
With this in mind I explored the esoteric and mystical traditions of the world. The themes in them all spoke to my spirit, helped awaken me, and I learned to look inside myself and see my true Self; the Self that connects everyone and everything. The world of separation is an illusion. All energy is connected. Through our senses we perceive division and separation, and the goal of the mystic is to lift the veil, open the mystical third eye, and glimpse eternity. Death and separation are “tricks” of the mind.
Some of the great mystics of the world helped open my third eye to the ebb and flow of existence. Heraclitus said, “all is in flux, everything’s changing;” the Greek sage and mathematician Pythagoras said, “All things are changing, nothing dies;” In the Bhagavad Gita Krishna counsels Arjuna at the battle field, “The wise grieve neither for the living nor the dead. There has never been a time when you and I and the kings gathered here have not existed, nor will there be a time when we will cease to exist.” The idea is that we each hold god within us. Not just humans, but every tree, stone, river, mountain and particle in existence. In the West, it’s about a relationship to the divinity. You aren’t God; the best you can do is form a relationship with Him. Those that claimed to be at one with God, like Jesus or the Sufi mystic al-Hallaj, were crucified. But in the East, as well as the mystic traditions of the world, there’s an all-pervading source of being permeating the universe, and we are all connected to it. Campbell said, “In the East that which is absolutely transcendent of all knowledge is the basis of your own being. It is you; it’s immanent within you. In the Chhandogya Upanisad we get the Sanskrit phrase, “Tat Tvam Asi!” Thou art that. You yourself are that divine mystery in which you seek. However, this “you” isn’t the persona complex you identify with, the phenomenon is space-time.” The Hindus called it Brahman, the Oneness that is all existence, and the spell of Mãjã, the illusion of the senses, creates the world of separation we perceive.
Exploring mysticism and the realms of Eastern philosophy ignited a fire in me and I intuitively recognized the truth in my discoveries, but it wasn’t until I began to immerse myself into the world of modern physics that I had my true epiphany, my Ah-HA! moment. Physicists have revealed some startling discoveries since the beginning of the 20th century. Energy is everything. Every particle in existence is inextricably interconnected to the electromagnetic field. Energy never, ever, ever dies; it transforms. Since the Big Bang we haven’t lost a single quanta of energy. There’s a fundamental quantum field from which all matter emerges into being. Subatomic particles such as electrons and protons combine to form atoms, elements, molecules, cells, genes, and all the matter in the cosmos. According to physicist Fritjof Capra, “The quantum field is the fundamental physical entity, a continuous medium which is present everywhere in space. Particles are merely local condensations of the field; concentrations of energy which come and go, thereby losing their individual character and dissolving into the underlying field.” Einstein said, “We may therefore regard matter as being constituted by regions of space in which the field is extremely intense… There’s no place in this new physics for both the field and matter, for the field is the only reality.”
So, the mystics of the world were onto something. Everything is interconnected to this field, this ONENESS of energy. Separation is an illusion because if we could see into the depths of the subatomic world we’d at once realize everything is connected, ONE: The further I delved into the mysteries of quantum mechanics and theoretical physics, the clearer I could see. The things that caught my attention was how observer and observed in these experiments are interlinked and inseparable. Physicists set up these dual-slit experiments when studying the photon and in some cases the photon behaves as a particle, in others a wave. Erwin Shrödinger’s “wave function” interested me because it involves a human observer (consciousness) collapsing the wave function, turning it either into a wave or particle. Before observation, all particles are simultaneously waves and particles. Not one or the other, but BOTH AT ONCE: it is with our conscious minds that we create the realm of opposites and collapse Shrödinger’s wave function, which is a fundamental principle in modern physics. The implications of this blew my mind. Now I better understand what the Buddha meant when he said; “We create the worlds with our minds.”
The photon has preoccupied me over the past year. You see, there are four fundamental forces in the universe: the strong force, weak force (both deal with the nucleus of atoms), gravity, and electromagnetism. As I said, everything is electromagnetic. And the force particle of electromagnetism? The photon. So, light is in everything. It is in fact, omnipresent, all-pervasive. Einstein’s theory of relativity states that the higher the velocity an object the slower it experiences time and the more its mass decreases. Thus, the photon, which is the cosmic speed limit at 186,262 miles per second, is both massless and it does not experience time at all. Time stops at light speed since it is relative to observed and observer and there’s no frame of reference for the ultimate speed. So here we have light participating in the space/time continuum, yet transcending it at the same time… The light from the sun is the source of all our power, all life, and thus so many cultures have worshipped the sun for millennia. It’s through light and by light that we experience life. What I find so incredibly illuminating and mysterious all at once is the fact that we all have the light within us. It now makes perfect sense when Jesus said, “I’m the light and the life and no one comes to the father but by me.” Or what the mystics mean by being en-LIGHT-ened, discovering the light inside each of us that is our true Self, the energy connecting all of existence.
Tat Tvam Asi! Thou Art That. You are that energy, the light, and becoming aware of it allows you to let the light shine through you with love as you become awakened.
One of my greatest lessons in life has been learning how to live in the moment, which I’ve yet to truly master. It doesn’t matter if you believe in a metaphysical existence or think that anything beyond the physical plane of existence is hogwash. What really matters is living life, which is what we are here to do. Too many times we think that true peace of mind and happiness is something external, something we acquire outside of ourselves, but it only comes from within. It doesn’t matter how hot you are, what you own or possess, or even how many loving people you are surrounded by. Peace must come from within. We’ve got to first conquer the demons of the shadow self, restore balance, and still our minds in order to learn to be content and aware each moment.
It took years of struggle and pain, but I finally figured this out. Today I am learning what it means to truly live in love of each moment. People who are depressed and spiraling into states of negativity and fear are trapped by thoughts of the past and future; their minds are everywhere but the present. They wallow in what-might’ve-beens and a past that can’t be changed; they live in fear and worry of an unknown and unpredictable future, and in doing so they miss the moment at hand. I’ve found that if we can learn to stay aware and focused in each moment the world becomes a beautiful and mysterious place again. Life flows through you. The moment is all that exists. There are so many lessons inherent in each moment, and they are so easy to miss, but when we still our minds from all fear of the future and regret of the past, we then find true peace of mind and happiness.
This is the philosophy I’ve incorporated in my life. Today, I can laugh, sing, get wrapped up in a good book, write straight from my heart, enjoy an awesome exchange of energy with the people I encounter, watch the sunset or sunrise and marvel at the beauty of existence, or whatever it is that I happen to be doing in any given moment and truly experience it with love and openness. This is what it means to stop and smell the flowers. Don’t get caught up in the struggles of life and allow them to wear you down. They come and go, and serve to help you grow and become. Rumi said,” Embrace every moment as if you chose it yourself.” Because on some level you did. There’s something here for us all to learn. No matter where we find ourselves in life, be it in poverty, with all the money you can spend in ten lifetimes, a run-down apartment or even the belly of the beast – death row – peace and happiness can be yours and the world can be a mysterious and beautiful place. Just try to live in love each moment.
Robert Pruett
June 26, 2012