A Tribute to Dean Moriarty (@wales) - One of Steems Greatest Creatives
On behalf of myself @jaynie and the rest of the Power House Creatives community, this post is dedicated to our dear member and friend @wales, his son @trystan and to all who knew and loved Dean.
FALL INTO THE SKY
By Dean Moriarty
Lay back awhile;
Step out of your eyes,
And relax into your seeing;
This is a place for that:
Under the stars of beauty flow
Into the entrance of this dance,
Into the mystical abandon of the rhythm
Only your heart can hear
To forget,
So you can remember.
Deep star-drop sky, wondrous splendour
Timeless of the sand-sifter, drifting, warm and sigh;
Colours, sundown n sea, breeze and breezed
In joy, ecstatic energy, dancing, comforting;
Oh holy drifter, inspired angel
Subjectively shimmering in such silence;
That within, reflected: the beauty dust of it all...
I recall the day I first crossed paths with Dean. We actually had a bit of an argument in the comments section of one of my posts as he remarked how I sounded like I was full of nonsense and hot air like a lot of other people on the platform. Through our back and forth conversation he apologised to me for his initially abrasive manner and openly explained to me that he suffered from severe depression. My response to that honesty was an invitation to join our community. Despite his initial skepticism and reluctance, he did in fact join us and from that day forward our space changed forever.
Dean was a beautiful anomaly! Talented beyond the grasps of most peoples minds. He could spin words so beautifully cryptic in a matter of seconds and every single day he made our space so much richer with his completely unique presence and everything that he had to share with all of us, whether we were actually around at the time or not ;)
As the weeks turned into months, this new face became a familiar one as Dean shared snippets of his days, his life, his family, his talents, his deepest darkest thoughts and the completely random ones - although, very little about Dean was truly "random".
Not only was Dean a magnificent writer with over 40 books under his belt, a phenomenal photographer with over 700k photo downloads from his pixabay account and works shared by the likes of National Geographic, Dean was a free spirit, a wild soul and an incredibly wise and worldly traveler. We all shared in many of his memories, travels and experiences! We spent many an evening having really deep and heart filled conversations, sharing our music favourites and even attempting combined poetry, where he would write one line and I would write the next.
He brought whimsical fantasy into our every day reality not only within our community but on the Steem platform itself. Dean was an open book in completely poetic style and those of us that took the time to really get to know the magnificent man behind the words and photos, soon came to realise what a beautiful unique soul he was. He was authentic to the core - a rarity in this world. He loved openly, wore his heart on his sleeve and always stood strong for the things that he was passionate about.
In the words of some of our members...
Wales will defintely be missed 😥 I knew him mostly as a member of PowerHouseCreatives, where he frequented the chats and kept charmed us with his simplicity and philosophical musings, a true dichotomy of his wonderful character. One moment he would be telling us about the toast and tea he was having for breakfast and then post something so deep it would leave us scratching our heads until we gathered the magnitude of what he was saying. He was poetic, with a complexity of imagery that was difficult to grasp at times, but full of meaning forethought. One of my favorites of all his writings was the one titled: Where old beat-up suitcases go to die and I will always recall that piece when I think of him.
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A man I came to know many months ago always in for a chat in our Powerhousecreatives home. Both loving and fierce about all the aspects of life both on and offline. I remember the photo camera we raised so he could do the photo blogs. I remember the .quote-bot-convos in the weeee hours of the night. I am glad we got to talk Friday when the first poll came in and were counting down. And we asked him to come to voice chat yesterday! Our server moments are here so I will read some off them back with a glass of wine, and I will say cheers to the nearest star I see and just remember the icon we lost.
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I will miss his easy going nature, kind words, and his passion for good conversations and story telling. It was always comforting to log on and see his discussions with Banjo and Quotebot, and it was always a wonder to read his stories to piece together the wisdom he was so willing to share.
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"Though my time with you was short, dear friend. I am grateful for the precious time it was. You were and are, a wonderful man, writer, and most importantly... friend. You will be missed by many... "
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Dean was a brilliant man. His writing was very special, words worth pondering on many levels. He loved the comments, loved it when you understood the underlying meaning of his writing. Having all of his wonderful writing here on the platform will be a wonderful legacy to his grandchildren.
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Dean, I am heartbroken that you have left us and I am finding it incredibly difficult to process the fact that your presence and energy will no longer be in our server on a daily basis. You were misunderstood and disregarded by many - but not by us!!! I know well that many days were a struggle for you to even get out of bed, but you did! Every single day you did it! You stepped in and put smiles on the faces of those around you. No matter how much you were battling at any given time, you never gave up! You wrote every day and shared your wisdom with the world. When I told you that I love you and that I would always be there for you, I meant it! - No matter what! and that continues to be true moving forward as we ALL hold you close to our hearts. You were a TRUE friend, a NOBLE and HONEST man and one of the most beautiful souls I ever met. You were loved, you ARE loved and you always will be loved my dear, dear friend!
Kissing the sky electric, or the many faces of a writer
By Dean Moriarty
I would say that as a writer you have to take on many faces or be confined to one genre, but even in that one genre there are the different faces of the characters to play with.
Take the one that kisses the sky electric for instance, where madness is a splurge of genius pushing on to the next level: there are many levels, but the genius level is hardest to maintain and must be kept at a constant temperature or else. You must understand this before you begin.
And, a tidal approach may win you many favours in the waters that you swim kissing to the sky, but nothing comes close so much as a question on rye and a blarnious approach to reality looking over your shoulder and wishing you well and staring at you in the mirror.
And the esoteric monkey in the tree is going clapaclapaclap; but then it’s always doing that, isn’t it, it never stops.
And if you see this soldier, shaped like a wishing well, and hanging out of the window of your deepest desires and thinking honeybees and chillicorns, then you may be forgiven for all your sins, but not until then.
People who kiss the sky this way are usually considered half insane, and generally feared them for their honesty and can sometimes be quoted as saying: we shall swing here then if we do nto swing there, and maybe we will blow trumpets in the wind, and maybe we won’t, but whatever, we will not be the headless chicken or the spineless toad, and certainly not lilly livered.
Writers in this style may find themselves waking up in the morning with their head buzzing with all the things of their dreams calling to be written down before they are lost in the distractions of the new day.
On the other hand there are those writers who procrastinate from all their many excuses and are usually back seat drivers who say that one day they will begin that great story as soon as they think of it; perhaps when the writer’s block has finally gone away.
And then there are those that sit down every day with their many characters and churn out with hard work their story that grows and grows until it is finished; whereupon will come the editing and the reediting until it is finely polished and can be sent out for publishing.
And those writer’s aids: the haze filled nights of booze and cigarettes where the waste basket overflows with the rejects, where the music plays in the background hardly heard in the passion of the moment’s inspiration. And oh, those notebooks filled with passing thoughts…
And then there are those that have a voice, perhaps the voice of the people/society in general, their conscience, and that when read it is said: I recognise the truth in this, what is being said I believe. These writers are often seen as revolutionaries, or visionaries, who burn at all the injustices, and who must say what has to be said.
For me it is the coffee drip that keeps me going, that fuels my inspiration. It is that quiet corner of some café where I can be left alone to write what comes; where the many faces of my creation astound me with their depth and experience to bring the next word, and then the next…
Dean,
May your free spirit dance in the sky and forever scatter your unending creative wisdom down onto the world.
REST IN PEACE OUR BELOVED @WALES
🙏🙏🙏🙏 death is never easy, while I didnt know him personally... reading what you guys wrote brought me to tears. and I pray that everyone has some peace during such a sad time. Much love steemians.
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The chatroom already misses his presence, I can still see the rambling if I scroll back far enough, if only in my mind. It has got to be time for tea and toast where he is. It's always time for tea and toast.
I must say that @wales was so misunderstood, and yet, he was understood perfectly in very many ways. Those ramblings as many called them were those of a man whose eyes have seen so much, his brain was still processing it. Some thoughts were so profound, I couldn't respond effectively enough and others were conversations to the universe.
Au Revoir, Dean. I'm sure you didn't realize the impact your leaving us would have, but, just know that it just won't be the same without you. My deepest condolences go out to your family and to all that you touched and until we meet again... there will be tea and toast and perhaps a nap.
Rest in Peace, my friend.
I just wrote about three paragraphs in response to you and the page just decided to randomly refresh itself.... yay!
Trying this again.
Our chatroom has a big gaping hole in it now. People don't know what they have until it is gone.
Yes, he was misunderstood. So much so that I played knight in his honour to those that chose not to see the magnificence behind the hurt... and you know what, I would do it again and again! I am ANGRY right now, because those SAME people feel it fit to even APPEAR on these posts but as much as I want to have my say, I wont. not now.
I am broken.
Like I said last night, so many considered him to be the one that needed a life line, but in more ways - he was mine.
Simply beautifully written.
Thank you.
To speak in his words : “ YOU DID GOOD JAYNIE, YOU DID GOOD “ well done he would have loved the attention, and the shout out
Thank you angel and thank you for being there with me every step of the way xxx
Resteemed
Thank you xxx
I couldn't believe this news this morning, and at first wasn't sure if this meant what I thought it did until I read the post by @trystan.
I'm shocked like everyone else is, but to those who've gotten to know him well and who think so highly of him, remember - you'll always have those moments spent with him to hold onto and cherish. Keep those memories alive.
My deepest sympathy to the family, friends and associates of our friend Wales.
Thank you @free-reign
I'm shocked since yesterday. I don't know what to say.
Rest in peace @wales.
we all are.
I was offline all weekend and woke up to this post. Such sad news!
He was always in the PHC chat room making me smile and sharing his words and wisdom.
Blessings and prayers to his family
I am going to miss his presence terribly.
Indeed a sad loss. Great tribute @jaynie.