My Hike to the Jim Morrison Cave

We came, we saw, we conquered the elusive Jim Morrison Cave.
I think the first time I had ever heard about the cave, was through a youtube video. I watched a beauty guru talk about her favorite hikes in Los Angeles, and this Jim Morrison cave happened to be the one of them. The shots of the cave were stunning and as soon as I finished the video I knew this was something I had to check out myself. So, at the inception of 2015, my adventure partner and I decided to make this hike one of our resolutions of the year.
We conquered the hike on Saturday January 10th 2015. The weather was nice throughout the week, so we thought "why would Saturday be any different?" We were wrong. We chose the one day out of the week that it decided to POUR from sun up to sun down... But we were too set on going to turn back from a little rain. So we started the long drive to Malibu, and took the freeways instead of going along PCH which in retrospect, would've been a much better idea. If you go down the coast (we were coming from Redondo Beach so Northbound) keep going until you hit Corral Canyon Drive. There is a gas station and a traffic light so it's hard to miss. Take a right on Corral Canyon Drive and go to the VERY TIPPY TOP until the road turns into a dirt path leading to a fairly large lot. The drive up this hill is very windy and swirly, and it seems never ending so drive slowly and enjoy the view. Once you get into the lot, you'll see a few different trailheads connecting to the lot, one called "Castro Motorway Bulldog Motorway." This one does NOT lead to the Jim Morrison cave, nor do any of the trails attached to the lot. We learned this the hard way. We went up and down, over and under all of the trailheads that connected to the lot in the pouring rain and were SO ready to throw in the towel until we saw two guys walking in from the lot entrance. It was an extremely cold and rainy day so these were the first humans we had encountered that entire time. With their guidance, we found out that the entrance to the trail that lead to the cave was not connected to ANY of the trailheads in that lot. If you park in the lot, you need to walk out towards the entrance, and walk down the actual fire road, which is the road you drove UP to find the lot, and eventually you'll come to a trail entrance titled "Backbone Trail." This is the one. You walk up this trail for 15-20 minutes, and you'll come across the notorious circular rock formation that everyone posts pictures of. If you see this formation, it's a dead giveaway that you are in the right place. As much as my friend and I wanted to add a rock to the circle, we were so exhausted that we just headed straight for the cave. If you've walked all the way to the rock formation, you've gone too far. The cave is nestled inbetween some bushes and shrubbery BEFORE that distracting spiral of rocks. To the left, before the spiral, there will be a pointy rock structure, that really doesn't look like much, but that's it. That's the cave. There will be a vague small path that leads the way to this structure, and walk slowly because I got pretty scratched up from all the bushes. Once you get close enough to the rock structure, you'll see all the graffiti leading to the cave entrance, also known as the "birth canal" (gross). It's a tight squeeze, and it's dark in there so make sure to throw a stone into the entrance before you head in, in case there's anything creepy crawly nesting in there. Climb your way in and pat yourself on the back because you've found the infamous cave where Jim Morrison allegedly had his acid trips, wrote his music, and carved a skeleton into the base of the cave. Graffiti covers the walls of the cave so it's quite a sight to see. You apparently get an excellent view of the San Fernando Valley from the cave, but since we went on a rainy day all we got a view of was some thick, wet fog. But it was still worth it.
All in all, despite going on the wrong trails a couple of times, the overall hike was beautiful and definitely worth checking out. Learn from my mistake and CHECK THE WEATHER before you go. Pack some water and a light snack and have yourself a little picnic in the cave. I really don't know how my friend and I persevered and hiked our little butts off for like 6 hours. God was definitely with us on this trip. Good luck to any of you who decide to take on this hike. I hope this post is helpful. God speed!

The "Birth Canal"

Inside the cave

Jim's little skelly

An Undoing

At this moment in my life, I feel like God is taking me through a cleansing process. He's helping me unlearn the ways the world has influenced me to act, to think, to speak... And He's instructing me to relearn life through Him, and His word. He's sensitizing me again, to the things the world has taught me to be desensitized to, and softening the hardness of my heart, layer by layer. Albeit beautiful and necessary, this process, this undoing so to speak, is difficult.
 The battle becomes more strenuous, more emotional with every single layer He peels back. Like peeling an onion, the stench gets stronger the more you peel away, and the tears get heavier. But every time, without fail, He's there to comfort me and encourage me, every single step of the way. And the more difficulty I face, the more grace and love He pours out in my life. I can feel Him strengthening me, every time I choose to fix my gaze on Him and His unchanging love, rather than the unstable, inevitably disappointing and ephemeral things of the world.
 I remember my pastor once saying, "I don't want to get my world views through the world, I want to get my world views from the bible." It reminds me of Paul, who thought he saw so clearly, when he was persecuting Christians. His world view was so certain. Then Jesus stepped in and flipped his entire view upside down. He finally saw real truth and ironically, became blind. That is so symbolic to me. He lost his sight, the eyes that he once believed saw everything so clearly... And got his sight renewed by Ananias, a disciple of God. Now Paul saw through these new eyes... Given to him, by the Lord. What an "unlearning" he had to go through...
Choosing to follow God, isn't this instantaneous, one time transformation. It's a process... An undoing. A refining. He is giving us new eyes like he did, Paul. And now it's a relationship we're cultivating... God pursues us, but we now have a duty to pursue Him back... And He is always faithful to respond.
I pray for triumph over these trials, God. Help us never lose sight of Your love. You are faithful to provide. There is nothing, no problem that can ever be bigger than You. Let us be a generation that seeks Your face.

One Foot in Flesh, One Foot in Spirit

I heard a great analogy for what it's like for a christian to be living in sin: Imagine there is a giant pile of manure in the middle of your living room floor. Now you decide you want to clean your house, so you start dusting the cabinets, sweeping the floors, wiping down windows and mirrors, the whole shebang. The house is now squeaky clean. There is not a blemish to be seen inside or out... Except for that huge pile of manure on your floor, that's still there, collecting flies and saturating the whole house with its foul odor. Yet you still say "Perfect!" pat yourself on the back and call it a job well done.
We've all been there. I know I have... Trying to delude myself it was okay to keep one foot in the flesh and the other in the spirit. Doing this tore me apart. I used to try and appease my guilt by saying "well, what I'm doing is not that bad. I'm not committing murder or anything of that degree..." This was a dangerous mindset to fall victim to, but God in His grace revealed something to me that shattered this lie in my life. He told me not to think for one second, that because I considered my sin as "not that bad," in comparison to what someone else may have done, that I wasn't breaking His heart the same.
When I first started my walk with God, I'd tend to compare my walk with others' and feel discouraged when I wasn't seeing His grace in my life in the same way as theirs. But God showed me that no two walks are ever the same. He created us individually, and so He loves on us and speaks to us individually. We should never compare our walks and expect God to work in our lives the way they did in another's because He uniquely works with every one of us. The same goes for sin. Just because my pile of manure isn't as big as someone else's, does not mean that it doesn't reek in equivalence in the eyes of the Lord.
In Matthew 5:17, Jesus says "Therefore, whoever relaxes one of the least of the commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven." As I was reading this passage, God revealed something to me. His commandments, are not apples in an apple orchard. We can't pick and choose the commandments we like and overlook the rest. Every single commandment is indispensable, and I pray that if we relax even one of Your commandments Lord that you convict us, and reprehend us in Your love.
I pray to you King Jesus, to never let me or anyone disrespect You, by trivializing Your commandments. You, who even through seeing the piles of manure in our lives, loves us indescribably. You who in your reckless love, sacrificed Your only Son to be a ransom for us. We are to be a light, a lampstand to the world, God. May we never, upon taking apart the lampstand find dead flies spilling out from inside. You are better than anything the world could ever tempt us with and You are with us in all trials. I love you, Jesus and I thank you for your mercies on our lives. Amen.

The L Word

1 Corinthians 13:13 "And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."
In my journey with the Lord, I've realized how easy it is to get distracted. God uses so many people today to perform miracles, healings, prophecy etc. and while there is nothing wrong in hoping in the Lord for these things, it becomes concerning when these things become the objective. 
The very core of God, is love. If I walk upright and go to church every Sunday, but lack love in my heart then these acts become trivial and hollow. God's love is the footing that keeps my life together. Without His love as my basis, my infrastructure of life becomes compromised and the slightest wind can knock everything down.
I often find my focus in going deeper into relationship with God becoming obfuscated. It either turns into me just attempting to better myself as a person... Which ultimately and inevitably leads to pride and failure, or I begin treating God as a means to and end. I focus on the material goal itself, rather than God. But every time, in His grace, He helps me realize that my focus has shifted. He shows me that He is the root. Drawing closer to Him will transform me naturally, as a matter of course. And when I cast down my idols and put Him as my ultimate goal, before I even realize it, I find that my needs have been met. 
It's all about Him. God's love is foundational. It lays the groundwork for everything else. All He asks is for our hearts, which He more than deserves, and He provides everything else so we can find peace in Him... We never have to worry about our futures so long as we are pursuing Him with our hearts. What an awesome God.
I've been starting my mornings in prayer, asking the Lord to remind me of His love daily. To never let me regard His love as commonplace. To never let me speak of His love frivolously. God, admonish me daily that the changes and gifts I desire are purposeless without Your love as the root. 
Lord I pray for all who seek You, to increase in hope and increase in faith, but most of all, increase in Your love. All You want is our hearts, God, help us feel this overflow of Your heart for us. May we fall in love with You deeper every day. In Jesus' name, Amen.

A Love Too Wild to Understand

2 Peter 2:20-22 "For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. For it would have been better for them to never have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them. What the true proverb says has happened to them: 'The dog returns to its own vomit, and the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire.'"

--

Every time I'd try to get myself to make a new blog post in these past few months, I'd end up staring at my computer screen, frozen, unable to muster up anything to type out. I had so many things I could've written about, but every time I'd attempt writing, it'd feel so forced and so fabricated... Because it was. I had the mindset that whatever it was that I was going to write, it had to be wholly edifying... So that in the chance that my peers read it, they'd know I was doing well. Even if at that moment of my life, things weren't going well (things were horrible, really), for the sake of self preservation I'd write as though everything were rainbows and butterflies. Ergo, even writing, my once precious form of catharsis, became jaded and obstructed, all because I couldn't get real with myself.

 Here is some backstory, sparknotes style. My priorities became very convoluted in these previous months. I became distracted, and deluded myself to be content with my lukewarm faith. I'd feel convicted every Sunday, feel bad about it and that was it. I knew I was breaking God's heart, and would immediately think of something else to avoid the guilt and the fact that things needed to change. I was knowingly backsliding and the momentum was picking up, and I was just kicking back and enjoying the view. In the midst of this descent, I'd have moments where I'd feel an urging to make a new blog post, and like I said initially, I'd be frozen... Unable to execute one proper sentence that didn't sound like contrived, artificial jargon.

It's true that to see if someone is walking healthily with God, you can tell by the fruit they bear. Here I was, in sin and delusion, attempting to create a spiritually uplifting post and still left dumbfounded when my brain and my fingers wouldn't cooperate. Even my own fingers were calling me out on my bull. I was never going to get honest with myself, put myself in a position of vulnerability and write about my backsliding, no. I was going to try and force a post about the amazing things I was accomplishing in life, sprinkle some sentences about the love of Jesus over all of it and hope to fool any nosy readers and more importantly, fool myself. I think I was hoping to fool myself, really. In retrospect, I wish I did post something during those months, so I could read it now and guffaw at the blatantly embellished word vomit that I managed to amalgamate. 

And here I am now, getting real, and able to feel that release once more. God planted this love to write in me, and my attempt at using His gift to bear false fruit was brutally rebuffed. 

I remember hearing a sermon by Francis Chan where he talked about Christians backsliding, that really impacted me. He talked about how backsliding is as if we vomited, walked away from the vomit, and then made the conscious decision to walk back into that vomit and then roll around in it... And before we knew it, we put ourselves in a position far worse than when we first started. This. Is. SO. True. I covered myself in vomit, and came to God shameful, detestable and wretched... and He STILL forgave me. The holy, sinless Creator of the universe, in His incomprehensible and uncontainable love, came down to my pitiful level and with no hesitation, absolved me of my sins. I REEKED of sin and He still ran after my heart. He embraced me despite my repugnance, and let me find my rest once more in Him. How You love me, God... I can't find the words to describe the beauty. I can't find the words WORTHY to describe Your beauty. 

Thank you, Lord of all. Everything I do on this earth, I want it to glorify You. I want my words and the fruit that I bear, to match the life I lead behind closed doors. I am mute without Your wisdom and my words are barren without Your love. Forgive me Lord for falling into temptation and break my heart for how I've broken Yours so that I may know how much I have been forgiven for. I'm desperate for more of You. Always desperate for you, King Jesus. All glory to you, Amen.

MIGHTY MOS

**Another essay we had to do for our hip hop theatre class. Naturally I chose my hubby to write about.

THEA 115
Professor Rickerby Hinds

                                                                 It’s All Mathematics
            Talented lyricists in hip-hop, through techniques like connotations, double entendres, juxtapositions of phrases etc., frequently touch on pressing and controversial matters in their lyrics. Rarely do their lyrics mean what is simply on the surface and are often open-ended which is intended to spur their audience to think and react. A prime example of a hip-hop artist who encompasses these qualities is the thirty-nine year old MC, Dante Terrell Smith commonly known by his stage name, Mos Def, who recently changed his name to Yasiin Bey. 
           Yasiin Bey was born in Brooklyn, New York and initiated his hip-hop career through the group Urban Thermo Dynamics with his brother DCQ and his sister Ces. He then began to feature in songs with well-known MC’s like De La Soul, until he finally signed with Rawkus Records and released an album with Talib Kweli in 1998 as the duo Black Star. The album, Mos Def and Talib Kweli are Black Star created hit singles and really put Yasiin Bey on the map as a talented, new artist in the realm of hip-hop. 
         From then on Yasiin Bey began to release solo albums, his most recent being The Ecstatic in 2009. Yasiin Bey also became recognized for his acting and was very active in social issues like Hurricane Katrina where he openly displayed his discontentment with the government’s response or lack thereof, to the tragedy. He displayed his feelings through a song called “Katrina Clap” renamed “Dollar Day” (due to record label issues), sampling the beat of UTP’s song “Nolia Clap.” In the song he says lines such as, “Tell the boss he shouldn’t be the boss anymore” and “Mr. President’s a natural ass, he out treating niggas worse than they treat the trash” blatantly displaying his dissatisfaction with President Bush. From the beginning of his career Yasiin Bey alluded to social and political issues like in the song “Definition” with Talib Kweli where he says “hold your head when the beat drop” which can be interpreted as connoting the violence associated with hip-hop. Earlier in the song there are references to Tupac and Biggie and the danger of being an MC, so “hold your head when the beat drop” can be seen as an ode to the dangers of living in the slums and being an African American MC, and also a description of the potency of their music. One song in particular titled “Mathematics,” produced by DJ Premier, that Yasiin Bey released in his solo album Black on Both Sides, alludes to various social issues and asks his audience to essentially do the math and open there eyes about the corrupted reality of the government, capitalism and society. This song features snippets from himself, and other conscious rappers like Fat Joe, Ghostface Killah, and  Erykah Badu who says “do your math” from her song “On and On” urging young, African American children to do well in school. In this essay I will be doing an in-depth analysis on Yasiin Bey’s song “Mathematics” and how he insinuates in his lyrics, issues of institutional racism, marginalization, and the corruptness of government and society as a whole.
            Yasiin Bey’s allusions to institutional racism, which can be defined as any form of inequality by an institution, based on race, are located all throughout his lyrics in “Mathematics” including his mentioning of the prison-industrial complex. The Prison-industrial complex or PIC focuses on the dependence on the growth of prisons and inmates by businesses and companies that supply goods to prisons, thereby making jail and incarceration a business. He says in verse one “Hip-hop passed all your tall social hurdles like the nationwide project: prison-industry complex” and in verse two “there’s one universal law, but two sides to every story, three strikes and you be in for life, mandatory,” describing the issues concerning institutional racism and the prison-industrial complex. The rate of African Americans in prison by 1999, greatly outnumbered any other nationality although “African Americans [constituted] only 14% of all drug users nationally” in 2000 (Marable, 5). Yasiin is referring to the unfairness of the government and the negative stereotypes of African Americans and their association with crime, to fuel and justify the need to incarcerate them. His lyrics saying “three strikes and you be in for life, mandatory” refer to California’s “three-strikes and you’re out” (Marable, 5) law which erased the parole option for repeating offenders, most of whom were nonviolent. These imbalanced laws make it impossible for the majority of African American men to stay out of jail especially when living in poor conditions that offer them sparse resources and jobs. While living conditions are so difficult in urban areas, crime almost becomes a necessity for families to survive. Therefore those who have no other choices but resort to crime are incarcerated, meaning prisons and inmates will always be growing. Media also constantly perpetuates negative stereotypes of African Americans making racism difficult to erase and as long as racism still exists, so will the reason to incarcerate. Prison has essentially become big business, which is why Yasiin calls it “the global jail economy,” and as White men run most big businesses, like media for example, institutional racism is practically impossible to escape.
            Continuing on, Yasiin Bey alludes to the issue of marginalization which be seen as the limiting of goods and services to a certain group of people. Therefore people from a lower or working class may not have access to privileges and material goods that the middle and upper class may have access to. Yasiin Bey says, “This is business, no faces just lines and statistics, from your phone, your zip cope to S-S-I digits. The system break man, child and women in to figures, two columns for who is and who ain’t niggas” insinuating that the government basically has only two categories in deciding who does and does not get privileges and those two categories are simply those who are African American and those who are not. He is implying that the mistreatment towards African Americans is so severe that you can basically see only two categories existing. African Americans are marginalized in the sense that they are forced into living in tenements due to the unavailability of jobs to fund privileges like school. The government does not address this issue but rather perpetuates the image that African Americans are violent marginalizing them even further. Yasiin is saying that the government does not make resources available to the lower class, yet continues to perpetuate negative images of these people as if they voluntarily or are inherently criminal. He says at the end of “Mathematics,” “Why did one straw break the camel’s back? Here’s the secret: The million other straws underneath it. It’s all mathematics.” In this line, he is referring to the countless amounts of big business owners and those in government who perpetuate racism, thereby creating and sustaining marginalization in a way that seems it is not purposeful. This is done so that the White men stay in power and remain wealthy, while simultaneously keeping African Americans from ever fully achieving freedom. Therefore, by Yasiin saying that the system puts people into two categories: African Americans and everyone else, he is insinuating that a form of slavery still exists, through this deliberate and unfair targeting of African Americans.
            Yasiin Bey uses his song “Mathematics” ultimately to critique and expose the racial inequalities supported and sustained by the state. Personally, this song resonated with me as I took a course in labor studies and got a first-hand experience on the mistreatment of Latina and Latino workers in the warehouse. I was able to visit a warehouse in Fontana, CA and speak with as well as participate in a strike organized by the warehouse workers to fight unfair treatment. Their wages were low and health services were not provided, even for those who had worked for decades. Many workers were injured, doing the strenuous work or have had lung damage from constant exposure to dangerous fumes. Also, Rather than providing sick workers with days off they would be simple be replaced by the thousands of others who were willing and in desperate need of a job. I also learned in great detail about the prison-industrial complex during this course and about marginalization, institutional racism etc. and the song “Mathematics,” which I had already loved before, became that much more significant to me. I was able to understand in more depth the issues he was alluding to and I was able to relate the lyrics to the workers’ situations as well as the material we discussed in the class. Overall, I believe this song contains information much beyond what is on the surface and discusses relevant matters that should not be ignored. Yasiin Bey expresses through his lyrics the bleakness of society and attempts to provoke his audience into achieving an understanding and to simply react.

A-, Good work.

                                                                    Works Cited
Badu, Erykah, James Brown, Fat Joe, and Ghostface Killah. "Mathematics." Mos Def. DJ        
            Premier, 1999. CD.
Marable, Manning. "Facing the Demon Head On: Institutional Racism and the Prison Industrial
            Complex." Article. Southern Changes, 2000. Book.

To Live&Die in LA

I’ve pretty much rejected typical California stereotypes until I took a step back and figuratively had a birds eye view of my surroundings. I mean, media obviously over exaggerates how people in Cali act, but when you really think about it, as opposed to other cultures and countries, Cali people are MEAN. I meet people who move from other states to California all the time and tell me how rude and pretentious people are over here and I guess I must have just been immune to it from living here all my life… God forbid I’m one of those rude people that they’re talking about. Our state is just one huge “click” with a bunch of little “sub-clicks” living amongst it. Don’t get me wrong, I love living in Los Angeles and I love how much it has taught me, but I had to go through near death experiences and psychological trauma to gain it. I’ve always told myself that taking the easy route is nowhere near as satisfying as persevering through the “road less travelled,” but at what cost? Still… Even though I’ve been surrounded by unmotivated, unintelligent, pessimistic liars and cheaters all my life, through them I was able to learn that honesty, love and hard work is so significant to be happy, and happiness is all I want, it’s all anyone wants really. Of course not all of us are so lucky, some settle being at the bottom and I don’t wish that on my worst enemy… And I don’t mean being at the bottom, I mean settling. I can’t exaggerate enough how important it is to NEVER settle. If you think you’re worth more, brush that off and tell yourself that damn right you’re worth more, worth better. Popularity, clicks… Media has it right, that shit doesn’t last. So stop worrying about the simple shit and better yourself the right way. Keep your loved ones close, be honest, be kind and do work. Ideally, I don’t want to spend the rest of my existence in California, but I won’t deny that it taught me life... And that’ll stick with me no matter where I go in the future.