Dangers in the Desert is live :D

Dangers in the Desert is here! 

It ships in time for Christmas :D

It's Christmas break, and the Queen is still missing...

Maylee and Rafi trek through the Sinai desert on camelback, 

headed for Cairo—but they aren’t the only ones looking for the Queen. Danger is waiting for them 

amongst the pyramids, and a secret society that teeters on the edge of good and evil might just 

take them down. Or, it might be their only hope. 

In the meantime, Smith is still in Montana—but with the click of a mouse, the world is a very small place. 

The shield between Smith and his data trackers is only as thick as his Internet security, and with the 

college students on vacation, his TOR blanket is pretty thin. 

On top of it all, Johann Barker left a trail of clues behind him 

when he died—clues that point to a secret far more personal 

than the missing Queen. Amjad and Jerome must find all 

the clues, decipher the code, and face a familial 

shock that tests their integrity. 

One thing’s for sure, they’re going to have to 

work together to find the Queen, but in this 

game of intrigue, it’s hard to know 

who they can trust. 

Overview of my talk at TEDxPlano 2016

Do Hard Things: Applying Krashen's Input Hypothesis to Personal Growth and Achievement

You can't microwave success. There is no shortcut, no easy way to reach your goals. It's going to take a lot of hard work, discipline, and consistency. What you can do, however, is reframe the way you think about success and failure and create a systematic pattern that allows you to maximize your efforts. 

Stephen Krashen's Input Hypothesis deals with second language acquisition, but we can apply this language principle to other areas of our lives as we tackle doing hard things. Three simple symbols provide the formula for success: i+1. 

In the TED talk, we take a look at what both the i and the 1 mean in the context of our goals, but we really focus on dealing with the discomfort and insecurity that comes as we acquire new habits and skills, incorporating those into the person we are. 

I share some personal experiences and some embarrassing stories in the talk which I won't spoil here for you. I had several comments from members in the audience and from those who saw the video on YouTube who were able to identify with the awkwardness that comes in between "I can" and " I must stretch." But they all agreed that the rewards on the other side of  growth far outweigh the discomforts!

Humanism Finds a Place at Our Table

Just published this on Dallas Morning News
Humanism Finds a Place at our Table

Summoned to jury duty, wondering if peers were up to task

Just posted this article in Dallas Morning News:

http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/latest-columns/20151021-diamond-wilson-summoned-to-jury-duty-wondering-if-my-peers-were-up-to-task.ece

3 Things You Must See at Glacier National Park

Click here to see the video of Glacier National Park with Diamond Wilson and Jay Wilson

1. The Wildflowers 

The mountainsides and valleys are fragrant with wild roses, bear grass, and wild lupines.  Breathe deeply of the crisp mountain air, and catch a whif of the roses while you're at it.

2. Iridescent Glacier-Green Waters 

Finely ground silt in glaciers flows into rivers and lakes as the ice melts and blends into the water supply. The water is often so clear it is difficult to guess the depth of the water. Oh yeah, it's pretty chilly too!

3.  Ancient Glaciers - Giant Ice Formations that Flow 

 Great snow drifts under pressure eventually turn to ice and re-crystallize forming powerful glaciers. These glaciers move consistently, undaunted by thousands of feet of rock that lie in their way.  They cut almost impossible valleys and canyons, leaving large lakes with mountains that seem to grow right out of the water. Rock layers are exposed as the glacier erodes the formations, slicing the earth and baring the layers that formed it.

The Hunt

I must have been drunk. I must have been so far gone on the lows of my sorrows that I didn't see it there, in front of me. My belly ached only for the full feeling of the chase and in hunting that beast I forgot to exist. It consumed me. It did. I foamed at the mouth with a crazy lust and I slept with the barrel loaded, the gun cocked and ready. 

I can't tell you how many times I just closed my eyes and shot into the night, screaming and falling to the ground in a heap when I hit nothing. It crazed me. I left sleep behind in my tent and I left my soul drowning in a river somewhere with a preacher who told me he could wash away my sins. But I got out out of the water before it could save me. 

I grabbed my shotgun and ran into the forest, leaving a trail of wet footprints that blistered the earth as if I were a demon and not a man. I'll always be able to find that river because my own regret is a smell I can trace as good as any bloodhound. 

And I guess that morals must be the pilot light for our eyes because the light went out in mine the day I stopped seeing the world for what it was. Two flat, black discs hovered in my sockets and I saw visions of the beast taunting me, always a stride away from the range of my gun. Once, I shot him point blank in the face but sick laughter echoed back with the crackle of the air and I knew I only shot an illusion. 

My hair grew long and my face became sallow and when I saw my reflection painted in dew drops I titled it, "Jesus, Incomplete" because that's exactly what I looked like. My teeth turned into sulfurous spikes, jagged and broken from incessant grinding. I had only one shot left and I decided to use it on myself, to end the hunt. 

By the time I saw it, I couldn't stop the bullet. This time the beast was so close I could feel his breath on my skin. And as the shot raked through my body, just before my eyes closed in death, I saw his name hanging from his collar. All this time, I was chasing Happiness. And finally when it was too late, I slowed down enough for him to catch me.

Ashes

They said it would be heavy. I honestly thought they meant the velvet bag and the box of ashes I had to carry away from the funeral home. What they really meant was everything that came after. 

You sat in the passenger side next to me, well on the floor actually, because i was terrified of tipping the box over and spilling dust everywhere. I kept waiting for the music to turn sad, for thunder to peal somewhere in distance, for the sun to hide behind a cloud. Instead, a car horn beeped, my blinker clicked steadily in the car, and I waited for red lights to turn green.

Life was very normal in the world around me. Like I belonged in a dream and stepped into the real world without belonging to it or being part of it. And then I began to understand what they meant when they said your ashes would be heavy.

I finally understand why the color for mourning is black. For one thing, it's easier. A choice you don't have to make at the beginning of the day. But the real reason is that life isn't in color anymore and everything looks the same anyway. Maybe if the world looks at me in my mournful clothes they will understand, just for a second, how heavy your ashes really are. Maybe they will forgive my tears at the grocery store that seem so out of place, maybe I will be invisible to the advertisements and tweets about Mother's Day, maybe Google will shoot a message to all my credit card companies that I don't want my mother's maiden name used as my security question anymore. 

You see, even though I took the urn home and put it where you asked me to, I carry your ashes with me no matter where I go. Someone once told me if you removed all the empty space that exists within the atoms of the Empire State Building, you would be left with an extremely heavy building the size of a grain of rice. That must be why your ashes are so heavy. All the love and memories we shared still carry the same mass even though your physical volume has been reduced.

They told me your ashes would be heavy. And I'm growing stronger every day to carry them.

Imagine

Birthday Stream of Consciousness

When it’s 5:00 a.m. and the upper story in the old house groans a little bit, foot on flooring, I smile in my sleep because I know I am amongst friends and family.

When coffee smells like three-quarters of a cup, that is enough, because I just happen to have milk in the car and when shared with friends, a little becomes a lot.
Like Jesus, I think five loaves and two small fish are enough for my world when served with prayer and a smile, well, maybe a little hot sauce too, ‘cause you know we have to represent the Latin side.

Leftover milkshakes are a warm reminder of how last night slipped under a blanket and turned into today. These cool mornings have sleepy eyes but I like it so much better when the fog is on the outside and not in my mind.

I love that you can flip furniture, cabinets, turn a house upside down and inside out and still have it feel like home, because home is where the animals are, curled up and stretched out on every chair you want to sit on.

Sometimes anxiety can turn to butterflies when a message arrives that I don’t want to delete but save for a rainy day like exponentially having 100% of your attention, digital.

And, I’ve said it once before in words that you haven’t heard because I spoke them on a different floor of my consciousness, that last stop on the elevator that requires a special set of fingerprints to open my emotions. But today, here’s the view from the top of the building. A snapshot, one that self-destructs with time and the infidelity of memory.

Our hearts don’t beat alone, exempt from the source that gave us life. So either I’m an echo and a memory or there is some umbilical cord that connects hearts of mothers and daughters, a cord that doctors and death itself can’t cut.

And, if I could, I’d wind that cord around my finger and listen for a dial tone and wait for your voice. The best thing about being half of you is not my eyes, but that we could read each others’ minds, and that sometimes when I talk I sound just like you.

Now the coffee is getting cold and the morning is getting brighter, a reminder, that success never sleeps and time sprints through the night. Heartbeats are just reverberations of the funeral drum so I hold my head high because my life is worth dying for.

So you can follow in my footprints, blaze the trail ahead, or walk beside me, but keep marching. Make the ground shake with every step and change the winds when you speak, because if a butterfly can have its effect, imagine what your thoughts can do.

THIS SATURDAY come get your signed copy at Firewheel from 1-3!

#truebeauty

DFW Book Signing

DFW signing next weekend! #caves #mzflawless

The Caves of Qumran is available!

Continuity

Superficial

The splendor of the night seems tainted 

with the truth of the day,

Where the rays of the sun shine brilliant, 

glistening over a million flaws.

The diamonds that glimmer at your neck 

under the city lights

Are drab in the daylight, covered with the ashes 

of last night's dreams.

There is a layer of grit that covers 

the silk cushions where you lay your head,

It smells like cigarette smoke, cheap hairspray, 

and last night's expectations.

Sunglasses can't hide the hangover in your eyes 

from too many shots of regret

and a few stale promises. 

There is no lipstick red enough to cover 

the pallor of long-dead smiles,

No corset tight enough to give shape 

to drooping potential.

The high heels you wear could reach 

all the way to the penthouse, 

and still do nothing to elongate your character. 

The bartender convinced you that 

an ounce of beauty, a smidgen of charm, 

well shaken and chilled with a little luck 

would transform you 

from cheap vodka into a luxury cocktail.

So you sipped away on lies and gambled 

the price of your happiness only to realize

that the audience watching you 

was both deaf and blind.

And now, standing here, seeing where your mascara 

has settled into your mistakes 

In the reflection of the taxi window 

that's already driving away,

The sun burns hot on your skin 

that's already scarlet with self-hate,

So you turn back to the shadows and hide 

with the beauty of something completely fake. 

The Elements of Love part 3- Earth

Have I ever told you you're my world?  Yeah, you're a little rough around the edges, but I love every mountain peak and canyon, proof of the changes that transformed you from the inside out.  

I love your opinion that pours forth like hot lava, recreating the earth as your thoughts harden and your dreams take shape.  The molten essence of you is raw and real and untempered, yet your will is strong. And like cold water to iron, it strengthens your resolve. 

I want to plant my feet in your soil and just grow into you.  I want to sprout roots so deep they touch your soul.  I want to be the leaves on your trees and feed you captured sunlight.  I want to blow you kisses on the evening breeze and shelter you from existential storms.

I want to paint our history and our future on cave walls and immortalize our love on stone.  I want to teach the rivers our story and collect our memories in the ocean.  I want to sing in the caverns of your darkest days and promise you a light at the end of the tunnel. 

I want to etch a lifetime into your sand dunes, shine on your deserts like the blazing sun, and run through your landscape like a gazelle.  I want to spread myself like a blanket of snow on your tundra and glow blue and green like an iceberg in the waves.  

I don't need a Ph.D. in topography, ecology, geology, or paleontology.  I'd rather just be an expert on you. 

Elements of Love- Water

The sky frowned and wept great tears, the condensation of heavy emotion. I realized that thunder is really the sound of a heart breaking somewhere, and lightening, lightning is the residual electricity left snapping between the ends of separated lovers.

I'm left wondering when this tension became magnetic, pulling us together and requiring a bipolar rejection at the same time.  I wonder when the meeting of these two friendly winds became a boxing ring, a circle of hot and cold that just brings both of us down.

Sometimes, words shoot from our mouths like tornadoes and destroy the bridges we built to cross over our differences.  And, it isn't just Zeus that fights with lighting bolts.  I've heard you say things that melt through my armor and scar my very being all for the sake of the shock factor. 

Our anger can swell so thick that we block out the rays of the sun.  And then, it's not just our own lives we are stealing.  The consequence of uncontrolled emotion stretches a long shadow.

All I can say is, I think we need to connect the circuit.  Passion and power are dangerous steeds to gallop without bridles.  So, meet me in the middle.  Drop your weapons and walk unarmed into the eye of the storm.  Because when we meet face to face as equals, we can give or take a few electrons. 

Elements of Love - Fire

Your possibilities are infinite. You are a single match, you are the flames that light my hearth, the fires that ravaged Chicago, and I hate to say it but you might be the very fires of hell. And I want to touch you without getting burnt. 

There is a corner of my soul that sustains no independent circulation, and I have found a warmth in you that brings that part of me to life.  I stand so close to your energy until I can't stand the friction and I step back.  But moving away from you is like facing the dark side of the moon.

I lie awake at night and wonder if there is a way to manage your power without stripping you of your strength.  Like If I were Delilah and you were Sampson, and I could cut only half your hair to keep you god enough to tempt me but man enough to love me. 

But you really can't win with fire.  If you smother it, it dies. If you free it, it destroys every good intention, strangling the future in thick smoke.  It will burn a hole in the earth all the way to Satan's footstool.  I took that journey with you and I saw fire afraid of its own fury.

I thought that I could pass through the flames and not get destroyed, but I'm made of flesh and bone not a precious metal to be refined by your critical heat.  I ended up a pile of ashes heaped on a heart of gold frozen with the cold of a wasted planet long after the fire has consumed it. 

See, I didn't just get burnt, I caught on fire with you.   We exploded with a brilliance that's still shooting through space a million light years away.  And in that moment, I lived.

Unequaled

Since "I love you" are words I said to someone else and since you are unlike anything I've ever seen I think it's time for a new spin on an old cliché.

If roses are red and violets are blue, then I'm nothing without you except for rooted in my past. You don't just complete my sentences you revise my future. You're not just my other half, you make my world three dimensional.

 I don't want to memorize every inch of your body, I want to be the blood pumping through your veins and the synopses in your brain so I can say that I know you from the inside out. 

You must be part Hercules because what we have together leaves me feeling more than human. I want to resurrect Salvador Dali so you can be his muse because you are the definition of surreal.  

God must had M.C. Escher create your mind, because i could get lost in your thoughts for infinity. You're so straightforward it's complex, so intimate it's external, so inside-out it's a whole new exterior, so upside-down it makes me question right-side-up. 

What I'm trying to say is if a picture is worth a thousand words, I'm gonna need a whole new language.