iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

I’m too busy shaking my defiant ass and flying my wildflower feet to find any time to pack my bags. The old guard hates my new moves.

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I dance in places where change is just talk, -where scared silent is mistaken for peace, -where stillness is mistaken for power. The fear mongers keeps telling me that I “should move if I don’t like it here.” But I don’t. I can’t leave yet.

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I dance at town hall meetings, ~ where an out of tune jukebox spits circular arguments and pounding fist. I dance on capitol steps, -where the statues don’t blink, -where the air smells like old speeches, -where the legislature scrambles for soundbites, but never for the suffering of the people.

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I dance in the corner of the old cowboy bar, - where country songs drown in whiskey, - where men tip their hats but never their hearts, - where the jukebox knows every goodbye but no one speaks about the wounds we all carry.

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John Roedel @johnroedel.bsky.social · 15/02/2025

The old guard in my town told me that I should move if I don’t like it here. So I immediately took their advice and I started dancing. Now, I dance on the cracked sidewalks, where the weeds don’t ask permission to be flowers.

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art should roam untamed, not be led by tethered hands — who decides its path? art was never meant to march in straight lines, to salute patriotically, or to bow for its supper. it belongs to the wild ones, the question-askers, the dreamers who refuse to color inside tired lines.

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John Roedel @johnroedel.bsky.social · 30/01/2025

This morning I was sent a pretty stinging message from a poet/writer whom I have never met, but whose work I really respect. They offered (not so kindly) that I am hurting the genre by writing in the way I do. Here was my response: open.substack.com/pub/johnroed...

open.substack.com

Damn the gatekeepers

There is room for all of us!

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John Roedel @johnroedel.bsky.social · 24/01/2025

our breath keeps our hearts from time traveling to the storms behind us or to the unwritten future. stay with me here in the present. there is so much wonder for you to witness. anchor yourself to the unfolding now with every single breath you take.

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John Roedel @johnroedel.bsky.social · 22/01/2025

don’t let anyone tell you that empathy is weakness. having a heart for those less fortunate is a perpetual genesis. it transforms the cold dark universe. it creates new hope. it allows for growth. its sews us together. it’s an unbreakable circle of kindness. empathy is everything we came here for.

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A teacher’s heart is a blazing lighthouse, and we need every beam of light we can get.

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Because if we treat teaching like it’s nothing more than a vacancy to be filled, we won’t get steady hands or guiding voices— we’ll get faint echoes, too quiet to scare off the wolves, too dim to show the way through the dark.

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If you want the best to teach, treat them like the heroes they are. Stop making them juggle second jobs just to keep the lights on. Stop questioning their hearts. Stop forcing them to build a classroom out of their own wallets.

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Being a teacher isn’t just a job. It’s a calling, a vocation. You wouldn’t take volunteers from a passenger list to fly a plane through a storm— so why would we gamble with the minds and futures of our children?

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They are the ones who know how to lead children into the wilds of growing up, how to spot the wolves before they circle too close, how to howl back with strength and certainty so the camp remains safe.

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We have been investing in tanks over textbooks for years, and now that the bill has come due: we look to cut corners, bargain away the future, just to pay for the platform of unsteady ground. A teacher should never be an empty suit with a paycheck in one hand and a how-to manual in the other.

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We ask teachers to grow flowers in soil packed with landmines, to shield their students from the crossfire of the decisions made far from their world by people behind microphones who are more concerned about their polling numbers than the kids they were elected to serve.

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Politics have turned the once lush gardens of our classrooms into scorched earth war trenches. Where there once were seeds of curiosity, now there are battle lines.

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Not everyone can teach. A teacher isn’t just a warm body filling an empty chair. They are the ones who have spent their lives turning their hearts into lighthouses— a steady, unyielding glow that cuts through the storm and guides the lost safely home.

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An open poem to the Wyoming Legislature that they will probably never read.

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hurry up open your eyes you’re missing it open your eyes hurry up and once you do you will see it the relentless power of creation oh, and how you’ll gasp when you finally see it ~ john roedel ~ photo credit: Wyoming Equality

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the more you hide from the miracle of this existence you only get to ride this skin and bone rollercoaster for so long quit closing your eyes stare into the swirl because that’s where God’s most profound artwork is

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who are you to decide how The Everlasting Potter molds their art? get over your fear of people who look live pray love believe differently than you do because the more you hide from what is foreign to you

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so, if the Divine was so unrestrained when it came to creating the stretching forever kingdom of stars it would make sense that God was even more uninhibited when it came to how we were made each of us are a wow sculpture of unbridled never-seen-before genius

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it just wildly created this delicate masterpiece of endless fire, orchestrated chaos and a trillion or so wobbling worlds like a Michelangelo made out of an army of swarming angels every inch of everything that exists is a unique piece of abstract splatter art

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did the first burst of cosmic energy care about its critics when it began to paint life across the constantly unfolding canvas of the known universe? hell no

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~ to rage against a color you have never seen before because its exotic tincture offends your orthodox eyes suggests that you believe the Divine Artist is worried about what you think

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