A life as choice deemed to be fulfilled by one's self A life as told forced to be fulfilled by the other Bred by fear, nurtured by a presence of hate Genealogy focused to dominate A history or power, of tyrants and helots and gods Put into practice by the worry of loss Justify imposition by suppressing liberty You cannot force a life to live a life like yours You should not bend the mind to follow your ritual Boxing in, closing the will to discover Occluding the choice of path to be set by the other Forceful reckoning leading to condemnation Imprisoning others by fear and pain and desperation What conviction it takes to regress into subjugation What right to claim morality as an act of your creation Those who fear the most claim to be our saviour All the while the fear itself justifies their behaviour Replace the gift of choice with indoctrination You cannot force a life to live a life like yours You cannot make the eyes believe in your soul You cannot force a life to live a life like yours You must not break the will to become your chosen role Can you not find within yourself the courage to let them choose themselves You must accept at last, release your grasp, remove your hate control

When we look to all of our idols We find it hard to believe That such prowess and creative power Could so perfectly be conceived We place them into our focus Our horizons are clearly set And so readily our disappointment When our goals are never met We convince ourselves to stop Out of fear from letting ourselves down Some try to find the time Some try to hold it down Some tend to make the time To stop the wheels from spinning around We all want to leave that mark An imprint from the heart Yet we all run away From taking the time to make it start We can turn around from contact So suddenly deceived Retract from all our passions By the standards we conceived Well it always seems so easy To let the dream escape Building up our insecurities Just to let the power fade We second guess the works we make Out of fear from judgment of the world We must take time to find the time We must make time to find the time

We each are a mystery a self contained exception Travellers in a world of wonder, of intrigue and deception To find another life, a light to house ourselves Is the trick just to understand, and the challenge to dispel Silence broken Fears spoken Effortless illusion Two selves in union We strain to maintain the two of us We try to see eye to eye for both of us The world contains no plan, no connection between lives Yet we find ourselves so entangled in our partner’s eyes Love is not a solo jaunt nor a truth to be sure But a power held between two bodies that endure Love is fickle like the wind Can so easily change its course But knowing when to follow its flow Is knowing how to harness the force Love can touch us like a flame Burns hot and then retreats But with care you can grasp the heat With equal force you can make it complete We strain to maintain the two of us We try to see eye to eye for both of us We strive to keep the love alive To hold and make strong the forge of our bond We find through shades of our lives still two of us

I. Overture (Instrumental) II. An Explorer’s Farewell An alien sun rises from the north Painting his face one last time He feels its strange warmth through the windows of His cold outpost deep in space Sometimes as he tends to the soil and crops He thinks about the life he left behind But today marks mission complete His home, so far, awaits his return All around me lay the dead of astral stone It’s been so long I’ve waited for my chance to come home to you For you I’ve longed For us I’ve held strong The cedars is where we will meet again If I’m gone If you feel my loss I’ll come back to the cedars in the end He knew the dangers that lay ahead He knew the chance of no return But he felt the need to challenge frontiers To explore, to terraform new worlds He felt the plea of a dying humanity He knew he could not refuse Though he may be called a saviour or coward He chose these years of solitude Did I choose wrong? Left her alone I will head back I must go home For you I’ve longed For us I’ve held strong The cedars is where we will meet again If I’m gone If you feel my loss I’ll come back to the cedars in the end Course is set – target locked Fuel engaged – thrusters shot Plumes of smoke – ascending high The journey starts – for you I’m coming home III. The Storm A great disturbance shakes the craft As it moves through the abyss of dark Some cataclysmic unseen force To send it spiralling off course Confusion Cannot see Waves crash in Violently Sense flashes, panic stricken He tries to steer the ship away But the pull from shadowed gravity Keeps him trapped within the fray Bending steel Crippling fright Engines fail Loss of light Floating through the void of night Hapless, spinning, desolate Confusion within distant light A weary traveller broken by the storm The wormhole needed within sight Pushing forward desperately Clashing with the greatest might Fuelled by the hope of return III. Through The Wormhole (Instrumental) IV. An Explorer’s Return Opening the shuttle door he breathes the earthly air With a tear in his eye he steps out into the forest bare The snow is cold against his skin as he falls down to the ground And looking toward the azure sky he knows that he is finally back home now I have returned For you I have yearned The cedars is where I will be in the end He sets his signal of safe return out to base command And sets his camp by the spot he knows she will come Sitting by the fire’s glow he does not mind the wait But soon enough he sees her there a shadow lifted by the light of day You have returned For you and I are one The cedars is where we unite again The strain to hold that closest bond In distance spanning in between worlds The power to keep that closest bond No matter the length in between our hearts

Deep down beneath the skin Festering, gnawing, malicious force I feel it starting to change A full conversion of being What could it be, this strange entity? What have I done to host it to become? Where did it come, what world has it sprung? Why has it chosen me and my body to be? The mind become insectoid The flesh hardens into stone The organs melt into sustenance The muscles collapse into sludge The liver exploding releasing toxin Bones disintegrate into calcic slop Limbs pumping in dysrhythmic spasm Intestines unravel Transform becoming other Mutate from the inside out My pain becomes Alive Breathing beneath skin The creature takes its form Miasmic entity A new me is born Curse of the flesh, hex on the world Parasite I become Vitriol spews, hatred consumes A xenophobe is born Seeing through eyes of hate A new type of disdain A mind shattered by prejudice, a world cleaved by colour Unity broken by ignorance, brainwashed to hate all other How could I let myself be tainted by such rhetoric? Why did I follow blindly to inbred thoughts? How could I be so drawn to politics of rancor? Why did I not see the trumping racism within? How could I metamorphosize into such an insectarian of hate?

I. Tell me how – we can feel an urge to live despite how arbitrary all life is? Tell me why – we take the time to put meaning into all of our useless actions? Tell me how – we can lose a life to an accident; a whim of meaninglessness? Tell me why – we try to find a reason behind all the loss that lay as our living bedrock? Death in life Life in loss Death is life Life is loss Tell me how – I’m to understand the guilt when I survive those close to me? Tell me why – I should feel so meaningful when death sits ready to strike at anytime? Make me see the reason for keeping up this struggle Show me exactly why I’m to accept and bear the loss Force me find a light between these cracks and fissures Give me the power to unburden the weight of it all II. I can feel the presence of death at all times Lurking, peeking, beleaguering all life Action can only take us so far Before succumbing to cessation Within our home we die alone It stalks us each as predator Never sleeping, always hungry Unseen ending, waiting monster Pale intruder, negating precaution Springing forth from the depths of being The cogs of life spin without heed To what we have or wish to accomplish So much to lose despite all our gain To merely have death wipe us from ourselves III. Memory holds strong within me History binds life temporally

Take it in, warp the lens Refract the given light Make the change in current flow Distort the event’s tide Feel the pull inside to drown it all away Draw the current strong – the opposite array Passing reasons, lost decisions Build and collapse in time Forces shift in their action Breathing life into the void Understand through interaction Openness as to define We see change We make change We force change We are change We enter into changing forms Great histrionics within a zone The movements between a set vicinity To create the gift of the event

All that lay before us Life that rides ahead A stage befit for moulding Soapstone to create Whittle down the branches Carve away into your shale All that weight around us Engrossing gravity Goading us to lead it on To conjure destiny Tributaries flowing down Erosion cutting the stone Whittle down the branches Carve away into your shale Divination through the ashes Mendication to the will We create the stars – to follow our own sign We ignite the flame – to illumine We impress our way – to bear our own design We are told to make the choice, to forge our time, to foresee our own life A history behind us A future yet to pass Waves projecting outward A sea of history Can we escape the tidal pull? Or are we hapless in the sea? Do our sibylline creations perpetuate The violence of humanity? Vibrations from the before Contaminating now Originary violence A scarred ancestry Can we escape the tidal pull? Or are we hapless in the sea? Do our sibylline creations perpetuate The violence of our history? We’ve killed our way to our present state A trail of bloodshed left in our wake We wrestled out of that primal dawn Only to make bloodshed our genetic mark Combat the past – accept our will Deny our blood – admit our truth Can we help but imitate our original kin? To forge ourselves we seem to cause the other’s end Our violence carries on – we see it carved into the rock A heritage conjuring storm – we find it engraved into bone Our judgments weigh into the earth – we carved into the rock Our language liquidates the world – we find it engraved into bone The blood finds its way into the world The mind breaks its path into the self