Your Dance with Gravity...
Everything is part of an interconnected whole. -- Starhawk
Wisdom begins with wonder. -- Socrates
To be awake is to be amazed all the time. -- The Buddha
Imagination is more important than knowledge. -- Einstein
The world is pregnant with God. -- Blessed Angela
Let the beauty we love be what we do. -- Rumi
All creation is gifted with the ecstasy of God's light. -- St. Hildegard of Bingen
It is always a feast where love is. -- Dorothy Day
Lying, sitting, standing, walking...
Feeling, thinking, reflecting, acting...
Connecting, caring, serving, adoring...
Singing, praying, sexing, freeing...
Imagining, creating, building, loving...
Twenty words for the naming of wonder and the development of both person and culture: of course, other words could be used, but for the purpose of summarizing the great dignity of being human, these will perhaps suffice. Wonder is the condition of the natural soul -- before the inevitable failures of parenting, community, and culture lead to fear, questions of worthiness, and false self-identifications. The dawning of wisdom, in the midst of every suffering, is the return to awareness of our essential nature as always good and beautiful -- with no question of "enough" or "worthiness": genuine community serves to liberate into the essential...
Most of what passes for identity, family, religion, economics, politics, and culture are experiments with gravity: how high can I climb? Do I help someone who falls? Is this apple within my reach? Will anyone notice if I jump from this branch? Does anyone care that I cannot climb? To what degree are we each responsible for all? Experiencing the pull of gravity, we either lean towards mercy and compassion or towards rugged individualism and domination... this is the way of social organization playing out upon every stage... To what part do we gravitate? Consciousness is the dynamic awareness of choice: "I am alive!" And "I want to change!" These are the Great Mystic Antiphons to both life and prayer: without them we can just barely breathe...
Gravity would have us to lie on the floor. Consciousness accepts the resolute firmness of "floor": but it will inevitably agitate for "rising": sitting and standing are necessary for development and liberation of both body and soul... Standing, bare feet upon the Earth, is the starting point of sensuality and spirituality: potential is now our name...Balanced in the natural flow of being, we can relax into the simple "now": from which all creation and action emanate... Walking: we are an organism organized for an exploration of possibilities: our limbs relax and sway, marginally resisting gravity, better: massaging gravity into the creative tension of force and action: torso stretches, interconnecting with interior elements and nature: structure compliments character and new responses to being simply happen in the midst of movement... Cultural, political, and economic posturing are impossible in the collective movement of bare feet walking upon the Earth: gravity always assumes that we are all One and so pulls us towards our Unity... bare feet walking upon the Earth: test your companion, your lover, your banker, your legislator, your spiritual leader: "How often do your bare feet walk upon the Earth?"
Bare feet walking upon the Earth: how can the other sixteen words for naming the wonder and dignity of being human even come into play if one does not even "have down" lying, sitting, standing, and walking? Does one relate to gravity as a high climber because of shoes -- and a lack of touch? The keenest awareness comes in those moments in which we are most relaxed in both our skin and our soul: we cannot hide from this essential revelation: we are this and no more! One cannot pretend otherwise with gravity: or rather, what goes up must eventually come down: but the question is did we pick up any wisdom along the way? Bare feet upon the Earth is an invitation to being touched -- and the solving of every problem: the pretense of separation (even from gravity), the separation of mind from body, soul from spirit, and all of us from Quantum Consciousness, is the consequence of lack of touch... no billionaire would even think of hiding away monies in tax-havens if he placed his bare feet upon the Earth everyday and accepted the invitations to connect in touch: isn't that the essence of caring, of mercy, of compassion, of justice, of equality, and of peace? How many oppressors, exploiters, and "dominators" are bare foot? (You know, they say that Caesar conquered the world because he put shoes upon his soldiers...)
Passing from walking into thinking, acting, caring, serving, singing, sexing, creating, building, and loving is the willingness to work with gravity as a relational force beckoning all to a remembrance of our Oneness. As organisms, we experience our elemental nature through touch and mutual-aid: self is experienced as a part of a family: a continuity of life connected to all forms of life in a symbiotic web of inter-being... Touch and mutual-aid foster community life and the drive for social justice and equality. As our experiences become deeper and more meaningful, our daily perceptions open out upon the mystic: attuned to both nature and community, every person has the capacity for wonder and mystery: being and doing are a seamless garment for those who remember their Oneness: gravity says not, "I climb" but "Together we rise"... Eyes, ears, nose, mouth, hands, legs, feet, genitals, mind, and soul: integrated in wonder, pleasure, and service: gravity and Quantum Consciousness both are agents of our liberation in remembrance: "We were created by Love, for Love, to become Love" (Simone Weil)...
The integration of our "parts" into a seamless "self" experiencing life as One (or the lack thereof) defines our relationship with every perceived "other": family, community, pleasure, work, and the Divine are each a manifestation of the depth of our integration. In opposition to integration is insulation: from shoes to gated communities, from barrios to tax havens: we either recognize our Oneness and foster, nurture, and develop it, or we resist gravity and attempt to climb (up and over the backs of others) to some fantasized "high rise" away from the "huddled masses"... Only the full release of foot from shoe, and bare foot placed in adoration upon the Earth, will initiate the mystic change and political rEvolution required by the times in which we live...
In meditation, sitting, relaxed in body and mind, centered in our breath: fully natural: we may attune to the deep rhythms of the Universe still humming in expansion, like divine chords still being strummed... with no need to identify or categorize... simply breathing in the natural adoration of "enough"... we begin to "see without looking", "hear without listening", and "know without knowing"... our natural openness -- becoming once again like a child -- is the simple acceptance of the wonder and wisdom of being and of awakening into the ripe wonder: we are all Love... This natural, or radiant, meditation is the tracing of a circle in our mind, body, and soul: the Circle of Integrated Oneness: the mystic Tao intuited by the sages, the Orgasm of lovers, the Garden walked and worked by eco-naturists, the Unity perceived by the yogis, and the Bliss experienced by the lovers of the One...
In service, working for the full development and liberation of every person, centered in the formation of a sacred circle of mystic-activists: we may practice the deepest implications of Oneness... There is no room for apathy, timidity, cowardice, fear, laziness, filthiness, or the acceptance of "ugly as natural" in the life of the sacred circle... how one strums the guitar is how one cleans the toilet. How one makes a sandwich for a hungry person is how one caresses a lover. How one speaks to a celebrity is how one washes the dishes when no one is looking. How one acts with the cameras filming is how one relates to one's companions... How one walks upon the Earth is exactly one's religion and one's politics: how one treats every woman in one's life is the sum total of one's self-realization. This "no difference" between ideal and action is the liberation of gravity from primary influence! Disturbances in the natural flow do not necessarily require active resistance, but sometimes the mystery-application of surrender: a karate move of the soul that can liberate both the oppressed and the oppressor...
The Universe thinks, touches, and acts through us... Think about it: we are the hands, feet, hearts, and minds of the Divine Oneness (Quantum Consciousness)! This "no other" is the heart and soul of mystic empty / fullness: as this "no other" is the mind and body of committed action for the liberation of everyone in kindness, justice, and beauty. It is imperative that we learn to see with our feet! It is imperative that we learn to feel with every acre of our skin! How else will our capacity for compassion be released from the confines of our hearts? Because our energy is seemingly bound up within our bodies, must we necessarily accept as a given that we are separate from the Unlimited Energy of the "What if before the Big Bang?" We are One with our Source! The Energy that created -- and that is still creating -- the stars is within us, not separate from us! Star-dust is our nature -- we explode with creativity as we learn and dare to love without limits: in imitation of the One! Lucid dreams become a many-fold vision of possibilities: and through vision, we can imagine paradise and practice beauty... Through loving, we give birth to the Divine in our time and in our place: this is our greatest dignity: we are the Mothers of God!
So, are you wondering still what it is that you are to do with your one wonderful, incredibly precious, gift of life?
Scattered Poems from Soup Kitchen to Kings Canyon
In hurried flight down a darkened path
My soul is seeking a wooded house and garden green,
Where her Lover waits with love's expectations
And only the Breath of God stirs the fragrant leaves...
Sharpening the axe --
A ragged book of Basho
Stuck in my pocket
Old dreams curl and stretch
By the wood stove...
So cold before dawn
Breakfast of black tea and bread
-- The flavor of psalms...
Walking meditation
Caught the deer by surprise
-- Wind stirs the leaves...
Just sit, nothing do
Breathing mountains and rivers
-- The play of God...
Intently silent
I hear the pain of this world
-- The mountain dogwood...
waking to a crow
in the big leaf maple
river sounds
sitting dangling beads
in the flowing river...
moon climbing
the black sky --
what is one breath?
"Hi Babe" says Annie
Tugging at blanket and tarp
-- Winter rain...
Walking all morning
I awaken
No trail
No trees
Only a silent pool
Reflecting the sun...
nightfall at monk's pond
when prayer cups the cosmos
-- paradise opens...
In the chill of the night
Sitting
As the last ember fades into the black
The moon edges over the distant peak
I can only kneel in gratitude
Enveloped and lifted
I can only stammer useless words
In one breath
The utter richness of mercy...