Georgia!
Georgia O'Keeffe and the Theophany of Beauty
What do you think of Georgia O'Keeffe? A friend of mine said that he wondered why she always painted pussies in flowers. I didn't bother to tell him that I was in love with Georgia, with her flowers, and with the vision that I got from her: everything is alive with wonder and an exquisite sensual divine beauty! Georgia's paintings are each and all pregnant with a paradise of the Infinite: it is as if they offer a contemplative shout out to the "theophany of the Divine"...
Georgia O'Keeffe is one artist from among many artists, poets, musicians, activists, and mystics who has placed before us windows that look out upon the Beauty that is particularized in each of the little things of the Universe... Sort of like Yeshua the Poet who said, "Love one another as I have loved you." If we can't love-adore-save-and serve the flowers among us, how are we going to save this precious blue Planet from all violence-exploitation-and greed? If we can't love our lovers then who can we love? The deeper that we are willing to look into loving, the more we come to understand that love means everyone, every creature and everything: all with a Big No Difference!
A Big No Difference
A big no difference is really all the difference in the world! This radical practice of Oneness is the work of "identification" with every "other" to the point of "no difference". Every "other" is another manifestation or revelation of the Divine: how can we dare say that we love the One, if we limit or deny our capacity to love without limits? Swinging back, again, to Yeshua the Poet, isn't it time to free him from the prison we have built of our religion? The entire world is starving for an opportunity to fall down upon its knees in cosmic adoration: and here we are with the Poet shackled to the bars we have built...
To unshackle Yeshua is perhaps the most important task of the Christian churches. Unshackle, unlock, and open the door to his cell! We could invite him to come out with us into the sunlight. We could invite him to once again speak to us: we might even get FOX News to come and broadcast the event (wouldn't that be something!). We could wring out our brains and theologies and sit down with nothing at all between us and him. We could -- we really could -- hear him tell us about how to live in this world and how to save it: we could hear him say, as for the first time, "Whatever you do to the least among you, you do to me."
We could hear him say, "I give you a new commandment: love one another."
Well, wait a minute: maybe, just maybe, everything could and would be different this time! Maybe Georgia's paintings are, in fact, all about the adoration of all that is in this world and in our life? A pussy, like a flower -- like the Holy One -- is meant for adoration. "Love one another" is a multi-level course in rEvolutionary being: art, religion, relationship, politics, economics, culture, sexuality, prayer, agriculture and on and on... Glory is accessed through the everyday! Glory is precisely in the dynamic of action in every relationship! Glory is the giving and receiving of endless pleasure, justice, and peace! Glory is existential or it is a worthless religious fantasy designed by generations of men lusting for privilege and power...
Georgia's paintings are an invitation to enter into the divinity of every particularized beauty! Imagine! What if we were to treat everyone, every being, and everything as if it were the actual Divine Presence? (This is the radical power of awakening to the Quantum Consciousness as the root of and manifestation of all matter.) What if we were to no longer recognize power and violence as qualities? What if we were to no longer practice any religion save that of the holy competition of kindness? What if we were to no longer require women to be inferior to men? What if we were to no longer justify exploitation, inequality, or oppression? What if we were to no longer submit to the idea that matter is inferior to spirit? And what if we were to no longer believe that any of us was not worth the very best?
In other words, for the sensual mystic and sacred activist, our practice is precisely this Big No Difference. Our task is to fully awaken to the stunning beauty and goodness of the Universe, of this Planet, and of the lives that form our communities. Beauty is the heart of every person. Beauty is the goal to which evolution is tending. Beauty is the means by which the Divine One is discovering Herself: through our eyes, through our ears, through our mouths, through our thoughts, through our actions: in loving... Everything is sensuous: everything vibrates with a hidden ecstasy! In this Big No Difference we are authorized to completely and totally "fall in love": this one, this one, and this one in a divine communion!
Dreaming
I started dreaming of peace when in High School. I started cooking soup for the homeless as a young man. I learned how to love by serving broken human beings who became my sisters and brothers. But I've also cooked some real lousy soup. And I've failed to love as I should: time and again. And yet I keep trying... because I keep dreaming... I believe that Sacred Imagination is the way forward into our divine possibilities. We are each and all pregnant with divine possibilities: the only question is as to whether or not we will give birth... Everything is soul and soul is that which is "of God" living within us (all of us)...
Dreaming is precisely why "black lives matter", why every Muslim matters, why inequality matters, why water matters: that which we do to anyone and everything we do to Yeshua the Poet! We are living like hardened fists: our policies and institutions are extensions of our fists. we pummel the world with our collective actions and in-actions. Men pummel women through oppression, sexism, violence, and exploitation. As with women, so the Planet: from Flint to Syria: we pummel people and the earth. What does this do to our soul? We need to dream a new dream: or remember the dream articulated by a young black preacher from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial... We need to unlock our fists and open them like the hands they are meant to be! We need to dream our way into extending our opened hands to the world's children who are hungry... we need to stop the violence... we need to let our opened hands open our hardened hearts...
A number of paragraphs ago I referred to a friend who had a wondering about the paintings of Georgia O'Keeffe... what I didn't tell my friend Eric, was the essential truth of Georgia's art: they are another revelation that simply proclaims, over and over again, "God is Love"... here and here and here... Georgia's art is all about the vibrations of relationship: eye meets flower as a bee or butterfly meets flower... we are inter-related: we can't exist without one another: we can't exist without sex: we can't exist without desire: we can't exist without humble adoration: kiss here and here and here: never stop kissing: live as a kiss upon the hearts of all those in your life! Kiss everyone by your kindness, mercy, and compassion. Kiss everyone by creating justice for all: create peace by disarming and doing away with all the weapons that scream for revenge, retribution, and power over others. Kiss by honoring women and girls as equals to men and boys...
Simone Weil wrote, "We were created by Love, for Love, to become Love." This is all the religion that we need. This is mystic sensuality and sacred activism. This is the Big No Difference and the dreaming that will spark the creative rEvolution that will name the 21st century: isn't it exciting to be able to choose to live in such a way that we will give some sacred evidence that "God is Love"? Isn't it wonderful that we are fully authorized to become the world's greatest lovers? "God is Alive, Magic is afoot" (Leonard Cohen) right here in every part and particle of creation! As soon as our "little I's" disappear into the bliss of One, we understand our opportunity to give birth... Let this Holy Wholly Desire in-fill every aspect of your being until it animates your life: let this Holy Wholly Desire flow within and through you: surely, you are the One we have all been waiting for... and you... and you... and you...
What do you think of Georgia O'Keeffe? A friend of mine said that he wondered why she always painted pussies in flowers. I didn't bother to tell him that I was in love with Georgia, with her flowers, and with the vision that I got from her: everything is alive with wonder and an exquisite sensual divine beauty! Georgia's paintings are each and all pregnant with a paradise of the Infinite: it is as if they offer a contemplative shout out to the "theophany of the Divine"...
Georgia O'Keeffe is one artist from among many artists, poets, musicians, activists, and mystics who has placed before us windows that look out upon the Beauty that is particularized in each of the little things of the Universe... Sort of like Yeshua the Poet who said, "Love one another as I have loved you." If we can't love-adore-save-and serve the flowers among us, how are we going to save this precious blue Planet from all violence-exploitation-and greed? If we can't love our lovers then who can we love? The deeper that we are willing to look into loving, the more we come to understand that love means everyone, every creature and everything: all with a Big No Difference!
A Big No Difference
A big no difference is really all the difference in the world! This radical practice of Oneness is the work of "identification" with every "other" to the point of "no difference". Every "other" is another manifestation or revelation of the Divine: how can we dare say that we love the One, if we limit or deny our capacity to love without limits? Swinging back, again, to Yeshua the Poet, isn't it time to free him from the prison we have built of our religion? The entire world is starving for an opportunity to fall down upon its knees in cosmic adoration: and here we are with the Poet shackled to the bars we have built...
To unshackle Yeshua is perhaps the most important task of the Christian churches. Unshackle, unlock, and open the door to his cell! We could invite him to come out with us into the sunlight. We could invite him to once again speak to us: we might even get FOX News to come and broadcast the event (wouldn't that be something!). We could wring out our brains and theologies and sit down with nothing at all between us and him. We could -- we really could -- hear him tell us about how to live in this world and how to save it: we could hear him say, as for the first time, "Whatever you do to the least among you, you do to me."
We could hear him say, "I give you a new commandment: love one another."
Well, wait a minute: maybe, just maybe, everything could and would be different this time! Maybe Georgia's paintings are, in fact, all about the adoration of all that is in this world and in our life? A pussy, like a flower -- like the Holy One -- is meant for adoration. "Love one another" is a multi-level course in rEvolutionary being: art, religion, relationship, politics, economics, culture, sexuality, prayer, agriculture and on and on... Glory is accessed through the everyday! Glory is precisely in the dynamic of action in every relationship! Glory is the giving and receiving of endless pleasure, justice, and peace! Glory is existential or it is a worthless religious fantasy designed by generations of men lusting for privilege and power...
Georgia's paintings are an invitation to enter into the divinity of every particularized beauty! Imagine! What if we were to treat everyone, every being, and everything as if it were the actual Divine Presence? (This is the radical power of awakening to the Quantum Consciousness as the root of and manifestation of all matter.) What if we were to no longer recognize power and violence as qualities? What if we were to no longer practice any religion save that of the holy competition of kindness? What if we were to no longer require women to be inferior to men? What if we were to no longer justify exploitation, inequality, or oppression? What if we were to no longer submit to the idea that matter is inferior to spirit? And what if we were to no longer believe that any of us was not worth the very best?
In other words, for the sensual mystic and sacred activist, our practice is precisely this Big No Difference. Our task is to fully awaken to the stunning beauty and goodness of the Universe, of this Planet, and of the lives that form our communities. Beauty is the heart of every person. Beauty is the goal to which evolution is tending. Beauty is the means by which the Divine One is discovering Herself: through our eyes, through our ears, through our mouths, through our thoughts, through our actions: in loving... Everything is sensuous: everything vibrates with a hidden ecstasy! In this Big No Difference we are authorized to completely and totally "fall in love": this one, this one, and this one in a divine communion!
Dreaming
I started dreaming of peace when in High School. I started cooking soup for the homeless as a young man. I learned how to love by serving broken human beings who became my sisters and brothers. But I've also cooked some real lousy soup. And I've failed to love as I should: time and again. And yet I keep trying... because I keep dreaming... I believe that Sacred Imagination is the way forward into our divine possibilities. We are each and all pregnant with divine possibilities: the only question is as to whether or not we will give birth... Everything is soul and soul is that which is "of God" living within us (all of us)...
Dreaming is precisely why "black lives matter", why every Muslim matters, why inequality matters, why water matters: that which we do to anyone and everything we do to Yeshua the Poet! We are living like hardened fists: our policies and institutions are extensions of our fists. we pummel the world with our collective actions and in-actions. Men pummel women through oppression, sexism, violence, and exploitation. As with women, so the Planet: from Flint to Syria: we pummel people and the earth. What does this do to our soul? We need to dream a new dream: or remember the dream articulated by a young black preacher from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial... We need to unlock our fists and open them like the hands they are meant to be! We need to dream our way into extending our opened hands to the world's children who are hungry... we need to stop the violence... we need to let our opened hands open our hardened hearts...
A number of paragraphs ago I referred to a friend who had a wondering about the paintings of Georgia O'Keeffe... what I didn't tell my friend Eric, was the essential truth of Georgia's art: they are another revelation that simply proclaims, over and over again, "God is Love"... here and here and here... Georgia's art is all about the vibrations of relationship: eye meets flower as a bee or butterfly meets flower... we are inter-related: we can't exist without one another: we can't exist without sex: we can't exist without desire: we can't exist without humble adoration: kiss here and here and here: never stop kissing: live as a kiss upon the hearts of all those in your life! Kiss everyone by your kindness, mercy, and compassion. Kiss everyone by creating justice for all: create peace by disarming and doing away with all the weapons that scream for revenge, retribution, and power over others. Kiss by honoring women and girls as equals to men and boys...
Simone Weil wrote, "We were created by Love, for Love, to become Love." This is all the religion that we need. This is mystic sensuality and sacred activism. This is the Big No Difference and the dreaming that will spark the creative rEvolution that will name the 21st century: isn't it exciting to be able to choose to live in such a way that we will give some sacred evidence that "God is Love"? Isn't it wonderful that we are fully authorized to become the world's greatest lovers? "God is Alive, Magic is afoot" (Leonard Cohen) right here in every part and particle of creation! As soon as our "little I's" disappear into the bliss of One, we understand our opportunity to give birth... Let this Holy Wholly Desire in-fill every aspect of your being until it animates your life: let this Holy Wholly Desire flow within and through you: surely, you are the One we have all been waiting for... and you... and you... and you...