 Aware of our Home Planet @ risk, we vow to sweeten our lives with contemplative action...
This root awareness is the beginning of both personal and social transformation: @ risk... at risk of a meaningless life, we consider alternatives (perhaps the real alternative facts): perhaps the Wisdom Traditions of our Earth Spirituality do have something of immense importance to say to all of us today... Consider: "The holy land is everywhere." (Black Elk)... "The price of the kingdom is the food you give to those who need it." (St. Leo the Great)... "We were created by Love, for Love, to become Love." (Simone Weil)... Wisdom re-orients us from the dominate paradigm of "acquisition" (or "power over") to the alternative of "mutuality" (or power in service of the other)... This is of fundamental importance! We cannot "acquire" grace, love, purpose, or justice: we can though, purchase privilege, sex, comfort, or power: "mutuality", on the other hand, requires the active condition of sharing, of unity, or oneness: "I am You, You are Me, and We are All Together: One"... One with each other (every other) in a unity made complete by our differences... The essential elements of earth, air, water, and fire denote the activation principle of Oneness: any without the others would be a world devoid of life: Native Americans were astounded by the invading white man's belief that these essential elements could be separated, bought, and owned by anyone, with the consequences of the abuses of ownership unfairly distributed to future generations... We are now living in the "@ risk point": the natural Oneness of creation has been subdivided so many times over that everything is not only "for sale", but the existential catastrophe of the extinction of thousands of life-species every year is completely ignored: by none more so than those who claim they are "pro-life"! Climate change is not really about the weather. If it was that simple, perhaps we could adjust. But instead, climate change is the @ risk point of this Planet's ability to sustain life! The Quantum Consciousness -- the Activating Principle of Evolution -- is begging us, each one of us, right now, to awaken to our moment in time... The "pro-life" movement can no longer pretend that the lives of the unborn matter, while at the same time supporting the abortion of all life on Planet Earth by means of Plunderful Capitalism, gross consumerism, and justified-violence-without-end. Similarly, to be "pro-choice" must now become a deliberate decision to completely reject the dominate paradigm that the end justifies the means: that the "right of acquisition" trumps the radical incarnation of equality, justice, and peace... "The radical incarnation of equality, justice, and peace"... these few words begin to articulate the vision of the contemplative activist: with absolutely everything at stake now, we simply can no longer afford a vapid spirituality: "big box religion" is a contradiction -- not just of the Gospel, but of all the Wisdom Traditions that have been born upon this Planet! If you have yet to recognize it, but the Christ Consciousness is Unleashed: we are supposed to tune in and turn up our wave: we are supposed to be vibrating with an existential ecstasy: and we are supposed to be engaging in life-sustaining radical transformations! We are supposed to become the contemplative-activists who have a two-handed spirituality: interior explorations into and conscious activation of oneness, and exterior engagement with community building and organizing for systemic changes toward nonviolence, earth-regeneration, equality, and social justice... It will take our best efforts, but we can nudge the @ risk designation into, finally, @ hope... And the next generation, our children, will be tasked with bringing everyone Home... And then, when we come to our last breath, we can mutter to all the world, "I was really here! I lived!"
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 Someone said that there is an inauguration today... Is that true?
Well, I'll be... I'll be, what? Isn't that "I'll be, what?" the all-important question? If you have on occasion read this blog or checked out "theburninghand.com", then you must surely realize that "I'll be" a spiritual outlaw: I haven't an interest in any "status-quo", whether religious, cultural, or political: my life, our lives, are far too important for "going with the flow": Is there a straight line anywhere that leads to somewhere worth going? I prefer to be uncomfortable. I prefer to climb a mountain as to sit in a parking lot. I prefer the margins as to the centers of anything. I prefer to do my loving outside the lines... Mount Rushmore is a stupendous blast-of-a-carving: but I really like the coming of Crazy Horse a few miles away... Monuments can be grand: but it's the flesh and bones -- the en-fleshed soul -- that matters: mountains eventually dissolve into sand. On the other hand, en-fleshed souls will live forever as liberated units of consciousness: within the One: isn't that the inauguration that we should be deliberate in seeking and honoring? As to the "inauguration" that many (some) Americans are celebrating today, I do not find anything in it to honor or to celebrate: Mr. Trump has given abundant evidence of being a very small-minded: what? "Scumbag" is probably too mild of a term to describe him: sort of like a Dick Cheney without either the smirk or the brain: neither of which should be something to bigly brag about... But, enough of my own small-mindedness... I, and we, need to breathe deeply the Perennial Truth: 1) There is an infinite, changeless Reality beneath the evident world of change; 2) This same Reality lives / is at the essential core of every human being (and within all of creation); 3) The purpose of every human life is to discover this One Reality experientially: that is, to realize in the heart the Divine Oneness while living here on this earth. These core principles and the ways of experimenting and discovering their Reality are our truest "monuments" worth "constructing". Presidents -- like mountains -- come and go (although none of us live long enough to witness this in mountains). But it is equally true that "without a vision the people will perish", as written in the Hebrew Scriptures. All around us we see the dying of the American Vision: the grand idea of "justice for all" has been supplanted by the lust for profits, privilege, and power serving the few. The "conservative" no longer wishes to "conserve" resources and opportunity for all, but to concentrate their access into as few hands as possible: and so the entire Planet is now @risk. But the Perennial Truth would right our "national ship of state" by making, once again, vital the relationship of democracy and justice: one cannot exist without the other! We need to shout loud and clear: "Democracy and Justice are One!" This is the only speech I'll be listening to today: and I'm the one saying it: "Democracy and Justice are One!" And you can count on me and theburninghand.com to be speechifying it loud and clear until its shining is seen by all!  "There's a morning when presence comes over your soul... At that moment, soul reaches total emptiness. Your heart becomes Mary, miraculously pregnant... Now the heart, which is the source of your loving, turns to universal light, and the body picks up the tempo and elegance of its motion... and... you fall... into space..." -- Rumi
"Love's glory is not a small thing." -- Rumi Quite a number of years ago, I was sitting in our Soup Kitchen at one of the tables that would soon be filled with the homeless, talking with a guest about something -- I no longer remember what. A volunteer from the Kitchen suddenly called out, "Look! There is a bird in the dining room trying to fly through the window!" I turned around to look, and sure enough there was a bird: not just any bird, but a teeny hummingbird. It would hover and poke at the window and bounce along until landing again... The volunteer grabbed a towel, began waving it around, and started to run down the isle shouting at the little bird. I asked her to stop and wait for a minute. I went to the broom closet and pulled out an old wooden ladder. Placing the ladder near the window and the interior alcove, I climbed towards the bouncing bird. Reaching eye level with the hummingbird, it landed. I pulled my cap off my head and covered the bird. I reached under my hat and gently held the bird. As I climbed down and walked outside into the garden, I could feel the beatings of the hummingbird's heart against my hand. I sat the bird down under a rose bush. It sat for a moment before flying off... "Moon and evening star do their slow tambourine dance to praise this universe. The purpose of every gathering is discovered: to recognize beauty and to love what's beautiful..." -- Rumi There is music in the whirl of atoms, in the spin of planets, and in the dance of the Universe... And in that music that endlessly sounds, there are pregnant pauses -- interludes of silence -- that invite a slip and slide into the fertile recesses of Remembered Divinity... It is towards the rEvolution of ecstasy that we are called: "rEvolution" because everything must change: "What is the possible meaning of profit to the man who kills the last tree?" This question should compel an increase in the will for an activated compassion... Everyone has within them the capacity for living in the wisdom of a wild and uncompromising love: but for too many of us, we tend to settle for the safety of a religion and a politics devoid of genuine life: form becomes habit, habits become excuses: and blame fills out our bill... And we all willingly pay: even if it means the wilting of our thinking minds and the shrinking of our souls... Rumi -- through his poetry -- would have us entertain other possibilities... Behind every word and behind every form there is the Mystery and the Beauty: giving up the language of mortality and the conviction of death, there is a cup: a Singing Bowl, if you will. Gently sound it: not by striking, but by swirling the striker around the outer edge: a hum arises: a vibrational liberation... An invitation is issued: descend descend descend into the music into the interludes into the Magic... we are returning to our Nature... Amazed, you might open your mouth: you will certainly release your fist: you will look into the Mirror and see your Face before "you" were manipulated into a masterful identity... Awe floods... you get to choose Love! You get to choose loving! In this surprising Oneness you may walk, as it were, as one who has been re-born: with a certain stumble in your gait: there is no longer anyone so low that you will not notice and care. "Why?" will be painted red on your forehead. The dirt under your nails will now mean something. That smell of your perfume will be the justice that is not for sale... Waking and walking into intimacy with Mystery, is your initiation: you have both meaning and purpose now: your life is the grandeur of passion released into your daily ordinary: you will make love to the minutes: your ecstasy is the new politics and economics... Your opened heart and opened hands are the new Spirit mirroring the Beloved who is now Everywhere and Everyone... Adoration will be your name... Awakening is the rEvolution... And this moment is glory: become Mary, and give birth to the Divine: unleash that which animated Yeshua!  "The center clears. Knowing comes: the body is not singular like a corpse, but singular like a salt grain still in the side of the mountain." -- Rumi the Ecstatic
"O, that my priest's robe were wide enough to gather up all the suffering people in this floating world." -- Ryokan the Hermit "Contemplation is essentially a listening in silence, an expectancy." -- Thomas Merton, Monk If it is true that there is a "hidden music" in the whirl of atoms, planets, and galaxies, then it is equally true that -- right there in the midst of the music -- there are interludes of silence... If all the Universe sings: all the Universe is also "intently silent", and from that silence there is an endless stream of tears: suffering -- and as Creator -- the Quantum Consciousness did not want to be the cause of all this, endless, suffering: but now God lives with a suffering, broken, Heart... At this point, some will jump and shout, "God is perfect! God cannot suffer! God is unending Bliss!" Ah, but what a cold love that would be! No. The Holy Mystery -- whom we casually call "God" -- lives and dies every moment in the midst of our pain: our cruelties, our violence, our justifications, our hatreds, our fears, our racism, our sexism, our cultivation of exploitation, oppression, and injustice: everything that we do to one another and this precious blue Planet is the suffering and execution of That Being Whom we call "God"... On our collective epitaph will be chisled these stunning words: "These people killed God." So what do we need right now? We need to cultivate "interludes of silence"... We need to put on the brakes -- and take a break... Sit down. Have a cup of tea. Breathe a moment of emptiness. Consider your / our condition: "I love God as much as -- and no more than -- the person or the people whom I love the least." Only in silence can we bear to hear these terrible words: they are the death of God: as simple as a knife in the back or a bullet in the heart: done. Finished. Everything is all over... Putting our cup of tea down, I / we might collapse in tears: it is true: I have killed God. I have killed each and every single one of my dreams. I have killed my beloved and our children. I have demolished our home. I have annihilated my town and country. I have caused the extinction of all life and hope. And finally, finally, I am empty: I willingly choose to cease to exist: me and God will be Nothing, No One, and Never, Ever, Remembered... this is our condition... Ah, but an interlude of silence -- to my surprise -- turns out to be pregnant! It turns out that all that God does -- in every moment of Time -- is stretch out on a maternity bed and give birth (Meister Eckhart)... Like a kernal of corn -- without end -- the Divine Quantum Consciousness accepts Her suffering and death and planting in the ground of our being: that She might be reborn and multiplied and discovered and loved without end: as the "Queen of Corn", oh how Mama loves... In the interlude of silence, "love is never idle, but is continually in motion, it is continually throwing out sparks, like a flame, in every direction; and, as the office of love is to wound, that it may enkindle with love and cause delight, so, when it is as it were a living flame, within the soul, it is ever sending forth its arrow wounds, like most tender sparks of delicate love, joyfully and happily exercising the arts and wiles of love." -- St. John of the Cross It is here, in this interlude, that we find a Divine Pregnancy all around us! Every moment is the Resurrection! Every moment is the Possibility of Planetary Regeneration! Every moment is our Rebirth into Holy Nonviolence! Every moment is the stunning Realization: "I am You, You are Me, and We are All Together: One!" Jump up and look around you: God is Alive, Magic is Afoot! (Leonard Cohen). This is "Rumi Time Two": write a poem, sing a song, whirl in delight, sign a petition, organize a protest, incite a riot in your imagination, plan your summer garden, invite friends to a soup night and figure out how to tribe, create alternatives to the dominant culture and economics, make love and remember to kiss more: time and every moment of our lives are so precious... You are the one who is making God fertile!  There is a music in the whirling of every atom, in the twinklings of our consciousness, in the spin of our Home Planet, and in the expansive whirl of every galaxy... Everything is Alive with Song... Everything is Poetry in Delight in Motion... Everything is an Invitation into the Bliss of Oneness...
We are easily tempted to think that touch and orgasm are the reasons for our hunger for sex... But once we begin our descent into Mystery, touch and orgasm are hints of the Adoration in Disappearance... Every expression of sensuality is evidence of the cosmic desire for Oneness in the midst of Multiplicity: "When two are made one, I am there" (Yeshua)... In the sacred moment of orgasm, our "little I" -- even for just a moment -- disappears into the Bliss of One... Spirituality is "Rumi Time"... is the magical interlude that gives breath to life, to all life, to every life... Rumi Time is religion made real in identification with our Home Planet: as the Earth is, so we are... Rumi Time is the harmony of ecstasy and responsibility: as is our attunement with soul, so is our daily life... We each face the great temptation to believe the evidence: power is real. Privilege is worth pursuing. Profits are the be-all of economics. But like Yeshua in the desert, we need to demolish the evidence of this Unholy Trinity, and also like Yeshua, choose the radiant life of Love-without-limits... Illuminated by the sacred sex of our disappearance and the spirituality of adoration will come the music we long to hear: the music of the photosynthesis of every leaf, the music of starlight falling directly into our eyes, and the music of the womb we each came from: the Womb of G-d... ah!  I am a collector of quotations. I collect rocks, too, but quotations enthrall me... like the photo above... I think that it was taken near Point Lobos, California: aren't you attracted to beauty? What takes your breath away -- and then gives it back in a giving that "drunkens" your mind?
Here's a quotation from Graham Schweig's translation of the Bhagavad Gita: "You are so much loved by me!" Schweig identifies these seven words as the "supreme message" of Divinity to every human... A message that securely identifies our place in the cosmic scheme of things: a place that is not contingent upon "right belief" or some sort of test: it is our Real Reality. Here's another of my favorites: "Love one another as I have loved you" and with it "Whatsoever you do to the least person among you, you do the same to me"... So here, in a teenie nutshell we have the rEvolution clearly spelled out for us with no ambiguity whatsoever: love is the rEvolution. As we are loved by the Quantum Consciousness, so we are expected by that One Reality to put our every bit of love into daily action. Are we needing to ask, "What does love mean?" How about this for a starter: it's known as the Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Who might we consider as exemplars of love? Who entices you deeper and deeper into the revelations that lurk in your heart? I have a whole bunch of folks who steadily -- sometimes "drunkenly" -- walk with me through the days -- daze -- of my life: Thomas Merton, Joan Baez, Nelson Mandela, Ellen Grace O'Brian, Ram Dass, and Amma... I love to read about Georgia O'Keeffe and Frida Kahlo, Hafiz and Rumi... Of course, Yeshua the Poet and the Ragged-Man of Assisi (St. Francis), and Dorothy Day have challenged and in-formed... Now, as to the business of loving: words of love are utterly meaningless without the follow-through of daily action. In other words, you (we) deceive ourselves if we think that we can separate the requirements of loving from the proof of actionable practices and policies. Social justice, equality for all, safe housing, health care, living wages, quality and take-it-to-your-limit education, social harmony and nonviolence, planetary regeneration, and "religious" kindness. Please note that these "actionable practices and policies" are each and all "rEvolutionary" because they jerk religion, economics, and politics clean out of our mind and puts them where they belong: in our hearts... Practice: observation: what are the practices and policies put forward by your pastors, by your city councils, by your political representatives, and by those whom you consider your "leaders"? Here's a new insight: your love-in-action is the real -- and only -- leading that happens in the world: everything else is the gaming of a casino life...  Dear Mr. Trump,
In a few short weeks you will become President of the United States, a fact which utterly galls me. It isn't just that you fomented the "birther" charge against President Obama and seem to lie all the time, but simply, that I am better than you. In fact, I think that most of us are, with but a few exceptions... For months you have said -- and wore a hat made in China to prove it -- that you were going to "make America great again". That's fine for a campaign slogan: because "greatness" is not a political hat trick. It isn't just a matter of economics. It isn't a matter of defeating an enemy. Nor is it a matter of vapid verbal jousting. Greatness is in how a single person, a group of people, or a nation acts: especially when confronting problems and challenges. Do we chuck civility, justice, and kindness out of our window for the sake of a "victory" -- however shallow or temporary? Do you have the possibility of greatness within you? I might as well ask, do I? From all that I have read and seen, I think that you are much closer to scumbag than to being a great human being: you have become quite successful in making-losing-making-losing-and making, again, money: but really, so what? You have filled your Cabinet with billionaires, military figures, and a few tokens to women and African-Americans: so what? I am afraid of the policies that you and a Republican controlled Congress will enact: I am afraid of legitimizing descrimination and gender inequality. I am afraid of racial and religious oppression. I am afraid of your militarized supporters taking to the streets when I protest your policies of exclusion, increasing profits for the billionaire class, destruction and exploitation of the environment, and war making. I do not trust you, nor do I trust the terrorism of the KKK and other militias. Do you have the possibility of greatness within you? I know that I do. Perhaps, though, you will discover a thread of compassion for others within you and weave it into policies that will build upon the efforts of President Obama (yes, you are standing in his shadow!) Yeah, I think that he should have prosecuted everyone who profited off the policies and practices that led to the Great Recession (which probably includes you)... and yeah, I think that he should have made economic justice for everyone in this country a priority -- not just the prevention of economic collapse. But you could choose to build upon his efforts: not by lowering the taxes of the 1% but by convincing them to become public servants, divesting themselves of, say, 90% of their wealth, and creating a progressive tax system that re-distributes the unnecessary and destructive greed of the 1% into a full employment economy in which a living wage and social justice is the norm. Do you have the possibility of greatness within you? I know that a future of peace requires an elimination of war profiteering. Why should a business profit off making bullets or bombs? Why should a business profit off polluting this planet? Why should a business profit off the sexual exploitation of women or children? Why should blacks still be victims of white racism and policies and practices that keep so many confined to lives of poverty and exclusion? Why should any woman, anywhere, fear for her safety: and why should anyone profit from a woman's economic oppression? Why should the "average American" not anticipate a life of expanding educational opportunities, just wages, affordable health care, and a life of meaning, value, and purpose? Greatness is precisely in the gap between the "is now" and the "what could be". Greatness is truth. Greatness is fairness, Greatness is equality. Greatness is conservation -- looking at least seven generations forward. Greatness is reconciliation of opposites. Greatness is the will to live every moment as if everyone else matters just as much as you: and then in acting in such a way that proves it! Soon enough, you will be sworn in and I will be out in the streets protesting, but I am open to being surprised by you! Maybe your Cabinet of billionaires is a strategy. Maybe "justice for all" will become evident. Maybe the bombs will cease to fall: except out of production. Maybe we'll learn to relax about our differences and learn to love our Jewish-Muslim-Immigrant-Gay-Transgender-neighbor-who-is-a-Farmer. I'll dream a truck-load of maybe's until you prove you are the scumbag I fear you are: then I'll be protesting: we'll just see who and what is great. Until Then, An American |
AuthorRobert Daniel Smith was privileged to serve the homeless and marginalized for 30 years in California. He is living now almost within shouting distance of the Twin Cities. He is a poet, artist, writer, and long-time Companion of the Way still dreaming... Archives
May 2022
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