 Robert Bly, Poet
The poet makes a meadow from each leaf. Each curve of language turns into a lamb's ear Because a genius is a child in the house of suffering. -- Robert Bly (The Night Abraham Called To The Stars) It's unlikely Robert Bly ever really had a choice: except for that yes or no... does any poet ever really wrestle with to be a poet or not? Oh to be sure, most of us do wrestle with how to make enough money to live: but we learn how to make do: washing dishes, tending bar, driving truck, and some are lucky enough to be teaching kids... but all of us poets were born with a specific itch... An interior itch is worse than a hemorrhoid itch... and the only possible scratch is with words... a line or two, like these four! from William Blake: I give you the end of a golden string / Only wind it into a ball / It will lead you in at Heaven's gate / Built in Jerusalem's wall. Something to say... something, the poet is sure, that needs to be said... Even a seemingly mundane moment, like this one that begins a poem by Robert Bly, can ease its way into space for undying mystery: A man and a woman sit near each other... [from A Third Body]... The poet's choice is always to search for and to chase down: the word the line the essential stuff of the universe and everything that matters... Language is a means of communicating: it is always all about a you and an I... all of the arts are the same, only the medium changes: music, painting, sculpting, dance, photography, film, song: all of art is always an I and a you... The I is never a solitary one... I is also always us... The poet is searching for that one line that can save the Universe... Picking up on the Greek Logos, the early Christian mystics identified Jesus of the Beloved as the Logos, or Word... specifically as the Word of the Divine: the Voice was that of the Divine Consciousness, and the spoken Word was the means by which, and through which, everything that matters came into being... I think it more magical to think of the Poem, and not "just" Word... Here's Coleman Barks translating the first line of a Rumi poem: I, you, he, she, we... even though those five words are the most sacred, they are still not enough... so Rumi adds: In the garden of mystic lovers / these are not true distinctions... See! There's the line that could, in fact, save the Universe... "Distinctions" are the stuff of privilege, profit, and power (the Unholy Trinity)... Without distinctions, there is only us... "Us" is where things are clarified... Quite a few people scoff at the idea of Word become flesh... or of Bread become body... but when distinctions disappear, out go the defintions of difference: then what if and why not become the questions of building a bridge... Reaching for a stack of my poems and thumbing through them, I stop with a poem entitled Dripping... the first line is not going to save the Universe, but it does set the scene for the second: The sun shines and rains upon my skin / Like a tongue dripping pleasure... without end... And it goes on to be about a gathering of poets... A fundamental human need is for song and conversation: for the kind of conversations that unlock doors, that fling open the shutters of the abandoned rooms of the heart, and that convince us that we were born for ecstasy! Reading the news, it's impossible not to see how measely so many lives have become! How incredibly small and tiresome are the speeches of political leaders, the pronouncements of religious leaders, and the hunger for celebrity that infects entire cultures... I once sat about fifteen feet away from Coleman Barks as he read from his translations of Rumi. His eyes read those poems for me, and he knew it, as he bore down into my eyes... That's it! The poet, not unlike the Original Voice, gives birth to the Word... and at least for a moment, I, you, he, she, we do not matter: those distinctions of difference are not real... Jesus was a Poet. Christmas is a celebration of the Poet's Choice... to listen to the Voice of one's heart... to collect a word here and a word there... to string those few words together... and no matter what words make their way onto paper, they always, in the final analysis boil down to Here take this Bread, it is my Body, given to you... Only a Poet could have imagined such a wonderful line... I write poetry because I have to... -- James A. Autry Now tonight / I am a burning bush / my bones a grill of fire... -- Jimmy Santiago Baca Poetry is my passion. It is my art. It is my love. -- Marilyn Chin Poetry began when somebody walked off a savanna or out of a cave and looked up at the sky with wonder and said, "Ah-h-h!" That was the first poem. -- Lucille Clifton She bears / the rainbowed layers of charity and murmurs / all of you / even the least of you... -- Rita Dove One day in the eighth grade the teacher came in and said, "All right, everyone's got to write a poem." We were dumbfounded -- a poem? -- Joy Harjo We have the same problems that everybody else has. -- Jane Kenyon My first hunger of every day is to let words come through me... -- Naomi Shiab Nye There is a seething, burgeoning poetry out there... -- Adrienne Rich How Poetry Comes To Me... It comes blundering over the / Boulders at night... -- Gary Snyder I could not live if I didn't write poetry... -- Daisy Zamora
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 Celtic Cross
An insight common to all mystics, regardless of particular faith, is that of remembrance of the Beloved... Whether at rest, work, or even play, the Beloved is always present, like a shadow to a body when standing in the noon-day sun... The height, depth, and breadth of mystic-life, of your interior life, is that of remembrance. Remembrance, while both a subject and an attitude, it is always an essential experiential reality to be cultivated: such is the work of the mystic... Remembrance can, perhaps, best be described as the spiritual or interior application of falling in love... Michelle and I have been living an extended honeymoon of now eighteen years: our remembrance of the other is a cultivated magic: we talk, we listen, we encourage, we hold hands while walking, we plainly adore the other, we kiss, and we grab all the time... Our three beautifuls see and know that we are nuts about each other: and that state of being lends itself to our primary family spiritual practice: we always gather for a gratitude circle before every meal together: each of us has our turn to express those things that bring forth an awareness of thanksgiving... Inevitably, we each hear our name called out multiple times: Even in times of hardship and struggle (from which no living being is exempt), awareness of gratitude is both our bread and our breath... Falling in love is the sacred path of remembrance: the maintenance of that falling is the work of religion (a work in which it oftentimes miserably fails)... The height, depth, and breadth of the mystic-life can perhaps be best described as similar to that of parents with their first gaze upon their newborn child: that gaze is stunning: the mystic-aura of the newborn gathers into itself every bit of the adoring love of those parents: and returns it without any claim of ownership, in the humble perfection of gratitude... Oh! and the waiting breast! Oh, and the father's hand holding the tiny head! And the sacred tears of both Mother and Father that flood like a breaking dam... Prayer (your interior life) flows from remembrance and gratitude: words can be used, but ultimately, either a groan or a stutter are better. Words in prayer are like a circle drawn in the sand: into that circle we write the words that best indicate our experiences: words of adoration, but also of grief and of loss, words of hope, but also of fears, words of tenderness, but also of stress and anger... what matters is the fact of remembrance... and like a couple in love-making, mutual surrender, one into the other, remembrance-prayer is the spirituality of St. John, leaning forward onto the breast of Jesus of the Beloved, and listening to the heartbeat of God... In work and in play, in the very midst of the everyday-stuff of our life, we have the opportunity to seek awareness of the Beloved: this spirituality of nonduality is, as it were, the silent alphabet of mysticism... It's fundamentally silly to perceive difference as the heart of creation: good / bad... beautiful / ugly... worthy / unworthy... etc. etc. The Divine Beloved is not separate from creation: the whole of creation is sacramental: a magic-portal for an encounter with and in the Beloved... Remembrance of the Beloved, is both an outlook and an inlook... Interiorly, we might link the Holy Name with our breath, for truly, our breath is our one never-ending meditation... this inlook inevitably transforms one's outlook... and our outlook is the direct evidence that we are alive in our endless romance with the Beloved... romance is the way of the lover... love-notes, sneaking up to kiss one's lover on the back of her neck, surprising her with an evening out (sometimes without you!), and hot tub interludes... everyday can hold any number of moments of remembrance... So too with the Divine Beloved: a moment, even a single breath, offered in gratitude for the opportunity to live and to love and to give... Narrow shafts of divine light pierce the veil that separates heaven from earth... There is no creature on earth in whom God is absent... The presence of God's spirit in all living things is what makes them beautiful... If we look with God's eyes, nothing on the earth is ugly... When our love is directed towards an animal or even a tree, we are participating in the fullness of God's love... It is not believing in Christ that matters; it is becoming like him... A person who is rich and yet refuses to give food to the hungry may cause far more deaths than even the cruellest murderer... Write down with your own hand on paper what God has written with his hand on the human heart... -- Pelagius, 4th Century, Celtic Christian Another important ingredient in building your sacred life, from the example of the Celtic Church, is that of anamchara: or "soul friend" with whom one shares the inner workings of her soul... A soul friend listens and listens more... occasionally, if one veers way out into la-la-land, he might get a "knock" on the side of his head, delivered by his soul friend... however, the secret of the soul friend is "pass no judgment" and to encourage the inner work of the Spirit: humility, patience, kindness, compassion, and service... The truest surprise of the Celtic rendering of the Gospel is the essential way of engaging with the world in which we live: everything is a theophany, a visible manifestation of the Beloved... remembrance and gratitude can be the love-letters that your life writes to the Beloved... so be it...  Photo (by the great Bob Fitch) of Dorothy Day, Civil Disobedience with the United Farm Workers
Dorothy Day, as significantly as any other, was captured by the nonviolence of Yeshua bar Alaha (Jesus of the Beloved): from Soup Kitchen and shelter, to the fields and vineyards of California, Dorothy lived the conviction that the Gospel was an invitation to rEvolution... That the Gospel was pregnant with possibilities, was only too obvious to her: why not to us? Why not to us is not a skip-over question... this question mirrors that of the First Thought of the Beloved: Why not? Everything that we need to do is wrapped up in these two questions! There is that within us, as Thomas Merton wrote, a point of nothingness... a point of pure truth, a point of spark which belongs entirely to God... A Christian would call this point "soul" ... others, particularly of the Hindu faith, would identify it as atman (our interior oneness with the Divine)... in any case, the point is that which is always open, vulnerable, and available to the flow, the Breath, of the Beloved... and, I suppose, it essential to write that this flow-breath is always Now... The Gospel story of the Angel's visit to Mary came with a rush... now is the time... are you ready? The saddest part of this story is simply that the Angel's question was not a one-and-done-thing... as we like to think. Rather, we are supposed to live the story as a question asked of each one of us: now is the time, are you ready, and will you give birth to the Beloved in your life, wherever you are, right now? Not even breath is free! Everything comes with an accompaning cost: even grace, which is freely given, comes with an expectation... Dorothy Day accepted this as a simple and obvious fact: the ways in which she lived a radical openness, vulnerability, and availability are now the stuff of Catholic Worker legend... but again, we are supposed to be legendary in our own lives! Real love is either about personal and social transformation or it really isn't love at all... There is a story that comes from the New York Catholic Worker... One day, a guest in the Soup Kitchen was agitated, and then increasingly so... Becoming irate at the suggestion of a volunteer Catholic Worker that he calm down, he approached, threatened, and in short order had the volunteer in a head-lock while he rained down upon him every foulness that he could think of... all the while, Dorothy was seated on a bench and calmly peeling potatoes... Finally the irate guest released the now humiliated volunteer and left the dining room... the volunteer turned to Dorothy and said, "Why didn't you do something!?" Dorothy responded with a curt, "I did. I was praying for you." And that was that -- except that the volunteer realized that he hadn't actually been hurt... only humbled... Well, I will admit that this isn't the best of possible stories to relate, but it does illustrate how the Gospel challenges us to become no-harm-tough... which is another way of what Rev. Cynthia Bourgeault calls "Blessed are the gentled." In other words, Jesus of the Beloved invites us into his life -- his way of life -- in which we submit to the egoic transformation that is required of becoming an adult stepping towards wisdom... It is by our yearning that we will give witness to the possibilities of peace and justice that rest in the Heart of the Gospel... The Beatitudes, which convey the heart of the Christ-Path, are at their core, an explanation of the Way in which the Universe is attuned: it is not only about the vibratory structure of the Universe, but about the vibratory connectedness that is at the Heart of Wisdom (which is at the heart of everything)... This is the Way things shake... I could write the obvious: it is all about Love and loving... but that would be too easy... and as Dostoevsky wrote "Love in reality is a harsh and dreadful thing, compared to love in dreams"... so what I will write is the word nonviolence... "Cause no harm" would be the first "rule" of nonviolence... And realizing the impossibility of that, there is a second "rule": "Cause as little harm as possible"... Wrestle with this: be upset, be riled-up, but don't be dismissive! Remember the vibratory connectedness that is at the Heart of Wisdom (and everything)... Everything connects in the Heart... it is precisely in our wrestle-mania with no-harm-tough that transformation will be made more than possible... "The greatest challenge of the day is: how to bring about a revolution of heart, a revolution which has to start with each one of us." -- Dorothy Day, Saint of the Gutter Beautiful  The Recently Discovered Photo of Mary (Before Becoming Mother of Jesus) Admittedly, such a photographic discovery would involve a humungous conspiracy of silence, for better than eighteen hundred years: but hey, if there can still be flat-earthers, and Obama can be the mother of every right-wing conspiracy... Okay... I understand your certain rejection of this being an actual photo of Mary, but what if? Doesn't she look like someone who could have so boldly proclaimed her Magnificat? (St. Luke 1: 46-55) And Mary said, My soul magnifies the Lord... According to the American Heritage Dictionary, to magnify is to make greater in size, extent, or effect; enlarge... to cause to appear greater or more important... or to glorify or praise... I think it pretty obvious that all Christians regard the glorify or praise angle to be the only acceptable interpretation of these words of Mary... Okay, again... I will accept the pregnant audacity to think that Mary in fact made the Divine Beloved greater, that she enlarged the Self-Aware Universe... the same way that we do whenever we live our lives in honesty and truth, integrity and justice, and for others first and ourselves only last... And Mary said, he has scattered the proud... he has put down the mighty from their seats and lifted up the humble... he has filled the hungry and dismissed the rich... Now look back to the photo: doesn't she look like someone who could and would! have said these words? Yeah, that's a photo of Mary alright! These words could not have possibly come from the mouth of a woman meek and mild! They could not have been said by someone fragile as a testicle! They came from a woman who could take the pounding that life would give her and still be a one who stood up, looked power in the eye, and enlarged the vision of those around her by enlarging their vision of the Divine! The rich, the privileged, the powerful, the oppressor, and the violent had no truck with the Divine! Mary's words are an all-time prophetic utterance: if you want to build your sacred life, Mary is telling you where to stand: I, you, we have to stand for the values that she imbued her son with: simple living, sharing everything in community, social justice, nonviolence, reverence for nature and the natural, and male / female equality... You don't believe me? Well, read on from where we started in Luke's gospel... read on into Luke 6: 20-46... He lifted up his eyes on his disciples and said... Blessed are you poor... Woe to you, rich men!... Love your enemies... Just as you want men to do to you, do to them likewise...Be therefore merciful... Judge not... Give, and it will be given to you... And lastly, Why do you call me, My Lord, My Lord, and do not do what I say? Whoa! Why doesn't this scare the shit out of all the culturally "proper" Christians who are comfortable with salvation, but who hate liberation? Who think that America -- or any nation -- can be "great" and still be sexist, racist, nationalist, profiteers before every other consideration, and purveyors of violence? Obviously, there are Christians who strive for identification with the Christ of the Gospels, and not necessarily with the Christ of the Christians: build your sacred life with the first and welcome those with similar convictions but who are on differing paths (appearance-wise)... the world needs, and is waiting for, an up-rising of Radical-to-the-roots Faith Communities: it's our turn to Magnify the Beauty and Justice of the Beloved! And Here Is Another Photo of Mary (Mother of the Liberating Christ)   Harmony is the Subtle Herb of Wisdom
The Taoist Sage of Ancient China gave particular attention to the cultivation of harmony in her life: it was as if harmony were the secret thread that wove together an entire life. She would practice the arts: particularly music, calligraphy, and poetry. She would broaden the grasp of her intellect through the study of philosophy. She would weave her day around a contemplative stillness, whether meditating, gardening, cooking, walking, teaching, etc. And perhaps surprising to all of us multi-taskers, she still had time for visiting friends, delightful sex, trading goods in the market, playing with children, and counseling with village officials... Fully human, fully alive... How? The short answer, is that she wasn't conflicted... that exact condition that dogs nearly all of us these days (thank you industrial, technological, and information revolutions!)... Inner confliction: that pounding sense that time is our personal enemy is the de-construction of whatever illusion we might have held that we could live in peace... Hurry-up! is the ruler of our day... every day... until, we find ourselves in an unsteady "daze"... Hanging-on... rushing for the coming week-end... all of which makes my fanciful description of the Taoist sage of Ancient China a sort of cruel hoax... But, if it is our hopeful intention to increase our sense of a sacred life, then we should consider the subtle herb of harmony... Harmony is not quietude in the face of everything that disrupts our intentions and our day! Rather, harmony is the perspective of peaceableness: time is whatever it is: we can neither speed it up, nor can we slow it down... time is like gravity... Hey, now that is an interesting thought: time is like gravity: Einstein showed that gravity bends time... So, what if we begin to consider ourselves as the invisible force of gravity during the course of our day -- and attentively practice bending the hours of our day to better serve our personal growth? Fifteen seconds, twenty seconds, thirty seconds, one minute and then ten: See! you can be the gravity of your day, capable of bending time! Thirty seconds of a slow, very conscious breath, and you tune into the vibratory Consciousness upon which the energy of the Universe constructs / creates everything... Thirty seconds here, thirty seconds there, and harmony becomes a reality: small at first, like the tiniest of seeds, but hey, what if that seed can grow? What if you tend to that tiniest of seeds with reverence and then with adoration? A life of harmony is a slow, yet steady, cultivation... within the reach of everyone and essential for building your sacred life... which is exactly how that Taoist became a sage...  "More" is always at War...
For those of us lucky enough to live in an "advanced" nation, and lucky as well to be living in relative "peace", we are, nevertheless, also living in cultures that prioritize "more". Isn't this also true for our religions? We "need" more of G-d, more of faith, more of obedience, more of prayer and meditation, and especially, more of our money in the "basket"... We need more money! We need more time! We need... Unfortunately, this "horse" is not about to die, no matter how hard or how much we beat it... "More" is warring for every inch and aspect of us... On the other hand, or rather, at the very same time, we begin to feel increasingly uncomfortable: "more" demands that we work ourselves to death, while what we really want is time for relaxed sex, for reading a good book, for play with our kids, and for a kind of prayer that is not asking for, or needing, anything... Dealing with "more" is an essential task for those of us who desire to live a sacred life, in reality, not in the abstract... If it is true, as Rumi insisted, that you are the universe in ecstatic motion, then shouldn't we be all about cultivating our happiness? Obviously, this cultivation is a problem: "more happy" cannot be either bought or sold, for happiness is the result of contentment... "More" requires our constant subservience to the general discontent... indeed, discontent is the wheel upon which our economics, politics, and religions turn... Motion implies direction: so where are we, where are you, and where am I headed? Discontentment is a cliff toward which we, you, and I are headed: and that promised "drop" is not in the least bit promising! Discontentment breeds despair, anger, rage, grief, blame, abuse, and addictions. Discontentment breeds theft, greed, and systems of exploitation and oppression. Inevitably, violence is then manifested in its many guises... Shouldn't we, at this point, be pondering the wisdom of changing our direction? Shouldn't we, at this point, consider the how of contentment? The simple secret of contentment is less of "me, myself, and I" and more of "you, you, and you"... (In this case, "more" becomes wholly-holy). The Dalai Lama has written, If you contribute to other people's happiness, you will find the true goal,the true meaning of life... The "more" that we incline ourselves to living compassion, or as Gandalf put it, small acts of kindness and love, then we will be finding our contentment growing by leaps and bounds! Then! the universe gets really ecstatic! Its like a solitary dandelion that wakes up to a dandelion explosion... all that it had to do was become "less" and go to seed... giving itself away... we can do the same, and likely as not drive our neighbors crazy: look at all those free dandelions! what's that all about? Building your sacred life is really all about cultivating contentment and compassion... and leaving the dandelions alone...  A favorite family photo, from a few years ago, taken of us while exploring the Apostle Islands.
I couldn't have imagined, as the saying goes, in a million years, the stupifying wonder I have experienced in this little family! On the left is Donovan: he is already a writer: stories (books) flow out of him like magic: indeed, he is a magician... On the right is Devin: he is an artist: magical, comical, and other-worldly comic art is the talent he has been gifted with: but more, he is the most empathetic soul one could imagine. And they are both now as tall (probably taller) than me! My little sweetheart, Rose of Sharon, has grown about eight inches since this photo! She, like her brothers, is a wonder: a dancer, a dreamer, a creative, and a lover-without-measure... And then there is the radiant one, the Bringer: bringer of "what a difference", bringer of kindness, of laughter, of wit, of deep conversation, and of sagely wisdom... In a long-ago era, she would have been a shaman, a medicine-woman, a priestess... Now, she is "just" a Goddess... I wonder everyday how it was that she chose to rescue the beaten-dog of me... my Michelle... For anyone, desiring of building your own sacred life, it is of fundamental importance that you "Set your life on fire. Seek those who fan your flames." (Rumi) Somehow, this fire-seeking has been the one constant in my life... To "set your life on fire" is to find your place in this wild world. And your place has to include those who fan your flames... Long-ago, we humans most often gathered together in tribes... we lived close... we practiced work, play, mating, parenting, feeding, and protecting one another, sort of like a big extended family... This is exactly what we all need! Sure, there are hermits and outcasts of one sort or another, but that which fans our flames are intentional communities (friends and family): with similar passions, commitments, dreams, and possibilities... "Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I'll meet you there." (Rumi) Here, Rumi is inviting us into a brand new way of thinking, believing, and of relating to one another and to the world in which we live. It is called nonduality... A child has to differentiate in order to come to a basic understanding of self and surrounding world... but to live forever conditioned by differentiation, is to choose life in a prison instead of a life of freedom! Only when in the field, can there be a recognition that there is something beyond both belief and unbelief, beyond male and female, and beyond every difference that defines the prison-mind... Out beyond ideas, beyond knowing and unknowing, is the Light: not the light that is separate from the dark: but a light that incorporates the dark into an intended Oneness... Words can only approximate (and very poorly, at that) this wonder... We must thank the quantum physicist and mystic both for their similar discoveries: there is only Energy and Consciousness... and the Flow... in the Evolutionary Quest for Self-Awareness... For a while, we are energy and consciousness (on a "microscopic" scale, of course) in pursuit of the very same thing: indeed, there is Aha! no difference! And! this quest keeps on going into the biggie realization: every "other" (whether thing, creature, or person) is yourself in disguise! (Doesn't this make the raping of our home Planet, racism, sexism, nationalism, and every other profitable division clearly understood as utterly stupid?) Rumi offers this as a working definition of what it means to be a human being, a person: "You are the universe in ecstatic motion!" Now, combine that definition of person with this: "Start a huge, foolish project, like Noah!" Right there, you have a self-definition with a life-challenge! Inevitable indifference turns out to be little more than a hic-cup: everything gets interesting with a nod to the impossible! Happy happy happy Everyday! It is possible!  I sound my barbaric yawp over the rooftops of the world. -- Walt Whitman, American Poet
We live, move, think, feel: all within or under the paradigm of inevitable indifference: this is both the outer and inner limits of our existence... Except for a few short years, and only for a lucky some, we automatically know this: we experience it in our physical frailty, in our limited knowledge, in our limited resources, and in our search for something more: for some sort of "out"... For many of us we relax into a religious framework that defines and assures us of some sort of likely continuity in our breathing: "Sure. I'll stop breathing someday. But, I'll wake up in Heaven and be with God and my family again." Unquestionably, this is a grand hope and a grand vision: if it is yours, don't stop! I ponder the mystery of Jesus / Yeshua bar Alaha (in his native Aramaic, roughly translating as Jesus of the Beloved), who, like us, also lived within / under the very same paradigm: and a life likely comparable to that being experienced by the peoples of the poorest nations today: a life of barely tolerable misery: food, resources, safety, and health always compromised... (unless you want to pretend that he was a rich dude of his era)... Within the context of privation, Jesus of the Beloved, experienced his life: within the context of a people, the Hebrew, he interpreted his relationships and the beliefs which illuminated his mind and activated his heart. He chose his beliefs from within the context of a culture oppressed by a foreign power, marginalized by competing grafters, and minimized in every assumption of worthiness... This question of worthiness or value cuts to the very heart of the inevitable indifference paradigm, does it not? The patriarchy that still rules the roost, makes these choices of worth and value for us, almost without thought; while Jesus of the Beloved gives every evidence of a deeply contradictory stream of radical thought: in fact, as I like to, one could identify him as the first barbaric yawper... And! he steals from the rich to give to the poor: G-d, in the Hebrew Scriptures, identifies himself (Itself) as: I am that I am... Jesus, the barbaric yawper, identifies, in a not-subtle-thievery-at-all, also as I am... and going further in explicating the meaning with Way, Truth, and Life... And! this yawper didn't claim the title as his alone: but has welcomed every person and all of history, past, present, and future into a yawping affirmation: I am! I am! I am! As we stare into the void, we have both the opportunity and the obligation, to proclaim our chosen / conferred dignity: I am a person! Sure, on both a cosmic and practical scale, inevitable indifference is the obvious way of things: but deeper, there is yet another working way... The working way of Yeshua of the Beloved does not have an obvious goal beyond that of the absolute importance, worth, and value of the person: read his Beatitudes! Read chapter twenty-five of Matthew's Gospel, or the parable of the Good Samaritan... in every one, personhood is at the heart of his teachings: the personhood of every "I am!" Inevitable indifference always manifests the whim of the foreign oppressor, the competing grafter, and the wrong assumption of worthiness. Into the only-too-obvious face of inevitable indifference, Yeshua of the Beloved, shouts his barbaric yawp: no longer just an I am, but now a rEvolutionary "we are!" To be a person is to be an evolutionary revolutionary: we have discovered-uncovered the way, truth, and life that indifference does not accept... And, to be clear, the way, truth, and life is precisely here: we build it by our beatitude way of living: we fine-tune our economics, politics, and culture by a beatitude critique: we build our sacred life, from breath to rEvolution... As it turns out, there is only the appearance of a void: neither energy no consciousness ever dies! (It transforms.) Our personhood mirrors the quantum mystery of Universal Personhood (variously called God, the Trinity, the Oneness, Allah, Brahma, Jesus, Krishna, Divine Mother, Spirit, GrandParent, etc.) that is at the heart of the Universe: thought Is, but so is the Thinker... It is inevitable... and no longer indifferent... So, go ahead and add your barbaric yawp to the grand chorus! I am! We are! Persons without end!  The music of John Coltrane is breezing into the study... the sky is cold and gray... and the trees are naked sentinels of Time Passing into inevitable indifference...
Poetry seldom comes in a rush, at least for me... most often, words hover and flit around me like a drunken dragonfly: eye am the still pond... eye am the still fish... but that damned drunken dragonfly flits away, only to tease me from the shore on the other side of the pond... Prayer is either a silence like a woolen blanket against the cold... or it is another kind of silence: like the groan of a broken heart... still breaking... Time waits like a snake in the grass and eye am the blind mouse crawling towards the ecstasy of the snake's mouth The Universe spins and expands with inevitable indifference... Sometimes: prayer is the breast that slides into my mouth... Yep is the acknowledgment that God is neither stage nor audience... and nope is the mystic response to every supposition of knowing... but, one thing is for sure, our theologies lack the imagination of the Universe... Inevitable indifference is a terror so profound and so deep... (it has set its roots into the barely fertile soil of our hearts) so deep... that we all become addicts to our egoic mind... which is way too bad... inevitable, too, that we "must" leave aside our imaginations as a requirement of "becoming" an adult... which is, again, way too bad... eye breathe dreams like air the dragonfly dropped this on me opened mouth our tongues are a portal another dropping and still one more your skin is the cigarette eye smoke If you are not making love or making justice happen, why are you here? It does seem to me, as I look at the face that now looks back at me from the mirror, that inevitability is operating on cruise control: I am driving nothing... indifference is the very humbling affirmation that I cannot write my own ending to the play that I inhabit... With indifference, that which I have been taught to identify as "me", will inevitably end its journey through life... Clinging to suppositions is neither surrender nor adoration... Deeper is the option of the mystic... deeper into annihilation... deeper into abandonment... deeper, until the no-thing-that-is-left becomes only You... With no faith, with no hope: that is precisely where love is... there is only this inevitably indifferent option: "my" life was only alive when its living was not about "me"... absolute Nothingness is the Garden of Eternal Delight... there are some secrets so dark that only then can Light be born: again with inevitable indifference... There... and this really, really, matters: sing your song to Life, however you can... someone will hear... (I want to hear...) The music of John Coltrane is breezing into the study...  What Does Your Home Look Like: On The Inside, Of Course?
One particular day, while planning the soup of the day, I received a call from a long-time donor wanting to know if I could drop by his home to pick up a check. Right away I said "Yes!" for two reasons: the first being, we were always in something near desparate need; and secondly, his checks had his business logo of interior decoration... I really liked the thought of seeing what the house of an interior decorator would look like... Later, when I knocked on his door, he welcomed me into his home: I was very surprised to see that everything was white... white walls, white carpets, and white furnishings... not a speck of either dirt or fuzz, and nothing out of place... And then there is the above photograph of perhaps a bohemian den... which got me to thinking about how life tends to decorate our minds, hearts, and souls... and our own personal soul-spiritual decorations... In building your sacred life, you are in fact, a spiritual interior decorator... Our interior decorations are the various means that we employ to live as happily and as well as we can. Our attention to those things that assist in the maintenance of our happiness are, again, in fact, our actual spiritual life... The secret is develop a certain rhythm to our maintenance... Rhythm is a pleasant word, whereas "routine" sounds (and is) both boring and limiting: we naturally want to feel expansive... To me, white walls, white carpets, and white furnishings are limiting: I want color, art, books, pillows, music, plants, animals, candles, incense, blankets, and furnishings that invite lounging and conversation... I love the sensual! And even though I have never had much money, I have always tried to live as a rich poet: rich in welcoming, in conversation, and in possibilities... this wealth has mirrored the treasures of my heart: a loving companion, loving children, and the great gift of some incredibly dear friendships... And this carries over into my spiritual interior decorations... As we construct our environments, so too, we are building our sacred life as a continuance of flow... doing and being, both, are energy and consciousness... both are the means to maintenance and expansion... through it all, we are breathing... Our breath is our primary interior decoration. Attention to our breath, as it was true for the ancient masters and sages, can lead us into an increasing awareness of the Oneness that is the very structure of the Universe... Oneness is the non-dual nature of Reality... It is a philosophical leap that Western culture cannot really even imagine, for our religions, economics, and politics are all rooted in either / or, and good / bad, dualities... But here we have a choice: we can step away from the Western antipathy to the body and reclaim our divinely natural unity of body and soul... Attention to breath is our primary method of interior decoration / contemplative practice... Finally, what awakens and releases the storehouse of bliss that is your essential nature? The sooner we seriously ponder this question will we be able to relax and have a good laugh... And so we begin to gently cultivate the many opportunities for "little blisses" that might come our way: we look for them as we anticipate them. Relaxing into a humble breath-prayer inevitably leads to a gentle surrender into a general feeling of adoration and intoxication within the Divine Beloved: then, everything becomes an interior decoration... everything becomes an icon of the Divine Oneness: the only surprise in all of this is when we are startled by the revelation that we should kiss more: kiss the cup that holds the water we drink, kiss the secrets of our lover, kiss the trees along the paths we walk, kiss the songs of the birds in flight, kiss everything kind, gentle, humble, gracious, welcoming, and thankful as an icon that has its place in our plethora of interior decorations... |
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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