... Here Begins a Trail of Days...
September 26, 2022 / Homage to the Celestial Worthy of Primordial Being
Last Thursday evening, while driving Rose of Sharon to her dance class, we approached a semi-truck parked on the roadside. As we passed, I saw a Muslim man, likely the driver, kneeling on his prayer rug, head to the ground, having heard, even in the noise of highway and cab, the evening call to prayer. I was wonderfully moved...
This example of adoration, vulnerability, and surrender is the very heart of religion: this is what just might enable that particular leap of faith which can carry one into the very heart of compassion... the arena in which true religion is actualized...
The Celestial Worthy of Primordial Being:
A found Ecstasy in the Breath:
Breathing in -- the Unity -- the One Source...
Breathing out -- the Energy -- the Creative Juice...
Existence / Non-existence both / same
Are within every breath...
Awakening is surrender... just breathe...
September 28, 2022
The forest outside the study window looks to finally be catching onto the idea of autumn: green fading into yellows and reds: blue sky and whisps of cloud above... the day beginning like most others, waking before the 5:00 am alarm, wondering if there is enough time for another sexual encounter (there is), and a quick shower before gathering the school lunch boxes and the business of organizing the morning...
Isn't that a funny way to assume the working of things: the business of organizing the morning. Meanwhile, the truth has already happened: we chose to open our eyes to the splendor of loving another human being... just as we long ago chose to let our loving include children and work: that we also "manage" time in such a way that we can pause, reflect, meditate, communicate, embrace, laugh, and welcome the very obvious grace that continually comes our way... And this, of course, in spite of significant financial struggles, car problems, and just not enough time!
I drive everyone to their appointed school-destinations: one teacher (Montessori), one middle school, and two at the high school (senior year and thriving). And I return home to Gregorian Chant, a mile-or-so walk with the dogs, brownie baking, washing dishes, reading, study, writing, drinking tea while, as my usual, forgetting breakfast. Maybe I'll have lunch. Time flies! Another cup of tea and excitement builds: it's almost time to make the pick-up rounds! I can look forward to cooking pasta, salad and veggies, plant-based protein for dinner... Maybe we'll watch (for about the tenth time) another of our favorite Harry Potter movies)... The "kids" will shower, read, finish homework, and inevitably, someone will pass gas (just like in a monastery) and someone else will stifle a laugh (also just like in a monastery), and our very sacred life is the most ordinary thing in the world...
Dissolving into the Primordial Ecstasy:
Into the breath,
Into the garden,
Into the water,
Into the silence,
Into the music:
Everything fits exceedingly well...
September 29, 2022
One of the "perks" of aging is the nearly inevitable 2:00 am stumble into the bathroom for a pee... and so it was for me last night... and then an hour of rumination... How very incredible it is to even be alive! To have my love curl into me, with her hand on my hip, drifting back into sleep: that, to me, is simply amazing! And I dove, headfirst, into that rumination...
Everything in the Universe is oriented towards coherence. In other words, we (and everything else) are oriented towards connection. An electron, anywhere, is always on the search for a connection, and cannot "rest" until that connection is made: and on and on: every "this" needs a "that".... Even that which appears to be "empty", or "infinite" space is connected by the information of possibilities. Matter happens. Life happens. And not by chance! But by the information of possibilities that infills the Universe-Multiverse-Cosmos.
At 2:30 am all of this takes on the appearance of "wow!" But no sooner had I committed myself to that "wow!", and I jumped right into the metaphysical mystery of loving: how is it possible that any lone electron can cross, what for it would be the equivalent of infinite space, to inevitably find its connecting link in the chain of being? And not a "random" link, but the exact one that it required to fulfill its possibilities! It might be that that link will lead to a new leap on the evolutionary ladder of ever-expanding consciousness...
And so, I drifted back into sleep, still curled by my "electron", into a new morning of blue possibilities...
Jump! Oh jump with delight!
This breath -- any breath -- can be our liberation!
Look! We all stand beneath the very same sky:
This "no difference" is more meaningful
Than most of what passes for "being alive".
Go ahead: disrobe
And see what else will surely fall away...
October 3, 2022
I woke up before 5 to hold Michelle: a prayer, a faith, a hope, and a dream... following a somewhat night of fatigue: every sound coming from our dog seemed to wake me up... listening to Michelle breathe... and the silent-swish of the fan... The Monday morning rush to ready for school... lunches made... talk around the table... driving everyone to school and walking the dogs to the sounds of barking geese. The river green and silent.
No one, besides the dogs and I on the path. I stop to absorb the river green: green like my hope for political silence: I mean, how is it that people / politicians can lie, distort, and manipulate as if the most natural thing in the world? Of course, the Dominator Paradigm requires all of this, if only to confuse folks and so herd us into fake tribes... This isn't the cup of tea that I drink...
Moving on...
How do you pray? I like my tea black with no sugar, and so hot that I can only whisp it through pursed lips. Just like the Psalms. I hate the curse Psalms. But then again, I truly despise liars, big-shot crooks, and killers. Meanness and rudeness get me ready to grab my baseball bat, standing right there by the front door, and take some swings at kneecaps... So, I suppose the Psalms were sung and / or written as much for me as for anyone else...
I especially cherish Nan C. Merrill's Psalms for Praying, An Invitation to Wholeness. Reading her contemplative versions is sort of like going wading in Rumi's poetry: "God" is the Beloved: which is simply sweet: but more, not "sugar" sweet, but sweet with the sweat of passion, humility, devotion, justice, and delight: essential ingredients for contemplative living! And isn't this the only response that is sufficient for the times in which we live?
Force will never change the minds of liars, big-shot crooks, or of killers. There is only one way of moving forward: we have to become the transformation that we hope for the world! We need to find our "companions of the way", we have to meaningfully "tribe", and then we have to make this "rEvolution" so utterly delightful that we can sweep everyone along with us...
Before the beginning, there was the Tao
And in the surprise of wild thought:
"What if?" and "Why not?"
Became the Mother of All Things.
And whoa! Here we all are
And everything else besides! Doesn't this
Knowing make you want to kiss someone?
October 5, 2022
Yesterday was the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi. I chose not to write simply because anything that I wrote, I thought, could not measure up to the grace and beauty of the man... so I let it pass, but not without thinking about it!
How do you pray?
This question is not meant to be "religious" -- although you have likely received it as such. No, the question is about life / living... which means that it is political, it is cultural, indeed, it is rEvolutionary! The truth is, everything that we do is our prayer: it is our life-orientation: it is either "radical" (meaning getting all the way down into the roots of everything), or it is a construct of hoo-ey. Did you read the news today? OPEC is cutting back on oil production in order to raise the price of oil (remember that Biden was in Saudi Arabia just weeks ago). Why the cut back?
Simple. The Saudis understand that Biden is profoundly committed to both democracy and human rights. Why would the Saudis align themselves with a United States that wants to deconstruct their power system in favor of the ideas of democracy and human rights? So, the Saudis are turning towards Russia: a fellow dictator who has no qualms about either wars or brutality against any opposition... Both Italy and Sweden have voted in "neo-fascist" (far Right-Wing) leadership recently. Brazil may continue with their Right-Wing- Destroy-The-Amazon leader in a few weeks...
Democracy, despite the current advances of Ukraine, is facing a hard climb: Trump (and the GOP and the Supreme Court) are about as close to neo-fascism as one can be without hoisting pictures of Hitler: they despise diversity: they merely tolerate races other than white (sit down and shut up): they are always anti-woman: and they don't give a rat's ass about the environment ("Jesus will return when the last tree falls" -- James Watt). Meanwhile, they pretend to be "pro-life" and "Christian"...
How do you pray? You should realize that this is a revolutionary question. To ponder your answer might set you out upon the road to holiness / wholeness... like St. Francis or Dorothy Day...
A lifetime of "busy"
And a stunning field of thoughts and feelings:
But every-once-in-awhile
There comes a wandering insight:
Gratitude could become a summary of everything.
Indeed, thankfulness could become a way of life.
And then, watch: the Door will open of Its own accord...
October 6, 2022
The wind is cold today, as if to insist on the inevitability of Time. I am tired. My back interrupts my thoughts and later my dishwashing. Grief, that same old bugaboo that frequently lurks in the back of my mind, has been different today: a full-frontal attack, for which there is really no defense... only more Time... inevitable inevitability...
Yesterday I pondered "how do you pray" and went off on a personal tirade, likely having to do with my buried grief... nevertheless, it is an important question and thought (and conviction). Occasionally, prayer is something that we "do". But more importantly, prayer is really something that happens to us, and oftentimes, in spite of us. Hence, the idea / need of "getting out of the way"... a sort of Taoist thought.
I recommend (to myself, of course) Benedictine Daily Prayer, A Short Breviary. Following the Liturgy of the Hours, this Benedictine prayer book works as an aid to both centering and forgetfulness: it has less to do with "belief" and more (much more) to do with orientation. As a flower that follows the movement of the sun, this following of the movements of Time (both mundane and sacred), sort of refashions us into the likeness of a simple garden flower, perhaps that of a weed, but still yearning upward, into the Light. The Liturgy of the Hours, an ancient prayer form of the interior life of Christian faith, is perhaps meant specifically and especially for us no-account dandelions...
The Celtic Daily Prayer follows the rhythm of the traditional Liturgy of the Hours, but with the added flavor of the Northumbria Community and the Celtic Saints. It is a deep and rich soil of the living Spirit... And then I add the illuminations of the great Yogi Saint, Paramahansa Yogananda. His books Autobiography of a Yogi and Whispers from Eternity further, and daily, attune the heart to immediacy of the Divine Beloved: especially as the Divine Mother... and I have taken up as a mantra the words of the old "Miraculous Medal": O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to Thee...
Finally, as a "guru" of pages, I turn to the Ram Dass' book Be Love Now. Anyone craving the birth of wisdom in her heart (as I do in mine), Be Love Now is the servant-manual of attunement to the genuine, Eternal Spirit... Couple Be Love Now with the short illuminations of Lao Tzu in the Tao Te Ching and one can seriously (and playfully) partake of the really real permaculture... which is all that really matters, right?
In gratitude
There is no giver
As there is no receiver.
There is only access to the Essence.
Sort of like
Walking the road of your choice
Holding hands and laughing with your Lover.
October 8, 2022
Saturday, a slow sleepy morning, a snuggle of warm bodies, still thrilled by touch and love, now nearly twenty years of wholly-marriage... three beautifuls: our twin boys, and daughter, enjoy the Saturday rest... that eventually yields into our breakfast table... finished, Michelle and I take the dogs for a walk to the river and back home, holding hands as lovers do... Soon after returning home, we decide on a family outing: driving to the Mississippi River, through the multi-colored hills, to an apple orchard where we picnic and merely tolerate the wind that is already cold, carrying the cold thoughts of snow and winter, just around the corner... That we all really like each other is a treasure beyond the mindful touch of words... but certainly a grand prelude to the opening into Holy Mystery...
Holy Mystery: electrons, protons, energy from no-thing into some-thing (s), and into loving-love... whew! The stupendous wonder of it all compels the humble to the knees of their heart, and there to take up residence... Not an easy thing! But the heart! The heart! The Holy Mystery exists, always, as an invitation, as a wintry beckoning into a summer warmth, like a lover's embrace in which there is never a question of "good enough"... Of course, "good enough"! Always, good enough... but the "rubber must yet meet the road"!
This is exactly where intention and practice come into play: prayer, contemplative living, compassion, simplicity, and nonviolence are watch-words: best, and really only practiced, in an intentional community or "tribe"... for me, now, some two thousand miles from California and the seemingly many interested in exploring alternative lifestyles, I'm in Wisconsin... where "alternative" is a forward assault on the hardened limits of the imagination... Still, I wear my long braid of hair, write my poems, and party with electrons, protons, and the Holy Mystery...
What are the burdens that you carry?
Most folks lug around monuments to yesterday.
Me? I still have skyscrapers of suffering
Each one with its own sweet inscription!
I am so proud to have survived!
Uh-oh, my teacher is calling my number:
"Give it up. Chuck it all. Go back to No-Thing."
October 24, 20022
I'm sorry that it's been two weeks since I last wrote... I've been revising my latest book, collecting (as memory allows) more stories of Soledad Street / Dorothy's Place, and mostly, continuing my "studies" of "God"... For those of you who know me, I pretty much try to avoid using the "G" word: it has attached to it way too much crud / doctrines / and judgements... at least, too much for me... Now, I really like Rumi's way of looking at the Holy Mystery of "G". Like "Beloved", "Friend", "Companion of my Heart", and, for those a tad bit bolder (or off the wall!), one could say "Luscious One"...
As to my "studies", here are some of the books I'm reading or re-reading: Science and the Re-enchantment of the Cosmos (Ervin Laszlo), Self-Knowledge (Roy Eugene Davis), Absolute Knowledge that Liberates Consciousness (Roy Eugene Davis), Listening for the Heartbeats of God (J. Philip Newell), The Gift of Rumi (Emily Jane O'Dell), Merton & Sufism (Thomas Merton and Friends), Daughter of Fire (Irina Tweedie), The Essence of Rumi (John Baldock), Paths to God (Ram Dass), The Breath of the Mystic (Fr. George A. Maloney, S.J.), and Awakening -- A Sufi Experience (Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan).
Studies always boil down to practice though! And the core practice stays pretty much the same, regardless of author or religion or scientific background: one might describe it as attention and intention. Attention to the moments, or as Brother Lawrence taught, "practicing the presence of God". As often as not, that means a simple breath-prayer, uttered in silence and dropping into the heart: such as a Divine Name... and then intention means to cultivate an all-pervasive environment of harmony, devotion, and an attitude of surrender / adoration: again, through the breath, into the mind, the limbs, the gut, the legs, and down into the feet: holy, holy, holy art thou: this "no difference" and "Oneness" is the real reality of the quantum vibrations that in-fill the entire Universe in all its parts and beings...
The Celestial Worthy! In every form and motion!
Everything is the Mother giving birth
And Eternal Delight falling upon us like rain!
Giving a heave-ho to my calculations, I saw
The transcendental mystery astoundingly humble!
So, we really can see ourselves exactly as we are:
"Caterpillar Mush" in a very interesting dance...
October 26, 2022
A single candleflame burns in the window of the study: looking out upon the forest beyond, some trees already barren, others with fading yellow and red leaves determined, as it were, to cling to branch and twig, waiting for the certain tear of another wind... Jesus said, years and years ago, that the Kingdom of Heaven is within us... today, again, I am completely flabbergasted by this rEvolutionary proclamation! And completely flabbergasted again that we humans -- especially Christians -- mark our time in life with idiotic endeavors: building monuments to stupidity: endless wars, endless profits, endless exploitation, and endless mindlessness...
O Christian, where art thou? Christianity died when Empire sucked its balls dry and the Beatitude-life became an option only for the crazed monk living in the solitude of her cell or cave: then and only then would / could honesty, integrity, simplicity, and community be possible. And as for the rest of us, we have given centuries over to the Mythologies of Empire: power makes right, wealth makes good, and lies make truth... The still, small, voice of nonviolence, of compassion, service, justice, companionship, and equality is mocked as "wokeness": and hordes of Christians vote for and serve Empire... never even guessing that everything could change in an instant... the instant we begin to adore the Real Reality of the Kingdom of Heaven is within you, and you, and you... on and on and on... endlessly...
Running this way and that, like in
Some sort of wild scavenger hunt:
How will we ever find
That which we are looking for?
But wait, what exactly are we looking for?
What if a single rose in our empty hands
Could put an end to every attachment?
December 1, 2023
I am somewhat surprised that I have sat down with the intention of writing again. Since leaving Dorothy's Place and the families in the migrant farm worker camps in California, the months of November and December have always been one, very long, heartache. My California family is nowhere to be seen... and there is no "real" going back... But isn't that always true? The river that we step into today is not the river from yesterday, nor will today's be the river of tomorrow...
Michelle and I (and thanks be to God) our sons and daughter have each and all a profound sense of justice, equality, and empathy for every other. And the ramifications of this sense by each of us in our daily lives. I've never known anyone with a more heightened sense of justice and equality than Michelle. Our sons have always sought out the "excluded" to include, and the "others" to become friends of theirs. Our daughter, Rose of Sharon, is a member of the "Gay / Straight Alliance" at school, simply as a matter of course: of course! she believes in the absolute dignity and essential equality of every person...
On another page, there is a photo of our "great room" and its continuing evolution into something of a Gertrude Stein Bohemian Salon (not "saloon"). Bookshelves abound: which limits wall space, so paintings now hang on / from the ceiling, along with Frida and Diego (two stuffed animal friends acquired at the Minnesota Zoo... Even though we host a once-a-week Soup Night / Poetry Reading, this is not California where deviancy from the norm was progressive thinking and the challenge of cultural expectations welcomed very much of what was "counter"... Not so in our corner of Wisconsin...
Still, I pray my Benedictine Office, ponder my Northumbrian Community Celtic Prayer Books, read "Quantum Theology", Ram Dass, and World Scriptures: occasionally a poem will pass my way... Say, likely as not, you have not yet purchased my book, "Poems on the Art of Disappearance". At any other point of my life, if I had come across this book in a bookstore, I would have ecstatically brought it home with me! It is all about soul... not that "thing" that we all possess, but the burning spirit which is our true and one essential self... Maybe tomorrow I'll dig out my camera and post a photo of the cover. My friend, artist and philosopher David Ligare, wrote the introduction and contributed the cover copy of a painting of his...
This moment: this moment!
Another chance to praise!
Another chance to say "Thank you!"
Another chance to say "Forgive me!"
Another chance to give it all away!
Ah, to live in such a way that every breath
Becomes a revelation of compassion...
December 24, 2022
I am, thus far at least, surviving this Christmas Season... my California heartache continues, as it does every day, unabated... but, oh, the sweetness and delight that flows to me from Michelle and our three beautifuls... blessings within blessings... You know, the Beatitudes are presented, not so much as a reward system, but as a Way... and to say that it is as wayfarers that we live is a sign of soul-heart orientation... and that, too, means something...
If you give much attention to the language and conversations in spiritual circles, you have likely heard the word "nondualism". It's essential meaning is the mystic conviction of "not two, not two"... This is important. You see, we are all, for the most part, enculturated through awareness of differences: we identify and define and understand our experienced reality through differences: obvious core ones are male / female, good / bad, true / untrue, us / them, and so on. Every identified difference enables us to "make our way in the world". Differences, even those that merely scratch the surface, serve a base purpose.
However, as per usual, in both spiritual and scientific terms, there is more to the story. Science now confirms the reality of the mystics: matter is energy. That which we all perceive as this or that, are the varied vibrations -- possibilities as either wave or particle -- but all suffused with energy and information. The ancient Indian Vedantists named it Sat Chit Ananda -- Being, Knowledge, and Bliss. This is the Oneness which is the Really Real and which is both the within and the without of the Universe / Cosmos. "Being" is the Absolute without distinctions; "Knowledge" is the wisdom of the vibratory Word / Structure of all the manifested universe; and "Bliss" is the Will to Be Loving-in-Action... This Holy Trinity doesn't sit in an antiseptic corner of the Universe. Rather, it is the Universe: the I Am before-during-and-after the Big Bang...
Now, this is the Big "therefore". Everyone and All Things have within, as "soul" or "essence", the imprinted potential and capacity to mediate Sat Chit Ananda... "All things sacramentally exist in the sacred, and the sacred sacramentally exists in all things" writes Hans Gustafson (Finding All Things in God). Or, as Jesus said, the Kingdom of Heaven is within you. It's over there and it's in here: there is nowhere where it is not, there is neither person nor thing in which it is not... Christmas is, on the one hand, a celebration of a cultural and spiritual remembrance of the Birth of Jesus. But on a deeper level, Christmas is the paradise possibilitarian awakening into the always-present, nonduality, of the Kingdom of Heaven hungry for our beatitude lives of exploration...
What about this mystery that I call "me"?
Shall I tell you the truth?
I am circles within circles:
Circling all the way down and through
With a secret identity as "Caterpillar Mush".
When I stop pretending to be "someone",
There will be a big party celebrating forgetting "me"!
January 3, 2023
Chuang Tzu tells us of Lieh Tzu that after his illumination by Hu Tzu, he ... concluded that he never really begun to learn anything. He went home and for three years did not go out. He replaced his wife at the stove, fed the pigs as though he were feeding people, and showed no preferences in the things he did. He got rid of the carving and polishing and returned to plainness... In the midst of entanglement he remained sealed, and in this oneness he ended his life. -- Andrew Harvey, The Return of the Mother
Greetings Friends! I'm back on the trail again! A freezing rain is falling as I look out the study window, but my heart is warm: one dog is sleeping next to me, while the other is out in the living room... "Ave Maria" is playing on the music box... There is an inevitable element of obscurity in both writing poetry and in contemplative prayer. I'm reminded of this line from Emily Dickinson, "The earth was made for lovers..." This is of deep, deep, importance. We can only lean into the essential obscurity of our lives to the degree that we embrace the Holy Trinity of Love, Lover, and Loving...
There be "movers and shakers" about the world: but the one task that is ours is to lean into this Holy Trinity... I look up and out the window, the freezing rain of minutes ago has turned into a swiftly falling snow... The dog snores and I ponder... The quote above from Andrew Harvey's book is the height of Taoist illumination (and might add of any life of any real faith): few of us are "movers and shakers", but all of us can re-create our lives in our unique dimension of obscurity, into an awakening into the only thing that matters: becoming love, lover, and loving...
Elements of this "becoming love" are sort of what we might teach any child going out onto a playground: "Be kind! Play fair! and look out for the other kids!" As we delve deeper into the Mystery of Cosmic Consciousness alive in our mind-heart, this living compassion can become our animating passion (gently, gently)... Of course, for the child coming in from the playground with tears in his eyes, we will gently ask what happened with encouragement to "tell the truth". This "telling the truth", is the sometimes-forgotten sign of a living faith, and a forgotten civilizing requirement in the world of politics and culture. Isn't it time to practice this essential remembrance?
Seriously, how can we invoke the Holy Name of the Divine Beloved if we don't always tell the truth? Or worse, if we have forgotten how to tell the difference between truth and a lie?
We are the whole shebang!
And here we go wanting riches and fame!
We are the entire earth and sky!
We are the planets and distant stars!
We are the air that every creature breathes!
And we are even the offerings of the faithful:
So why do we settle for being "misery" instead?
January 6, 2023
My chapbook The Jewel in the Lotus had the subtitle Homage to the Celestial Worthy of Primordial Being. This is important. In my yogic-taoist-celtic search for that which is called "God", like everyone else I stumble upon "names": yet, the Primordial Mystery is exactly that! Primordial Mystery is before human thought, human definitions, human cultures, and obviously, before human religions: however much any religion might claim a unique access point (revelation) to "knowing"... and that of "knowing" becoming "fact", we are off the mark... perhaps near, but still hooked on human interpretations of that which is primordial: before thought, before word, and before Being (at least any "being" that in any way could be defined)... this is elemental mysticism...
Admittedly, the mystical is the cup of tea for few people (this doesn't, though, make the mystic any more special than anyone else). Nevertheless, ancient religion (every religion) is rooted in the mystical, in the shamanistic trance-access to hidden dimensions of universal consciousness. That "thread" can be likened today to the word / idea / awakening of wisdom. Again, today's mystic-shaman is not "special", but perhaps, is instead "touched" or better, "felled" by an unbidden rush of primordial grace... Everything hums with consciousness (apparently divided into multitudes of both things and beings), but deeper, it is all energy-information-consciousness undivided Oneness... Life and the transition of death are not two separate "things": both are revelations of access points to the Primordial Mystery / Oneness... In still other words, every human being has been endowed with a life which is always an access point to the Primordial Mystery: that which Jesus called the Kingdom of Heaven...
Be a mystic-shaman intent upon Oneness...
The opposite of Oneness is neither divisions nor multitudes. Both division and multitude are but the appearance or physical manifestation of Energy-Consciousness. Rather, the opposite of Oneness is erasure: the willed intent to cause harm and to deny the place of existence for another being or beings. The drive of erasure is now nearly everywhere. Predatory capitalism, at its unconscious-root, is the willed attempt to erase the right of Earth-life to exist. Warring states will the erasure of opponents / other free or independent states. The lying would permanently erase the truth. The internet invites users to "block", or erase, persons whom they dislike or have a cultivated hatred of. Families themselves are likewise culturally invited to "erase" their members who "march to the tune of a different drummer"...
Much to my dismay and heartbreak, I have experienced "erasure" from persons and places I have loved deeply and truly...
Years and years ago, in a moment of stunning primordial grace and surrender, I redefined my life as / into I just want to love... I shouldn't have been surprised by the firestorm that redefinition caused (nevertheless, I was). Still, I survived and pressed "forward" into consequences and re-creations: which is exactly how the Universe works. Ultimately, though, nothing is lost. It's all Energy seeking its own reflection of Light: and we are That! The trick now is to steadily advance into the proximity of possibilities: there is only One Reality: we can meld our unique, individual, light-life-energy into the Primordial Dance: we can steadily practice our surrender into the Divine Qualities of Beauty, Harmlessness, and Compassion...
Erasure is not the path of the awakening mystic-shaman. Rather, it is resurrection... the Kingdom of Heaven is within you / all of us...
What is Your name?
Some people call You "God"
And others, "Holy Mother"...
What do You call Yourself?
I look about our tired and sad little world
And crave a storm of kindness and peace:
Raining flowers of You You and endlessly Us...
February 7, 2023
Well friends, as you can see, this is my first post in a month! This California boy continues to be significantly challenged by these Wisconsin winters! When getting outside to walk is a struggle, my spirit tumbles, my body resists, and my dogs even seem to look up at me with that certain "You've got to be kidding look in their eyes." Today the temperature is around 35 degrees: and, holy moly, but what a difference that makes!
With a spirit that has tumbled down, down, down...
Everything develops the illusionary visage of "impossible": contemplative prayer, meditation, poetry, sacred reading, washing the dishes, sweeping and mopping the floor: and the biggest challenge of all, walking out the front door to do anything... but, don't we all live under the spell of this or that "illusion" -- just to make it through another day? Well, I'm with you. No better. Just another person in another day...
Perhaps this is why Dorothy Day used to affirm: "Perseverance is the greatest of all virtues." Without the gift and grace of perseverance, neither holiness nor wholeness would be possible...
(I have to run out the door now! We have two cars. One might have permanently died. I have to pick up and deliver everyone to their destinations! So, more later...)
(To be continued)...
Last Thursday evening, while driving Rose of Sharon to her dance class, we approached a semi-truck parked on the roadside. As we passed, I saw a Muslim man, likely the driver, kneeling on his prayer rug, head to the ground, having heard, even in the noise of highway and cab, the evening call to prayer. I was wonderfully moved...
This example of adoration, vulnerability, and surrender is the very heart of religion: this is what just might enable that particular leap of faith which can carry one into the very heart of compassion... the arena in which true religion is actualized...
The Celestial Worthy of Primordial Being:
A found Ecstasy in the Breath:
Breathing in -- the Unity -- the One Source...
Breathing out -- the Energy -- the Creative Juice...
Existence / Non-existence both / same
Are within every breath...
Awakening is surrender... just breathe...
September 28, 2022
The forest outside the study window looks to finally be catching onto the idea of autumn: green fading into yellows and reds: blue sky and whisps of cloud above... the day beginning like most others, waking before the 5:00 am alarm, wondering if there is enough time for another sexual encounter (there is), and a quick shower before gathering the school lunch boxes and the business of organizing the morning...
Isn't that a funny way to assume the working of things: the business of organizing the morning. Meanwhile, the truth has already happened: we chose to open our eyes to the splendor of loving another human being... just as we long ago chose to let our loving include children and work: that we also "manage" time in such a way that we can pause, reflect, meditate, communicate, embrace, laugh, and welcome the very obvious grace that continually comes our way... And this, of course, in spite of significant financial struggles, car problems, and just not enough time!
I drive everyone to their appointed school-destinations: one teacher (Montessori), one middle school, and two at the high school (senior year and thriving). And I return home to Gregorian Chant, a mile-or-so walk with the dogs, brownie baking, washing dishes, reading, study, writing, drinking tea while, as my usual, forgetting breakfast. Maybe I'll have lunch. Time flies! Another cup of tea and excitement builds: it's almost time to make the pick-up rounds! I can look forward to cooking pasta, salad and veggies, plant-based protein for dinner... Maybe we'll watch (for about the tenth time) another of our favorite Harry Potter movies)... The "kids" will shower, read, finish homework, and inevitably, someone will pass gas (just like in a monastery) and someone else will stifle a laugh (also just like in a monastery), and our very sacred life is the most ordinary thing in the world...
Dissolving into the Primordial Ecstasy:
Into the breath,
Into the garden,
Into the water,
Into the silence,
Into the music:
Everything fits exceedingly well...
September 29, 2022
One of the "perks" of aging is the nearly inevitable 2:00 am stumble into the bathroom for a pee... and so it was for me last night... and then an hour of rumination... How very incredible it is to even be alive! To have my love curl into me, with her hand on my hip, drifting back into sleep: that, to me, is simply amazing! And I dove, headfirst, into that rumination...
Everything in the Universe is oriented towards coherence. In other words, we (and everything else) are oriented towards connection. An electron, anywhere, is always on the search for a connection, and cannot "rest" until that connection is made: and on and on: every "this" needs a "that".... Even that which appears to be "empty", or "infinite" space is connected by the information of possibilities. Matter happens. Life happens. And not by chance! But by the information of possibilities that infills the Universe-Multiverse-Cosmos.
At 2:30 am all of this takes on the appearance of "wow!" But no sooner had I committed myself to that "wow!", and I jumped right into the metaphysical mystery of loving: how is it possible that any lone electron can cross, what for it would be the equivalent of infinite space, to inevitably find its connecting link in the chain of being? And not a "random" link, but the exact one that it required to fulfill its possibilities! It might be that that link will lead to a new leap on the evolutionary ladder of ever-expanding consciousness...
And so, I drifted back into sleep, still curled by my "electron", into a new morning of blue possibilities...
Jump! Oh jump with delight!
This breath -- any breath -- can be our liberation!
Look! We all stand beneath the very same sky:
This "no difference" is more meaningful
Than most of what passes for "being alive".
Go ahead: disrobe
And see what else will surely fall away...
October 3, 2022
I woke up before 5 to hold Michelle: a prayer, a faith, a hope, and a dream... following a somewhat night of fatigue: every sound coming from our dog seemed to wake me up... listening to Michelle breathe... and the silent-swish of the fan... The Monday morning rush to ready for school... lunches made... talk around the table... driving everyone to school and walking the dogs to the sounds of barking geese. The river green and silent.
No one, besides the dogs and I on the path. I stop to absorb the river green: green like my hope for political silence: I mean, how is it that people / politicians can lie, distort, and manipulate as if the most natural thing in the world? Of course, the Dominator Paradigm requires all of this, if only to confuse folks and so herd us into fake tribes... This isn't the cup of tea that I drink...
Moving on...
How do you pray? I like my tea black with no sugar, and so hot that I can only whisp it through pursed lips. Just like the Psalms. I hate the curse Psalms. But then again, I truly despise liars, big-shot crooks, and killers. Meanness and rudeness get me ready to grab my baseball bat, standing right there by the front door, and take some swings at kneecaps... So, I suppose the Psalms were sung and / or written as much for me as for anyone else...
I especially cherish Nan C. Merrill's Psalms for Praying, An Invitation to Wholeness. Reading her contemplative versions is sort of like going wading in Rumi's poetry: "God" is the Beloved: which is simply sweet: but more, not "sugar" sweet, but sweet with the sweat of passion, humility, devotion, justice, and delight: essential ingredients for contemplative living! And isn't this the only response that is sufficient for the times in which we live?
Force will never change the minds of liars, big-shot crooks, or of killers. There is only one way of moving forward: we have to become the transformation that we hope for the world! We need to find our "companions of the way", we have to meaningfully "tribe", and then we have to make this "rEvolution" so utterly delightful that we can sweep everyone along with us...
Before the beginning, there was the Tao
And in the surprise of wild thought:
"What if?" and "Why not?"
Became the Mother of All Things.
And whoa! Here we all are
And everything else besides! Doesn't this
Knowing make you want to kiss someone?
October 5, 2022
Yesterday was the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi. I chose not to write simply because anything that I wrote, I thought, could not measure up to the grace and beauty of the man... so I let it pass, but not without thinking about it!
How do you pray?
This question is not meant to be "religious" -- although you have likely received it as such. No, the question is about life / living... which means that it is political, it is cultural, indeed, it is rEvolutionary! The truth is, everything that we do is our prayer: it is our life-orientation: it is either "radical" (meaning getting all the way down into the roots of everything), or it is a construct of hoo-ey. Did you read the news today? OPEC is cutting back on oil production in order to raise the price of oil (remember that Biden was in Saudi Arabia just weeks ago). Why the cut back?
Simple. The Saudis understand that Biden is profoundly committed to both democracy and human rights. Why would the Saudis align themselves with a United States that wants to deconstruct their power system in favor of the ideas of democracy and human rights? So, the Saudis are turning towards Russia: a fellow dictator who has no qualms about either wars or brutality against any opposition... Both Italy and Sweden have voted in "neo-fascist" (far Right-Wing) leadership recently. Brazil may continue with their Right-Wing- Destroy-The-Amazon leader in a few weeks...
Democracy, despite the current advances of Ukraine, is facing a hard climb: Trump (and the GOP and the Supreme Court) are about as close to neo-fascism as one can be without hoisting pictures of Hitler: they despise diversity: they merely tolerate races other than white (sit down and shut up): they are always anti-woman: and they don't give a rat's ass about the environment ("Jesus will return when the last tree falls" -- James Watt). Meanwhile, they pretend to be "pro-life" and "Christian"...
How do you pray? You should realize that this is a revolutionary question. To ponder your answer might set you out upon the road to holiness / wholeness... like St. Francis or Dorothy Day...
A lifetime of "busy"
And a stunning field of thoughts and feelings:
But every-once-in-awhile
There comes a wandering insight:
Gratitude could become a summary of everything.
Indeed, thankfulness could become a way of life.
And then, watch: the Door will open of Its own accord...
October 6, 2022
The wind is cold today, as if to insist on the inevitability of Time. I am tired. My back interrupts my thoughts and later my dishwashing. Grief, that same old bugaboo that frequently lurks in the back of my mind, has been different today: a full-frontal attack, for which there is really no defense... only more Time... inevitable inevitability...
Yesterday I pondered "how do you pray" and went off on a personal tirade, likely having to do with my buried grief... nevertheless, it is an important question and thought (and conviction). Occasionally, prayer is something that we "do". But more importantly, prayer is really something that happens to us, and oftentimes, in spite of us. Hence, the idea / need of "getting out of the way"... a sort of Taoist thought.
I recommend (to myself, of course) Benedictine Daily Prayer, A Short Breviary. Following the Liturgy of the Hours, this Benedictine prayer book works as an aid to both centering and forgetfulness: it has less to do with "belief" and more (much more) to do with orientation. As a flower that follows the movement of the sun, this following of the movements of Time (both mundane and sacred), sort of refashions us into the likeness of a simple garden flower, perhaps that of a weed, but still yearning upward, into the Light. The Liturgy of the Hours, an ancient prayer form of the interior life of Christian faith, is perhaps meant specifically and especially for us no-account dandelions...
The Celtic Daily Prayer follows the rhythm of the traditional Liturgy of the Hours, but with the added flavor of the Northumbria Community and the Celtic Saints. It is a deep and rich soil of the living Spirit... And then I add the illuminations of the great Yogi Saint, Paramahansa Yogananda. His books Autobiography of a Yogi and Whispers from Eternity further, and daily, attune the heart to immediacy of the Divine Beloved: especially as the Divine Mother... and I have taken up as a mantra the words of the old "Miraculous Medal": O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to Thee...
Finally, as a "guru" of pages, I turn to the Ram Dass' book Be Love Now. Anyone craving the birth of wisdom in her heart (as I do in mine), Be Love Now is the servant-manual of attunement to the genuine, Eternal Spirit... Couple Be Love Now with the short illuminations of Lao Tzu in the Tao Te Ching and one can seriously (and playfully) partake of the really real permaculture... which is all that really matters, right?
In gratitude
There is no giver
As there is no receiver.
There is only access to the Essence.
Sort of like
Walking the road of your choice
Holding hands and laughing with your Lover.
October 8, 2022
Saturday, a slow sleepy morning, a snuggle of warm bodies, still thrilled by touch and love, now nearly twenty years of wholly-marriage... three beautifuls: our twin boys, and daughter, enjoy the Saturday rest... that eventually yields into our breakfast table... finished, Michelle and I take the dogs for a walk to the river and back home, holding hands as lovers do... Soon after returning home, we decide on a family outing: driving to the Mississippi River, through the multi-colored hills, to an apple orchard where we picnic and merely tolerate the wind that is already cold, carrying the cold thoughts of snow and winter, just around the corner... That we all really like each other is a treasure beyond the mindful touch of words... but certainly a grand prelude to the opening into Holy Mystery...
Holy Mystery: electrons, protons, energy from no-thing into some-thing (s), and into loving-love... whew! The stupendous wonder of it all compels the humble to the knees of their heart, and there to take up residence... Not an easy thing! But the heart! The heart! The Holy Mystery exists, always, as an invitation, as a wintry beckoning into a summer warmth, like a lover's embrace in which there is never a question of "good enough"... Of course, "good enough"! Always, good enough... but the "rubber must yet meet the road"!
This is exactly where intention and practice come into play: prayer, contemplative living, compassion, simplicity, and nonviolence are watch-words: best, and really only practiced, in an intentional community or "tribe"... for me, now, some two thousand miles from California and the seemingly many interested in exploring alternative lifestyles, I'm in Wisconsin... where "alternative" is a forward assault on the hardened limits of the imagination... Still, I wear my long braid of hair, write my poems, and party with electrons, protons, and the Holy Mystery...
What are the burdens that you carry?
Most folks lug around monuments to yesterday.
Me? I still have skyscrapers of suffering
Each one with its own sweet inscription!
I am so proud to have survived!
Uh-oh, my teacher is calling my number:
"Give it up. Chuck it all. Go back to No-Thing."
October 24, 20022
I'm sorry that it's been two weeks since I last wrote... I've been revising my latest book, collecting (as memory allows) more stories of Soledad Street / Dorothy's Place, and mostly, continuing my "studies" of "God"... For those of you who know me, I pretty much try to avoid using the "G" word: it has attached to it way too much crud / doctrines / and judgements... at least, too much for me... Now, I really like Rumi's way of looking at the Holy Mystery of "G". Like "Beloved", "Friend", "Companion of my Heart", and, for those a tad bit bolder (or off the wall!), one could say "Luscious One"...
As to my "studies", here are some of the books I'm reading or re-reading: Science and the Re-enchantment of the Cosmos (Ervin Laszlo), Self-Knowledge (Roy Eugene Davis), Absolute Knowledge that Liberates Consciousness (Roy Eugene Davis), Listening for the Heartbeats of God (J. Philip Newell), The Gift of Rumi (Emily Jane O'Dell), Merton & Sufism (Thomas Merton and Friends), Daughter of Fire (Irina Tweedie), The Essence of Rumi (John Baldock), Paths to God (Ram Dass), The Breath of the Mystic (Fr. George A. Maloney, S.J.), and Awakening -- A Sufi Experience (Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan).
Studies always boil down to practice though! And the core practice stays pretty much the same, regardless of author or religion or scientific background: one might describe it as attention and intention. Attention to the moments, or as Brother Lawrence taught, "practicing the presence of God". As often as not, that means a simple breath-prayer, uttered in silence and dropping into the heart: such as a Divine Name... and then intention means to cultivate an all-pervasive environment of harmony, devotion, and an attitude of surrender / adoration: again, through the breath, into the mind, the limbs, the gut, the legs, and down into the feet: holy, holy, holy art thou: this "no difference" and "Oneness" is the real reality of the quantum vibrations that in-fill the entire Universe in all its parts and beings...
The Celestial Worthy! In every form and motion!
Everything is the Mother giving birth
And Eternal Delight falling upon us like rain!
Giving a heave-ho to my calculations, I saw
The transcendental mystery astoundingly humble!
So, we really can see ourselves exactly as we are:
"Caterpillar Mush" in a very interesting dance...
October 26, 2022
A single candleflame burns in the window of the study: looking out upon the forest beyond, some trees already barren, others with fading yellow and red leaves determined, as it were, to cling to branch and twig, waiting for the certain tear of another wind... Jesus said, years and years ago, that the Kingdom of Heaven is within us... today, again, I am completely flabbergasted by this rEvolutionary proclamation! And completely flabbergasted again that we humans -- especially Christians -- mark our time in life with idiotic endeavors: building monuments to stupidity: endless wars, endless profits, endless exploitation, and endless mindlessness...
O Christian, where art thou? Christianity died when Empire sucked its balls dry and the Beatitude-life became an option only for the crazed monk living in the solitude of her cell or cave: then and only then would / could honesty, integrity, simplicity, and community be possible. And as for the rest of us, we have given centuries over to the Mythologies of Empire: power makes right, wealth makes good, and lies make truth... The still, small, voice of nonviolence, of compassion, service, justice, companionship, and equality is mocked as "wokeness": and hordes of Christians vote for and serve Empire... never even guessing that everything could change in an instant... the instant we begin to adore the Real Reality of the Kingdom of Heaven is within you, and you, and you... on and on and on... endlessly...
Running this way and that, like in
Some sort of wild scavenger hunt:
How will we ever find
That which we are looking for?
But wait, what exactly are we looking for?
What if a single rose in our empty hands
Could put an end to every attachment?
December 1, 2023
I am somewhat surprised that I have sat down with the intention of writing again. Since leaving Dorothy's Place and the families in the migrant farm worker camps in California, the months of November and December have always been one, very long, heartache. My California family is nowhere to be seen... and there is no "real" going back... But isn't that always true? The river that we step into today is not the river from yesterday, nor will today's be the river of tomorrow...
Michelle and I (and thanks be to God) our sons and daughter have each and all a profound sense of justice, equality, and empathy for every other. And the ramifications of this sense by each of us in our daily lives. I've never known anyone with a more heightened sense of justice and equality than Michelle. Our sons have always sought out the "excluded" to include, and the "others" to become friends of theirs. Our daughter, Rose of Sharon, is a member of the "Gay / Straight Alliance" at school, simply as a matter of course: of course! she believes in the absolute dignity and essential equality of every person...
On another page, there is a photo of our "great room" and its continuing evolution into something of a Gertrude Stein Bohemian Salon (not "saloon"). Bookshelves abound: which limits wall space, so paintings now hang on / from the ceiling, along with Frida and Diego (two stuffed animal friends acquired at the Minnesota Zoo... Even though we host a once-a-week Soup Night / Poetry Reading, this is not California where deviancy from the norm was progressive thinking and the challenge of cultural expectations welcomed very much of what was "counter"... Not so in our corner of Wisconsin...
Still, I pray my Benedictine Office, ponder my Northumbrian Community Celtic Prayer Books, read "Quantum Theology", Ram Dass, and World Scriptures: occasionally a poem will pass my way... Say, likely as not, you have not yet purchased my book, "Poems on the Art of Disappearance". At any other point of my life, if I had come across this book in a bookstore, I would have ecstatically brought it home with me! It is all about soul... not that "thing" that we all possess, but the burning spirit which is our true and one essential self... Maybe tomorrow I'll dig out my camera and post a photo of the cover. My friend, artist and philosopher David Ligare, wrote the introduction and contributed the cover copy of a painting of his...
This moment: this moment!
Another chance to praise!
Another chance to say "Thank you!"
Another chance to say "Forgive me!"
Another chance to give it all away!
Ah, to live in such a way that every breath
Becomes a revelation of compassion...
December 24, 2022
I am, thus far at least, surviving this Christmas Season... my California heartache continues, as it does every day, unabated... but, oh, the sweetness and delight that flows to me from Michelle and our three beautifuls... blessings within blessings... You know, the Beatitudes are presented, not so much as a reward system, but as a Way... and to say that it is as wayfarers that we live is a sign of soul-heart orientation... and that, too, means something...
If you give much attention to the language and conversations in spiritual circles, you have likely heard the word "nondualism". It's essential meaning is the mystic conviction of "not two, not two"... This is important. You see, we are all, for the most part, enculturated through awareness of differences: we identify and define and understand our experienced reality through differences: obvious core ones are male / female, good / bad, true / untrue, us / them, and so on. Every identified difference enables us to "make our way in the world". Differences, even those that merely scratch the surface, serve a base purpose.
However, as per usual, in both spiritual and scientific terms, there is more to the story. Science now confirms the reality of the mystics: matter is energy. That which we all perceive as this or that, are the varied vibrations -- possibilities as either wave or particle -- but all suffused with energy and information. The ancient Indian Vedantists named it Sat Chit Ananda -- Being, Knowledge, and Bliss. This is the Oneness which is the Really Real and which is both the within and the without of the Universe / Cosmos. "Being" is the Absolute without distinctions; "Knowledge" is the wisdom of the vibratory Word / Structure of all the manifested universe; and "Bliss" is the Will to Be Loving-in-Action... This Holy Trinity doesn't sit in an antiseptic corner of the Universe. Rather, it is the Universe: the I Am before-during-and-after the Big Bang...
Now, this is the Big "therefore". Everyone and All Things have within, as "soul" or "essence", the imprinted potential and capacity to mediate Sat Chit Ananda... "All things sacramentally exist in the sacred, and the sacred sacramentally exists in all things" writes Hans Gustafson (Finding All Things in God). Or, as Jesus said, the Kingdom of Heaven is within you. It's over there and it's in here: there is nowhere where it is not, there is neither person nor thing in which it is not... Christmas is, on the one hand, a celebration of a cultural and spiritual remembrance of the Birth of Jesus. But on a deeper level, Christmas is the paradise possibilitarian awakening into the always-present, nonduality, of the Kingdom of Heaven hungry for our beatitude lives of exploration...
What about this mystery that I call "me"?
Shall I tell you the truth?
I am circles within circles:
Circling all the way down and through
With a secret identity as "Caterpillar Mush".
When I stop pretending to be "someone",
There will be a big party celebrating forgetting "me"!
January 3, 2023
Chuang Tzu tells us of Lieh Tzu that after his illumination by Hu Tzu, he ... concluded that he never really begun to learn anything. He went home and for three years did not go out. He replaced his wife at the stove, fed the pigs as though he were feeding people, and showed no preferences in the things he did. He got rid of the carving and polishing and returned to plainness... In the midst of entanglement he remained sealed, and in this oneness he ended his life. -- Andrew Harvey, The Return of the Mother
Greetings Friends! I'm back on the trail again! A freezing rain is falling as I look out the study window, but my heart is warm: one dog is sleeping next to me, while the other is out in the living room... "Ave Maria" is playing on the music box... There is an inevitable element of obscurity in both writing poetry and in contemplative prayer. I'm reminded of this line from Emily Dickinson, "The earth was made for lovers..." This is of deep, deep, importance. We can only lean into the essential obscurity of our lives to the degree that we embrace the Holy Trinity of Love, Lover, and Loving...
There be "movers and shakers" about the world: but the one task that is ours is to lean into this Holy Trinity... I look up and out the window, the freezing rain of minutes ago has turned into a swiftly falling snow... The dog snores and I ponder... The quote above from Andrew Harvey's book is the height of Taoist illumination (and might add of any life of any real faith): few of us are "movers and shakers", but all of us can re-create our lives in our unique dimension of obscurity, into an awakening into the only thing that matters: becoming love, lover, and loving...
Elements of this "becoming love" are sort of what we might teach any child going out onto a playground: "Be kind! Play fair! and look out for the other kids!" As we delve deeper into the Mystery of Cosmic Consciousness alive in our mind-heart, this living compassion can become our animating passion (gently, gently)... Of course, for the child coming in from the playground with tears in his eyes, we will gently ask what happened with encouragement to "tell the truth". This "telling the truth", is the sometimes-forgotten sign of a living faith, and a forgotten civilizing requirement in the world of politics and culture. Isn't it time to practice this essential remembrance?
Seriously, how can we invoke the Holy Name of the Divine Beloved if we don't always tell the truth? Or worse, if we have forgotten how to tell the difference between truth and a lie?
We are the whole shebang!
And here we go wanting riches and fame!
We are the entire earth and sky!
We are the planets and distant stars!
We are the air that every creature breathes!
And we are even the offerings of the faithful:
So why do we settle for being "misery" instead?
January 6, 2023
My chapbook The Jewel in the Lotus had the subtitle Homage to the Celestial Worthy of Primordial Being. This is important. In my yogic-taoist-celtic search for that which is called "God", like everyone else I stumble upon "names": yet, the Primordial Mystery is exactly that! Primordial Mystery is before human thought, human definitions, human cultures, and obviously, before human religions: however much any religion might claim a unique access point (revelation) to "knowing"... and that of "knowing" becoming "fact", we are off the mark... perhaps near, but still hooked on human interpretations of that which is primordial: before thought, before word, and before Being (at least any "being" that in any way could be defined)... this is elemental mysticism...
Admittedly, the mystical is the cup of tea for few people (this doesn't, though, make the mystic any more special than anyone else). Nevertheless, ancient religion (every religion) is rooted in the mystical, in the shamanistic trance-access to hidden dimensions of universal consciousness. That "thread" can be likened today to the word / idea / awakening of wisdom. Again, today's mystic-shaman is not "special", but perhaps, is instead "touched" or better, "felled" by an unbidden rush of primordial grace... Everything hums with consciousness (apparently divided into multitudes of both things and beings), but deeper, it is all energy-information-consciousness undivided Oneness... Life and the transition of death are not two separate "things": both are revelations of access points to the Primordial Mystery / Oneness... In still other words, every human being has been endowed with a life which is always an access point to the Primordial Mystery: that which Jesus called the Kingdom of Heaven...
Be a mystic-shaman intent upon Oneness...
The opposite of Oneness is neither divisions nor multitudes. Both division and multitude are but the appearance or physical manifestation of Energy-Consciousness. Rather, the opposite of Oneness is erasure: the willed intent to cause harm and to deny the place of existence for another being or beings. The drive of erasure is now nearly everywhere. Predatory capitalism, at its unconscious-root, is the willed attempt to erase the right of Earth-life to exist. Warring states will the erasure of opponents / other free or independent states. The lying would permanently erase the truth. The internet invites users to "block", or erase, persons whom they dislike or have a cultivated hatred of. Families themselves are likewise culturally invited to "erase" their members who "march to the tune of a different drummer"...
Much to my dismay and heartbreak, I have experienced "erasure" from persons and places I have loved deeply and truly...
Years and years ago, in a moment of stunning primordial grace and surrender, I redefined my life as / into I just want to love... I shouldn't have been surprised by the firestorm that redefinition caused (nevertheless, I was). Still, I survived and pressed "forward" into consequences and re-creations: which is exactly how the Universe works. Ultimately, though, nothing is lost. It's all Energy seeking its own reflection of Light: and we are That! The trick now is to steadily advance into the proximity of possibilities: there is only One Reality: we can meld our unique, individual, light-life-energy into the Primordial Dance: we can steadily practice our surrender into the Divine Qualities of Beauty, Harmlessness, and Compassion...
Erasure is not the path of the awakening mystic-shaman. Rather, it is resurrection... the Kingdom of Heaven is within you / all of us...
What is Your name?
Some people call You "God"
And others, "Holy Mother"...
What do You call Yourself?
I look about our tired and sad little world
And crave a storm of kindness and peace:
Raining flowers of You You and endlessly Us...
February 7, 2023
Well friends, as you can see, this is my first post in a month! This California boy continues to be significantly challenged by these Wisconsin winters! When getting outside to walk is a struggle, my spirit tumbles, my body resists, and my dogs even seem to look up at me with that certain "You've got to be kidding look in their eyes." Today the temperature is around 35 degrees: and, holy moly, but what a difference that makes!
With a spirit that has tumbled down, down, down...
Everything develops the illusionary visage of "impossible": contemplative prayer, meditation, poetry, sacred reading, washing the dishes, sweeping and mopping the floor: and the biggest challenge of all, walking out the front door to do anything... but, don't we all live under the spell of this or that "illusion" -- just to make it through another day? Well, I'm with you. No better. Just another person in another day...
Perhaps this is why Dorothy Day used to affirm: "Perseverance is the greatest of all virtues." Without the gift and grace of perseverance, neither holiness nor wholeness would be possible...
(I have to run out the door now! We have two cars. One might have permanently died. I have to pick up and deliver everyone to their destinations! So, more later...)
(To be continued)...