Friday, November 29, 2013

Stories


Stories

These are told
And they become
Who we are..
Often entangling
Or imprisoning..
What if we
Bring them all
Into our fireplace
And allow the
Rising fire
To re-create..
Stories become
New freedom 
unfolding...

Of relations


Of relations

Everything out there
Is ready made to
Speak of relations..
But the world
Has been pulled
Over our eyes..
With in-sight
Say the sages
We might peel
The wool away
And Eye
A new world
Of relations...

Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Thanksgiving


Thanksgiving

For our abundance
Which we elevate today
We give thanks..
But also sensing
Our lingering hunger 
And longing
Whether rich or poor
We are all there..
Standing and waiting
For real abundance
On a renewed 
Thanksgiving Day…!

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Sacred geometry


Sacred geometry

in progress

A healing



A healing

Pavement at sundown
wears snowmelt sand..
Quiet and empty
until one vehicle
tires and sand
their special crunch
cut a crevice
in Quiet space..
Then in passing
fading in distance
Quiet once more
swallowed the crunch
healed the crevice...

Monday, November 25, 2013

To suppose that the eye….. Charles Darwin





"To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of Spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree. When it was first said that the sun stood still and the world turned round, the common sense of mankind declared the doctrine false; but the old saying of Vox populi, vox Dei ["the voice of the people = the voice of God "], as every philosopher knows, cannot be trusted in science. Reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a simple and imperfect eye to one complex and perfect can be shown to exist, each grade being useful to its possessor, as is certain the case; if further, the eye ever varies and the variations be inherited, as is likewise certainly the case; and if such variations should be useful to any animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, should not be considered as subversive of the theory."
---Charles Darwin

The season's light


The season's light

These celebrating weeks
Offer the settings
For an overcast
A dark concealing
Of the season's light..

Busyness and buying
Small concerns compound
Webs of chaos attach
As a virus
To the season's light..

Fortunate is she
While boxed and bound
Finds that moment
Unexpected quiet glimpse
Of the season's light..

Perhaps this footnote:
A paradoxical gratitude
For that chaos
Her viral entryway
To the season's light...

Sunday, November 24, 2013

sitting and moving


sitting and moving

these simple states
offer their essence..
a cycling
mature and youth
above and below
dance and sorrow..
ever transforming
one to other..
by this
for this
we came..
through this
we depart...

false ground (John O'Donohue)


“You have traveled too fast over false ground;
Now your soul has come to take you back.

Take refuge in your senses, open up
To all the small miracles you rushed through.

Become inclined to watch the way of rain
When it falls slow and free.

Imitate the habit of twilight,
Taking time to open the well of color
That fostered the brightness of day.

Draw alongside the silence of stone
Until its calmness can claim you.” 
― John O'Donohue

Saturday, November 23, 2013

live as butterfly


live as butterfly

landing softly
on every-thing
solid or thought
soon lifting off
winging as wave
touching higher
dimension..
glimpsing now
a new home
in Wholeness...

Unfolding


Unfolding


“Unfinished Poem
I would love to live like a river flows, carried by the surprise of its own unfolding.” 
― John O'Donohue

Friday, November 22, 2013

Dallas 50


Dallas 50

Our remembering today
Of that day and days..
Slaying and blood
Drenching the media..
Loss was personal
Tears were deep
Shared with many..
Shadow appearance on
A national soul..
Yet the shadow
Briefly edged unity
For many enduring
On that day...

Thursday, November 21, 2013

chill coming


chill coming

cold front near
evergreens sense chill
waving in dark..
imagining
becoming
one evergreen
those branches
needles..
bracing
for chill...

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

incarnation


incarnation

re-incarnation
speaks of re-peating
getting things right..
better it seems
each is unique
in collective whole:
each is new
first time arrival
new beginning
 new image
and Whole...



Trailhead


Trailhead

the beginning
a cosmic form
issuing from 
this place..
head then body
climbs and curves
rock and water..
the ending feet
as the head
remembered..
a trail and
a universe
unfurled...

Emptiness


Emptiness

a fearful state
looking for loss
no-thing there
annihilation 
of all known..
avoidance most say
protects a self..
yet many find
there remains a
longing..
and that which
is longed for
resides in that
emptiness fled..
once more
approach we must
to discover at last
a simple joy
filling our being...

Monday, November 18, 2013

Experience


Experience


in progress







Experiential Knowing


Mysticism is when God’s presence becomes experiential and undoubted for a person. You can see a kind of courage and self-confidence in the mystics. That puts them in an extraordinary category. Most of us believe things because our churches tell us to believe them and we don’t want to be disobedient members of the church so we say “I believe,” as we do in the Nicene or Apostle’s creed.
A mystic doesn’t say “I believe.” They say “I know.” A true mystic will ironically speak with that self-confidence but at the same time with a kind of humility. So when you see that combination of calm self-confidence, certitude, and humility all at the same time you have the basis for mysticism in general. The only things we know at any deep and real level are the things we have personally experienced. Creedal belief, however, holds onto us until we have that experience! This is an important distinction, and why we need creeds as well. Each generation and person cannot start at zero.  Richard Rohr
~ Adapted from an unpublished conference recording in Assisi, Italy, May 2012

Stretch



Stretch

in progress

dwell in possibility


dwell in possibility

in progress

Sunday, November 17, 2013

nothing to argue about


nothing to argue about

arguments 
never ceasing in 
our dimension..
unwillingness asserts
no allowance for
elevated convergence..
hidden fears that
elevation will find
that each is
rooted in nothing..
yet no-thing is
partner of both
and ready to 
wave downward
a new argument
cleansed and polished
with invitation to
elevate again...

Saturday, November 16, 2013

when we are autumn



when we are autumn

autumn sunlight
finds its colors with
 shades of resistance..
and in the leaves
 we find our mirror..
reflecting gold meets
 resistant green..
 with summer memories
 green knows now
darkness comes soon..
gold feels a thread
from next spring..
these leaves are we
our gold and green
when we are autumn…

for E Rose





Friday, November 15, 2013

eye contact


eye contact

conversations
quite often are
words inflected
delineations
hand motions
shapes shown
directions pointed..
but there is
that something more:
contact and break
sameness in contact
freedom and identity
in break..
break is departure
for a moment
a difference locating..
then a return
restoring of same
with new energy..
gaze and break
ingredients of
illusive dialogue...

Thursday, November 14, 2013

Beginning


BEGINNING 

Why is it so difficult to take that first, necessary, close-in, courageous step to reclaiming our happiness in life? Perhaps, because taking that step leads to a kind of radical internal simplification, where, suddenly, large parts of us, parts of us we have kept gainfully employed for years, often rehearsing the old story, are suddenly out of a job. There occurs in effect, a form of internal corporate downsizing, where the parts of us that do not wish to participate or have nothing now to offer are let go, with all of the accompanying death-like trauma, and where the last fight occurs, a rear guard disbelief that this new, less complicated self, is all that is needed for the new possibilities ahead. It is always hard to believe that the courageous step is so close to us, that it is closer than we ever could imagine, that in fact, we already know what it is, and that the step is simpler, more radical than we had thought: which is why we so often prefer the story to be more complicated, our identities clouded by fear and the answer safely in the realm of impossibility.

From the upcoming
Readers Circle Essay Series II
“Beginning”
David Whyte

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Beginner's Mind



STRETCH…November 18th, 2013

The importance of nonsense hardly can be overstated. The more clearly we experience something as “nonsense,” the more clearly we are experiencing the boundaries of our own self-imposed cognitive structures. “Nonsense” is that which does not fit into the prearranged patterns which we have superimposed on reality. There is no such thing as “nonsense” apart from a judgmental intellect which calls it that.
True artists and true physicists know that nonsense is only that which, viewed from our present point of view, is unintelligible. Nonsense is nonsense only when we have not yet found that point of view from which it makes sense.
In general, physicists do not deal in nonsense. Most of them spend their professional lives thinking along well-established lines of thought. Those scientists who establish the established lines of thought, however, are those who do not fear to venture boldly into nonsense, into that which any fool could have told them is clearly not so. This is the mark of the creative mind; in fact, this is the creative process.

Gary Zukav, The Dancing Wu Li Masters 

Einstein and Consciousness



Pillar STRETCH on Monday
November 18th, 2013

MacKenzie Place
(Union and Fillmore)
4:00 PM to 6:00 PM

Media and discussion on:

"Einstein and Consciousness"

"I want to know how God created this world. I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thoughts; the rest are details."

"Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind."

"My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind."

Facilitator:  Charles Coon


Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Einstein's gift



Einstein's gift

They are called
special and general
and these still
stretch our 
comprehension..
Now in evening
he speaks to each:
Important he says
is simply You..
Your observing
unique and relative
reaches untold
importance..
Theirs does too..
Then he says
here's my Truth:
all that gravity
energy and things
are only curves
in that dimension
space-time my name..
From this plateau
we can return
to our gravity
energy and things..
Knowing now of
our lives as
Light...






Sunday, November 10, 2013

dialogue disturbed


dialogue disturbed

A community gathering
with a calm surface
erupted of a sudden
to an external
stimulation..
a visiting speaker
uncovered it seemed
sharp hidden dualities..
these dualities flared
left brains fired
and a fragile dialogue
was disturbed..
Also fragile were
searches for identity
self searching for Self
awakening on hold..
A microcosm of life
in our time…?



Friday, November 8, 2013

Nonsense



Nonsense

from this uncluttered
ground..
a child's clear sight
sprang two relations
brand new
changing our world
after centuries of
exalted common sense..

born again



born again

My daughter he said
is a born again..
What in its depth
does this phrase
oft repeated mean..?
A crucial first
question seems to be:
Is the utterance coming
from a place of 
 self-awareness
with energy exchange..
An alignment with
perennial experience..
Another routing:
a belief formulation
of external birth
which  awaits arrival
of new bearings..
Where are you
dear daughter in
sprouting new life…?






Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Honesty



    HONESTY is reached through the doorway of grief and loss. Where we cannot go in our mind, our memory, or our body is where we cannot be straight with another, with the world, or with our self. The fear of loss, in one form or another, is the motivator behind all conscious and unconscious dishonesties: all of us are afraid of loss, in all its forms, all of us, at times, are haunted or overwhelmed by the possibility of a disappearance, and all of us therefore, are one short step away from dishonesty. Every human being dwells intimately close to a door of revelation they are afraid to pass through. Honesty lies in understanding our close and necessary relationship with not wanting to hear the truth. The ability to speak the truth is as much the ability to describe what it is like to stand in trepidation at this door, as it is to actually go through it and become that beautifully honest spiritual warrior, equal to all circumstances, we would like to become. Honesty is not the revealing of some foundational truth that gives us power over life or another or even the self, but a robust incarnation into the unknown unfolding vulnerability of existence, where we acknowledge how powerless we feel, how little we actually know, how afraid we are of not knowing and how astonished we are by the generous measure of loss that is conferred upon even the most average life. Honesty is grounded in humility and indeed in humiliation, and in admitting exactly where we are powerless. Honesty is not found in revealing the truth, but in understanding how deeply afraid of it we are. To become honest is in effect to become fully and robustly incarnated into powerlessness. Honesty allows us to live with not knowing. We do not know the full story, we do not know where we are in the story; we do not know who is at fault or who will carry the blame in the end. Honesty is not a weapon to keep loss and heartbreak at bay, honesty is the outer diagnostic of our ability to come to ground in reality, the hardest attainable ground of all, the place where we actually dwell, the living, breathing frontier where there is no realistic choice between gain or loss. David Whyte from Readers' Circle Essay, "Honesty" ©2013 David @[213407562018588:274:David Whyte] PHOTO: ©DW Buckland Wood. cotswolds England.

    Just feel this



    Just feel this

    A photo of
    symmetry and light
    contrasting dark figure..
    Explanation, even this
    would destroy
    the incoming spell..
    We must then
    sink into the
    lighted core...


    Just feel this…  Gregg Braden on Facebook

    The torus path

    Truth Of Mysticism & Sufism
    Take one step away from yourself and— behold!—the Path!

    - ABÛ SA‘ÃŽD IBN ABÃŽ-L-KHAYR


    Sunday, November 3, 2013

    Between


    Between

    This signpost may point
    to the place where joy resides..
    A knife edge
     found at daybreak and sunset
    with oppositional guides as
    not earth and not sky
    a superposition science says..
    An intention with poise
    may find this sacred edge
    with exhilaration and healing..
    There arguments are stilled
    a place of oneness marked
    with a glint of light...


    SECRETS of the LOST MODE of PRAYER

    “The mystery and possibilities of the space that connects two events has long been honored in the wisdom traditions of our past. Native traditions of North America, for example, state that two times each day the earth enters into precisely such mystical realms. We find one realm immediately after the sun disappears below the horizon, just before the darkness of night arrives. The second realm occurs just before the sun reappears from the edge of the sky, after the darkest part of the night.
    “Both are twilight moments—neither completely day nor completely night. It is during this time, the traditions suggest, that an opening occurs in which profound truths may be realized, deep healings may occur, and prayers have their greatest power." pages 91-92, SECRETS of the LOST MODE of PRAYER, Gregg Braden








    Reaching


    Reaching

    Writing those words
    of poetry
    we are advised
    to surround them
    with silence..
    We acknowledge then
    that no word
    performs alone
    but with silence
    surrounding
    our words reach
    for more...

    Friday, November 1, 2013

    As Kingfishers Catch Fire (Gerard Manley Hopkins)


    “As Kingfishers Catch Fire

    As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
    As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
    Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's
    Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
    Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
    Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
    Selves -- goes itself; _myself_ it speaks and spells,
    Crying _What I do is me: for that I came_.

    I say more: the just man justices;
    Keeps grace: that keeps all his goings graces;
    Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is --
    Christ. For Christ plays in ten thousand places,
    Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
    To the Father through the features of men's faces.” 
    ― Gerard Manley Hopkins