Thursday, September 25, 2014

Impatience


Impatience

In our seeming
to always react
to force our issues
to strike a rock:
Impatience..
We lose sight
of Direct knowing
that dissolves all
 issues burning Now
in Direct light..
in this joy
creation is cleansed
as new issues
are readied...

Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Fluctuation


Fluctuation

as autumn dawns
 her Friend in
 simultaneous departure
and these words
arise from white
naming cooler sun
 shrinking days and
 shimmering leaves to
accompany her Friend
in one fluctuation
of season's end
and beginning...

a blue heron's departure...




Stipend


Stipend

this arbitrary word
from morning news
a gifted sum 
for youthful prowess
on competition fields
an early reward
with expectations of
future victories
 massages for egos
youth and school
each and all..
a new question
for our time:
will the gifted stipend
assist in locating
as life lengthens
a true Self...







Monday, September 22, 2014

Time...fixed and flow (SAND Conference)



“Time no longer appears to us as a gigantic, world-dominating chronos, nor as a primitive entity, but as something derived from phenomena themselves. It is a figment of my thinking.”
—Schrödinger, Erwin.


If you were to stand outside the universe—outside both space and time—and look at your life, you would see your birth, your death and every moment in between laid out as distinct points. From this angle, time does not flow, but is static and fixed.

This view of the universe may seem strange, but for many physicists, it is the one that best suits the current theories of space and time, such as Einstein’s theory of general relativity. In this block universe—as it’s called—past, present and future are all individual points. And our perception of time flowing from the past towards the future is only an illusion.

Some physicists, though, are not comfortable relegating time to the backwaters of physics, and are attempting to reconcile our perception of flowing time with the equations that describe the universe.

In order to bring meaning back to the “now” of our lives, these saviors of time have turned to quantum physics, which says that the future isn’t set until we measure a quantum object—at which point its state becomes fixed.

Viewed this way, we live on the leading edge of a growing block universe, with future possibilities coming into existence every time we take measurements. So each “now” determines the future, a future that is always just beyond our reach.

Not all physicists agree, though. For some, just because we don’t know what the future will be, it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist—any more than not knowing what’s on the other side of a building means that nothing is there. And other physicists think that each “now” leads to multiple universes—the so-called “many worlds” scenario.

In the end, though, this disconnect between physics and our perception of flowing time could just be a matter of psychology. You create the appearance of movement by thinking that the “you” reading this article is the same self that ate breakfast this morning or went running yesterday.

But in fact, all those selves are distinct, each one existing at a different point in time—which you could see simultaneously if you stepped outside of the universe. It’s only when your mind ties all these separate selves together that time starts to flow, much like flipping through the frames of an animated movie.

- See more at: http://www.scienceandnonduality.com/the-flow-of-time-in-a-timeless-universe/#sthash.zqo7FsQc.dpuf

Discharge your loyal soldier...(Richard Rohr)


Discharge your loyal soldier...

Paradoxically, your loyal soldier gives you so much security and validation that you may confuse his voice with the very voice of God. If this inner and critical voice has kept you safe for many years as your inner voice of authority, you may end up not being able to hear the real voice of God. (Please read that sentence again for maximum effect!) The loyal soldier is the voice of all your early authority figures. His or her ability to offer shame, guilt, warnings, boundaries, and self-doubt is the gift that never stops giving. Remember, it can be a feminine voice too; but it is not the “still, small voice” of God that gives us our power instead of always taking our power. 
This kind of closure is much needed at the end of all major transitions in life. Because we have lost the sense of the need for such rites of passage, most people have no clear crossover to the second half of their own lives, and remain stuck and trapped in early identities and personas. I wonder if this is not one reason for the high incidence of “Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder,” or PTSD, in our country today. Most are trying to live a human life with an unhealed soldier dragging them down.
--Richard Rohr, Falling Upward

QUESTIONS:

1. Can you name your loyal soldier?
2. What is your soldier trying to protect or shelter?
3. Is there a parallel with the elder brother in the Prodigal Son parable?
4. What kind of ritual might you devise to discharge your loyal soldier?
5. How will you celebrate the "death of the false self and the...birth of the soul"?

Sunday, September 21, 2014

Her Model Rail


Her Model Rail

Her passion
is this model
and it springs from
the gifts of
a family lineage...
A town is born
from the laying
of tracks..
A black coal freighter
circles and passes
through dark tunnels
and sunny flowers..
She reminds us
of our roots
in the West
our seeking 
and gathering
making a Nation...

---by Charles Coon
for
Margaret


How surely gravity's law (Rilke)


II, 16

How surely gravity's law,
strong as an ocean current,
takes hold of even the strongest thing
and pulls it toward the heart of the world.

Each thing -
each stone, blossom, child -
is held in place.
Only we, in our arrogance,
push out beyond what we belong to
for some empty freedom.

If we surrendered
to earth's intelligence
we could rise up rooted, like trees.

Instead we entangle ourselves
in knots of our own making
and struggle, lonely and confused.

So, like children, we begin again
to learn from the things,
because they are in God's heart;
they have never left him.

This is what the things can teach us:
to fall,
patiently to trust our heaviness.
Even a bird has to do that
before he can fly.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke ~


(Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God,
translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy)

Saturday, September 20, 2014

Rails


Rails

our train follows
rails of departure
and of destination..
We see countrysides
of beauty and blur
and midway
a whistle and stop
with a jog of truth:
our Destination
relies not on rails
but on a
Stop...

Hillside Space


Hillside Space

Stopping by a hillside
bathed and shadowed
by late summer sun..
a breeze rustling and
birds flights penciled
quick paths by their
 immediate quests
for new location..
all this and the
trove of unseen:
 afternoon coloring
of my space of
Awareness...

Friday, September 19, 2014

Smoke






















Smoke

Light-winged smoke, Icarian bird,
Melting thy pinions in thy upward flight,
Lark without song, and messenger of dawn,
Circling above the hamlets as thy nest;
Or else, departing dream, and shadowy form
Of midnight vision, gathering up thy skirts;
By night star-veiling, and by day
Darkening the light blotting out the sun;
Go thou my incense upward from this hearth,
And ask the Gods to pardon this clear flame.

---Henry David Thoreau

A Giant Black Hole


A Giant Black Hole

Talk about big things coming in little packages! Astronomers using data from the Hubble Space Telescope say they've discovered a ginormous black hole within one of the tiniest galaxies known to exist.

The supermassive black hole is about five times more massive than the one at the center of the Milky Way, but the dwarf galaxy in which it was found--known to astronomers as M60-UCD1--is about 500 times smaller than our own galaxy, according to NASA.

Tension


Tension

the artist finds
what seemed empty 
 a discovered field
from which flows
her own presentation..
knowing truth now
because of the
exhilaration of flow
there arises 
an arresting tension
a need to share
a need to remain..



Tuesday, September 16, 2014

September light


September light

 cooler autumn sunlight
shines through the colors
of summer leaves
with endings in sight..
endings which wrap
and proclaim definition
to bright sun's
diffusing rays...

Monday, September 15, 2014

The Red Boat


The Red Boat

Our morning inquiry
asks when are we
finally to see 
we are waves in
an ocean of waves..
until this inquiry
we love to reside
in our red boat
as red separates 
from deep blue..
is it today
or does our boat
need a fresh coat
morning brushings
 red glossy re-new..
awaiting then
 another morning's
inquiry and invite...

Sunday, September 14, 2014

We are walked


We are walked

reaching the trailhead
a decision made
seemed sudden
not timebound..
little sunlight remained
but something energized
a decision to 
enter the trail
to reach the end
before darknight fell..
the original plan
was otherwise
rendering this decision
as a surprise..
does Awakening work
in this simple way:
enough of planning
charting and maps
no more procedures
and books to follow..
the Now decides
and we are walked...

Friday, September 12, 2014

A simple Question


A simple Question

Experience Awareness
which is pure
only aware of itself..
Itself is the mitigated
constrictions
inside no-thing-ness
from which life below
iterates and flows..
 a simple Question:
Am I aware? 
with a pause then
response of yes
gives a taste of
that Awareness
what is right here
and Now...

Evolution


Evolution

when I saw
in a photo
of a dog
named Amber
a look both
forlorn and 
penetrating
I set aside
my reading
to consider:
what is new
about this dog..?
is there more
here than I
saw in my
boyhood dog
Joe..?
or was Joe
a partner of
my self
in separation
preparing for
days of conflict
and growth..?
Joe ran and
chased and
our laughter rose..
now in silence
 pause and notice
Amber's gaze
reaches back
stirring memories
and two dogs
perhaps just one
now mirrors my
own evolution...


Tuesday, September 9, 2014

Chihuly's slant


Chihuly's slant

his glassworks 
of enflaming color
do not display as
central balance..
vertical symmetry
reserved for more
sturdy times..
we might ask
is truth best told
as slant
 Emily so in-formed..
the creation we muse
is always slant
slant color shading light.. 
for without color
beauty fades...

Tell all the truth but tell it slant —
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind —
Emily Dickinson

Monday, September 8, 2014

The Beyond Within




Soul Link Retreat
The Beyond Within: Realizing the Nearness of God

In our culture, as in many others, the word ‘God’ usually conjures up images of a Supreme Being, someone (male) somewhere else (heaven) who may or may not – for reasons beyond our comprehension – intervene in response to our prayers. This notion of the divine no longer makes sense for a growing number of people many of whom have thrown out the baby with the bathwater; that is, they reject all belief in God. Quaker mystic Rufus Jones coined the phrase “the beyond within” in reference to God understood as a reality whose presence is omnipresent. The mystery to which the word ‘God’ refers is both unfathomable and knowable, “out of this world” and the essence of it. (The photo comes from Rufus Jones' birthplace in Maine.)

Our retreat will offer the opportunity to reflect on our experiences/images/ concepts/beliefs about God   and to share them with others who are seeking a meaningful way to relate to their Higher/Inner Power.
Date: September 20, 2014
Place: Broadmoor Community Church (315 Lake Ave.)
Time: 9 a.m. (registration), 9:30 a.m.-2 p.m. (retreat)
Cost: $30 early registration (by Sept. 16), $35 at the door. Lunch included.

Scholarships available. Information: Tom Stella (719) 648-3939 

Afternoon, Before Beethoven's Missa Solemnis (Rainer Maria Rilke)


Let yourself not be misled by the notes
that fall to you from the generous wind.

Wait watchfully. Hands that are eternal
may come to play upon your strings.

Early Journals

Sunday, September 7, 2014

Not Two


Not Two

we have always
searched and found 
Two..
but in our age
Advaita is rising..
rising with questions
what where and when
attempts to locate
that illusive "I"..
the mind explores
in familiar haunts
but energy flags..
this good news:
the search failed
not finding
is finding..
and the prize
Not Two...

a response on

Hello Poetry website:





Yes, very much Charles
now the physicists say that the universe is a projection like hologram, in fact two dimensional, like the world we see
within a TV program, but the resolution is so fine to create
the illusion.What does it mean?In one moment the universe could be switched off(no burden of removing the debris!)
So all we see is the projection of one real source, located in eternity.. there is no two..one continuous flow of consciousness, that has no beginning or end..
Just imagine the poetic beauty of it..everything is one eternal present moment...God,human and every other imaginable/unimaginable thing roll in to one..
Thank you Charles

K Balachandran
Bala

dialogue


dialogue

those many conversations
both cool and heated
are usually made
of flying assumptions
clashing words
never gaining entry
to dialogue's pantry..
how crucial
for all conversants
to have discovered
dialogue only blooms
after awakening
of each to her
real Self
a Self which
is most simply
not-two...

an earlier question
Who am I?
now asks
Who are We?



Saturday, September 6, 2014

Chihuly's perspective


In 1976, while Chihuly was in England, he was involved in a head-on car accident during which he flew through the windshield. His face was severely cut by glass and he was blinded in his left eye. After recovering, he continued to blow glass until he dislocated his right shoulder in a 1979 bodysurfing accident. No longer able to hold the glass blowing pipe, he hired others to do the work. Chihuly explained the change in a 2006 interview, saying "Once I stepped back, I liked the view" and pointing out that it allowed him to see the work from more perspectives and enabled him to anticipate problems faster. Chihuly describes his role as "more choreographer than dancer, more supervisor than participant, more director than actor."

Chihuly's perspective

His tragic accidents
forced altered perspectives
an artist learned
what we all must learn..
our view below
midst suffering and doubt
and violent color
need be shifted
to higher context..
then to realize
Knowing itself
is our home...



Friday, September 5, 2014

the street


the street

the logic of the street
is the truth we know
as we trod each day anew..
 reliable and safe 
 our footsteps pace and meet..
there are words written
with those street scenes
certainty in street location..
street cultures abound
with loyal street citizens..
religions of the street
attempt to save
out there on the street..
and we dismiss at our loss
the streets we have walked..
yet we now see 
the street with its ends..
how frightening...!

Laniakea


Until now, the Milky Way was believed to be one galaxy in the 2,000 that make up what's known as the Virgo "supercluster." But as the new map shows, the Milky Way's 100 billion stars are actually part of something 100 times bigger: a supercluster of galaxies astronomers have christened Laniakea, meaning "immense heavens" in the Hawaiian language.


Laniakea

this hawaiian dream
of a feathery supercluster
connecting strands of light..
one feather for now
but is this one
of one bird
in one flock..
our minds wander
and weaken
no answer there
Who am I...?





Thursday, September 4, 2014

Here and There


Here and There

searching for meaning
here and there..
we seem to assume
meaning not inhabiting
that vast geography
between here and there..
with dissatisfaction rising
a risk is taken
to look with care
in this no man's land..
and startling it is
to find something
as same with a
new birth of difference..
and another shock:
here and there 
are not
here and there
anymore...

Wednesday, September 3, 2014

Levels


Levels

differences
which we encounter
in this separate world
may be a waking..
as suffering suffices
we ask finally
about our lives
on this our level..
just the asking
may be a tripwire
with a fall and shock
we live on an elevator..
and stuck we are
on bottom level #1..
in bottoming pain
a discovery shines
here and now:
a simplicity switch
labeled..UP...

Monday, September 1, 2014

Just to sit


"Just to sit, without expectation, with someone who is in pain or grief or fear, without trying to fix them in any way, or manipulate their experience to match your idea of how they should be; just to listen, without trying to make things better in the moment, without playing the role of 'expert' or 'enlightened guru' or 'the one who knows best'; just to be totally available to the one in front of you... this is the essence of true healing..." - Jeff Foster

Ignoring


Ignoring

This qualification of the
dark name ignorance
is a path out of our pit..
A simple ignoring
ignoring of the dimension
of no-thing-ness
from which springs
the some-things of
mountain and plain
and pit..


Language of Awareness


Language of Awareness

There is a directness
in our experience of awareness
after the mind surrenders..
Simply a knowing which
shuts out all of the eithers and ors
a language of silence..
A language which requires 
no subject and object
yet it includes all of these..
A unified field it is
which spends our days
awaiting our humble
flash of recognition...