Fleeting appearances..

 

Questions arise

As seeking..yet there 

Is no question and

No seeking..these are

Fleeting appearances

Whole already..

Religions arise as

Processes and places 

With answers to 

Questions of seeking..

Yet..religions are

Fleeting appearances 

Whole already..

Spirituality arises as

Processes and places

With answers...

Henry David Thoreau long ago spoke of most people living lives of "quiet desperation."  This refers to the nagging feeling that somehow one's fulfillment, or wholeness, is out of reach. A perennial feeling!  However, in times past, many of these people felt they were sheltered to some degree by political, social,  and pointedly, religious institutions, whether that was a valid assumption or not.  But, in more recent times, these institutions seem to be imploding, or perhaps their real institutional colors are more on display.  Corruption and distrust seem rampant.  Which leaves the quiet desperation behind, in favor of a more painful vociferous variety.  Middle classes have shrunk, bringing more people into the realm of worry and overwork.  The desired "fulfillment" seems far beyond reach to many.  Church policies seem largely based on hierarchies, confrontation, and, simply, separation as reality...truly of questionable relevance.  The example of Jesus lies far from these institutional doorsteps, although, to be fair, there seem to be fringes which know this. (As there always have been..and these fringes may contain the seeds of resurrection and restoration).  Many leaving the church fully appreciate the transparent institutional malaise, and find any internal repair not to be likely.  Perhaps some form of institutional crucifixion is the crying need of the day...

Thanks!  Charlie Coon

Storyland is home...

 

Storyland

Is the dream home

Featuring separate

Rooms and characters

Raucous and calm and

Feeling like home to

Some...apparently

Not to all...

Here's the thing..

 

Here's the thing

(Not a thing)..

Speakers speak of

No you nor me

No this nor that..

Seemingly.."No"

All the way down..

The seeker stands

Aghast at this

Denial of what

Seems as things.. 

What seems missing

In the speaking is that

The thing in Separation

Is what is denied

All the way down...

Humbling and surrendering and mountaintops..

 

Humble surrender

Seen as technique

Of approaching a mountaintop..

Pursuits of a self-bound

Character with a mountaintop

In sight and a new self

Imagined as boundless..

Nothing wrong or right

With that story...

Pure nothingness..(Fernando Pessoa..)

 

I never tried to be anything other than a dreamer. I never paid any attention to people who told me to go out and live. I belonged always to whatever was far from me and to whatever I could never be. Anything that was not mine, however base, always seemed to be full of poetry. The only thing I ever loved was pure nothingness.

—Fernando Pessoa...

The wood-chopper (Walden, Henry David Thoreau)

 

Hi Lucy,

Good meeting!  We are still with the wood-chopper.  It seems that HDT has

 a great admiration for him, and perhaps sensed that the chopper was 

where he wanted to be.  But the chopper came to where he was from a state 

of innocence, whereas HDT, in setting up his Walden "experiment," came 

from a background of learning and cultural assimilation.  He designed the 

Walden setup, and wished to have an experience there which would answer 

all of his questions.  The chopper lived in the moment, and was "satisfied" 

with his life as it was.  Huge difference!  HDT was a seeker, not so the 

chopper.  So, might we say that Walden was an exercise in futility?  Or, 

maybe it is valuable in that it illustrates the futility of HDT's approach in 

finding what is already the case.  Are we all choppers, really, and our seeking 

is to find our real chopper-nature?   "Lives of quiet desperation"

means that this nature is already present, but seemingly hidden.

Or maybe not..!!  

Charlie

Impossibility..!!

 

The speaker

Is challenged..by

Impossibility..

One word spoken

Speaks of 

Separation..

Even to say

Not-two..is two..

Apparently 

No escape 

From two..

Apparently...

It's all story...

 

It's all story

It itself

Is a story..

Telling a story

Is a story..

Can't go wrong

Or right in

Storytelling...

All are absolute..

 

Equality

Inequality

Defining the difference

Expressing a preference

All are absolute...

What's what...

 

What's happening is

What's not happening..

What's what...

When a book is blank..

 

Seekers have authored

Many million books

All about seeking..

When a book is blank

That's one more...

Placeholders..

 

Placeholders for

The word not said

And unsayable:

Nothing 

Beloved

Everything

This

Not 2

And so on.. 

Placeholders without

A place to hold...

All stories are stories of seeking...

 

All stories are

Stories of seeking..

No seeking..no story

Seeking is the story..

Stories..in fiction

In the history books

Science's discoveries

Personal events and

The nightly news..

All are stories of seeking..

Seeking is what makes 

Stories stories..

Freedom's stories...

Literally, It's all story..

 

Literally

It's all story

The magic

Staged for no one...

It's all illusion..

 

It's all illusion

Separation is the illusion

And separation seems to rule..

That's the locked gate

Which is not locked and

Not a gate..a seeming

Impediment which isn't..

Illusion chases illusion

Searching for the gate...

It's just noise. It's just a distortion. Everything that tries to capture "it" is an illusion so it can only function in illusions. It's all an illusion and any attempts to grasp it and all attempts to understand it is an illusion.

There's not even an "it."

There's no separation.

~~Emerson Rad Nonduality 

Seems so..

 

Seems so..

~Seems~

A word showing up

Suggesting the end

Of separation beliefs..

A layer of doubt

A nod to a story..

Suggesting there is

No one..

Or..this may seem (!)

Too much to carry

For this little word..

Perhaps another..?

Seems so...

With separation gone which never was...

 

With separation gone

Which never was

Appearances are what

Have always appeared

With the causes and effects

Seemingly intact..

With a bit a freedom of choice

And peaks and valleys in

Lives and the news..

With separation gone

It seems all normally

Amazing...

That name not remembered..

 

That name

Not remembered..

Trying to remember

Keeps the hidden hidden..

A gentle arising

Unrelatedly brings

The shining name..

Separation exposed..??

The human heart in conflict with itself....(William Faulkner)

 

“The only thing worth writing about is the human heart in conflict with itself”

― William Faulkner

A Jolt on Wednesday..

 

No

May appear as yes..

Not figurable out

But maybe a

Jolt on early

Wednesday morning

After while...

A leaf falls..and when..

 

A leaf falls

Seemingly and

Unpredictably when..

Happening in season

Or any time at all..

Stories are fallings

Seemingly

Unpredictably when..

A dream with 

When seeming to fall...

The chaos dream...

 

Empty-fullness..

No knowing of this

Seeming as chaos..

Stories seem to

Arise including this

Story of a dreamer

Dreaming about the

Meaning of chaos...

No mistakes..(with Joan Tollifson)

 

No mistakes..

A mistake is a

Story of judgement

With that distance

A judgement demands..

Departure of the

Seeming distance

Removes the

Mistake...

https://joantollifson.substack.com/p/no-mistakes?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

What he was looking for...

 

What he is looking for

Is not here now..but

In that place where it

Will be found..

This is the stage play

As the world

Seemingly goes round...

Lucy,  (pertaining to a Henry David Thoreau discussion group)

We had a good meeting.  A full house.  The main discussion point was the Canadian wood-chopper, whom HDT liked a lot.  The chopper liked his work, partially because he thought he didn't have to work...he could survive with his dog, catching game animals for meals.  We talked about what certain animals might taste like, but no consensus.  Jim White said the chopper reminded him of the longshoreman, Eric Hoffer, and his writings in the '60's (are you familiar with him, Lucy?).  The chopper was portrayed as somewhat educated, including knowledge of the Greek classics, but HDT seemed to downplay his depth.  Maybe there was a little envy on HDT's part.  Did the chopper already have what HDT was looking for in his stay at Walden?

Stay Cool,

Charlie

Chaos and order..

 

A story:

It's all chaos

Appearing in imagination

As order..

Order is constructed in

Infinite variations in

The dream of separation..

Chaos and order

A dance in the

Dream of separation..

The dream may extend:

There is no chaos and

No order..only a gasp

Of astonishment..!

What is This?

 

This 

Or that

Is the story of

Nothing appearing

As a story of

This

Or that...

The story is Absolute...

 

Sometimes

A story is dismissed

As just a story..

Yet a story is also

Absolute...

No not-two..

 

Simply not-two is

Not really true..

There is no not-two

And no two..

Yet somehow

There appear two

That's the Wow...!

An exploding Wow..!!

 

The speaker says

There is "no you"

And brows furrow..

But the sub-text

There is "no not-you"

Seems not spoken or heard..

Which could ignite

An exploding Wow...!

Stories say too much..

 

Stories say too much

But are already perfect..

Ending here would

Be too much

But already perfect...

Stories 

Elaborate on That

Which a single word 

Can seem to hide..

Yet a single word

Is also That...

A brain appearance..

 

A brain

Can appear as the

Thought of a pound

Of flesh with inner

Paths and purposes..

Yet all thoughts

Are appearances of

No-thought..including

Any appearance of

A brain..

Left and right brains..

There are stories 

Of seeming clarity of

Left and right brains..

Two brains in one

One appearing as two

And two as one..with

Labels..analytical and

Holistic..

Polarizing appearances

Expressing Not-2...

Powerlessness...(Wayne Liquorman)

 

The paradox

Of nothing appearing

As everything..

Expressed in different forms..

Non-personal appearing as

Personal..so that

Not-2 appears as

A seeker's longing...

“Perhaps you have noticed the amazing paradox; as we recognize our inherent personal powerlessness, ‘new power flows in.’ … Once we know ourselves to be Ocean in the form of wave, we become free to be ourselves in a way we never dreamed possible. It is as if we had spent our life driving with the emergency brake on and suddenly it is off… The enduring paradox and wonder of a spiritual awakening is the return of power. But this power has a completely different feel to it. It is impersonal. Without the bondage of self, the power of the Ocean plays out without resistance.”

--Wayne Liquorman from The Way of Powerlessness

Autonomy stories..

 

If

"I" remains in

A story..in an

Autonomous role

Autonomy would seem

To retain a hold in

Imagination

As the story unfolds

In this way...

A lifestory..

 

There is 

An apparent

Lifestory 

Which seems to

Fill a timeline..

Life stories

Intersecting 

With conflict and

Peace and claiming

Understandings..

Apparently...

An apparent brain..

 

A brain may

Seem to perform

A central role

In a dreamer's

Dream..

Evidence is

Convincing as 

Many images assert..

A story seemingly

Tailored to keep a

Dreamer dreaming...

Enlightenment is a story..

 

Enlightenment

Is recognizing that 

It's all story and

Recognizing that

Enlightenment is 

Also story

With no recognizer.. 

Nothing so appears...

Rothko..

 

(Rothko painting)

Nothing to say

Anything said detracts

From a painting without

Meaning..and these

Words are also culpable...

Be yourself..(prompt by Tennessee Williams)

 

There are

Many prescriptions 

To be yourself..

It is a delving into

Individual stories

Urging the removal

Of concealing masks..

Not realizing seemingly

There is nothing

To be found..and

The masks are fake..

Scary liberation...

I don't know what to tell you. A statement is easy, and here it is: Be yourself. Try to matter. Be a good friend. Love freely, even if you are likely, almost guaranteed, to be hurt, betrayed... Do what you were created to do. You'll know what this is, because it is what you keep creeping up to, peering at, dreaming of. Do it. If you don't, you'll be punching clocks and eating time doing precisely what you shouldn't, and you'll become mean and you'll seek to punish any and all who appear the slightest bit happy, the slightest bit comfortable in their own skin, the slightest bit smart. Cruelty is a drug, as well, and it's all around us. Don't imbibe.

Try to matter. Try to care. And never be afraid to admit that you just don't know, you just don't know how you're going to make it. That's when the help shows up. ~Tennessee Williams

(Source: Interview with James Grissom in 1982/ One of Williams most celebrated Books: A Streetcar Named Desire

This and that..

 

Everything appears 

As this and that..

Why is this..Why is that?

Well..

Everything is

Neither this nor that...

The 4th..

 

The 4th..

Imagined..

Embellished with

Flags and fortunes

Disgruntlements

Gatherings of import

A declaration written..

A story kindling emotions

Buttressed by beliefs in

Separation and a

Unity after all..

Timelessness as a

Day's story...

A story of melting..

 

Multiplicity may

Melt in a story

But the story

Seems to be all

About multiplicity..

Perceptions and projections..

 

Perception

And projection

Outer and inner

Are not two..

Seems like

Not-knowing...

What a constitution is for..

 

A constitution

Is a means of

Handling a 

Nation's business

In an environment

Of mass beliefs 

In the reality of

Separation..

A veil is a thought..

 

A veil is a thought

Covering that which

Is sought..

That's the story

Of the storms

Of the confusion

Of the noise..

And the significance

Of silence..

Seemingly

An invitation to

Take steps to 

Locate and celebrate

Finding the silence

As the veil...