Everything

When we focus

on a thing distinct

we give credence to

separation and independence..

Softening our focus

inclusiveness arrives..

Softening more and

inclusiveness grows

until we discover that

our lens is clean

and freedom arrives with

no-thing shining in

everything...

~CC

Know nothing; be everything.

~Rupert Spira ~

(Daily quote)

Everything

I want to make poems that say right out, plainly,

what I mean, that don't go looking for the

laces of elaboration, puffed sleeves. I want to

keep close and use often words like

heavy, heart, joy, soon, and to cherish

the question mark and her bold sister

the dash. I want to write with quiet hands. I

want to write while crossing the fields that are

fresh with daises and everlasting and the

ordinary grass. I want to make poems while thinking of

the bread of heaven and the

cup of astonishment; let them be

songs in which nothing is neglected,

not a hope, not a promise. I want to make poems

that look into the earth and the heavens

and see the unseeable. I want them to honor

both the heart of faith, and the light of the world;

the gladness that says, without any words, everything.

~ Mary Oliver ~

(New and Selected Poems Volume Two)

Lightly, lightly..(Aldous Huxley...from the website: being silently drawn)

It’s dark because you are trying too hard.
Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly.
Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply.
Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.

I was so preposterously serious in those days, such a humorless little prig.
Lightly, lightly – it’s the best advice ever given me.
When it comes to dying even. Nothing ponderous, or portentous, or emphatic.
No rhetoric, no tremolos,
no self conscious persona putting on its celebrated imitation of Christ or Little Nell.
And of course, no theology, no metaphysics.
Just the fact of dying and the fact of the clear light.

So throw away your baggage and go forward.
There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet,
trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair.
That’s why you must walk so lightly.
Lightly my darling,
on tiptoes and no luggage,
not even a sponge bag,
completely unencumbered.

Aldous Huxley
Island
Photo:  Peter Bowers

Either/or and Both/and

Either/or and Both/and

In times and places

we seem to be edging toward

 the reality of consciousness..

Language fails

as it tries to approach

to identify that

which experience knows

as beyond understanding..

There is an equality

in experience which

expansively allows

everyone of us

throughout this globe

to access this truth..

And so..what of language..?

language points 

and can only point..

Either/or and Both/and

only can point..

We await the 

experiential knowing

of many global citizens

to..at last..in joy

know of language anew...

I enjoyed the poem.

The method in my madness in posting this little exercise was to (hopefully) demonstrate how difficult it is at the practical level to construct a story of events without employing some level of mixing elements or words of both matter and consciousness. This was not an attempt to refute Idealism but rather an attempt to demonstrate the difficulty. I suspect that this difficulty is perennial because to speak of consciousness in the pure sense is quite possibly not possible (the Tao that can be spoken is not the Tao). To elaborate consciousness one simply must place it in containers. Even BK must employ metaphors or analogs (such as alters or whirlpools) in order to tell the story of his theory. In doing so, objects are created and there's a strong tendency for the map to become the territory. It is in this sense that I suggest that storytelling leans toward materialism because the audiences are in bodies that feel material things or reference senses to objects. For example, one can say "redness" alone but saying "the redness of an apple" is what evokes story and meaning. Thus, we are stuck with some level of materialist reference unless the audience can be motivated or touched by a silent or nonverbal transmission. 

(Response to the poem from "Metaphysical Speculations" by Lou Gold)

@Lou..Your words are quite instructive.  Perhaps with a more grounded consciousness-perspective it can be possible to perceive the red apple and simultaneously perceive the redness as a coloration of consciousness.  Both/and? A perspective which recognizes the object as object, but finds the real beauty in the dissolution of both subject and object...CC

disturbances

disturbances

we apparently need

to notice once more

and once more

the impermanence of it all..

coming and going

in and out

appear..disappear..

and an apparent need

to identify with

that which is not fickle

that in which all of the

temporary disturbances

have their time and say..

that is not something

but seems there anyway..

undisturbed..

yes..notice...

Cleansing our lenses

Cleansing our lenses

We've 
witnessed the hearings

with many concluding:

she said..he said..

Such expressions seem

as uttered through many

shaded lenses..

Our way
of knowing the world
as Two and not One
will quickly provide
a shaded vision
until
the shades are recognized
for what they can be:
the color and beauty
of difference in our
seeming creation..

Returning 
to the hearings
with cleaner lenses
we see the varying
shades and colors
of thought and emotion
pervading the talking
and the One
seems quite hidden..

A note of caution:
Justice
is best served
through cleaner lenses...!

This is a pencil

This is a pencil

This was his challenge to

a different understanding..

A proper challenge..I might add..

which can be boiled down to

a choice of perception..

We appear to live in a world

of separation..of duality..

and common sense asserts: 

yes..this indeed is

a pencil..

A different knowing

is suggesting a

new..yet quite old

perception..

Our inner subjectivity 

questions the solid object

said of our pencil over there..

To then discover:

the pencil is made of our

seeing and touching and thinking..

these not separated 

from the "I"

that is perceiving..

The Oneness of "I"

asserts now and clears

with joy

centuries of illusory

perception...

is it so Simple?

is it so Simple?

Consider:

just a recognition

that this page is white

and the print thereon

seems to declare

a difference..

appearance is different

but the difference melts

when it is noticed

the print is in and of

the white page..

difference is appearance..

Consider:

might this recognition

this brief metaphor

replace all religions

in the world's story?