The Quiet Tide of True Connection …

Evening is a “quiet time”.
Most people have settled slowly into the refuge of the night: reading, knitting, digesting, TV, dreams, sex, sleep.

The sun and moon hold the earth in their cradle and light slowly fades on the horizon of time. Other countries light up. Other people awake. Clusters and groups and families all seek their fame and fortune. Accomplishment. Survival. Enjoyment. Giving and Taking. Buying and Selling. The Market. The Temple. A bath in the Holy River.

There are “them” out there.  This we know.  A wild series of “them”.  Legions of “them”.  Unidentified scores and throngs of “them”.  And who are they?  They are a lot like you.  And me.  They are humans – going through the same routines, same dances, same prayers and celebrations as you and me.

Perception.  We isolate ourselves and hide in the small caves allotted by our fears, our distrust, our acquired kingdoms, our well-financed sense of separation.  These humans we see, we perceive, we visualize… are not only a lot like us, they are intricately connected to us.

This is where the “us and them” gimmick falls apart.  We have two “monarchs” of perception that fight for the throne inside of us – our hearts and our minds.  They mind is allied with ‘ego’, and perceives its kingdom as “owned”, separate, justified.  The mind-ego is the King of Attachment and despite the ludicrousness of the whole affair – after all, we’re not taking this ‘stuff’ with us when we go – the mind views itself and it’s Kingdom as eternal, immortal and untouchable.

Familiar tune?

And then – the Heart.  The heart does not “fight” for the throne, the heart ascends to the throne when the Mind/ego has finally understood its frailty, its stupidity and its ignorance and has surrendered its position because it can’t hold the house of Mortality together any more.  The Heart is the Silent Partner that awaits in all of us – the center of sweetness.  The innocent part of us that understands its true role as Speck of Dust in the hands of the Immortal.  Out of our control.  Gratitude.  Oneness.  Bliss.

The Heart also understands this foundation-point of “connection” between sentient beings.  We humans – if we look at one another with the eyes of the heart – can immediately recognize our union and unity with all mankind.  We are made of the same ‘stuff’.  The Divine is visible – shining! – in each and every one of us.  This is truly what unites us in its magnificence, its compassion, it’s deep love and understanding.  And we each claim and own this light of the divine in our deepest hearts.

The Throne of Understanding.

It’s there.

It never left.  It is us who left.  And it is us who must find our way back.

I Was Alone

I Was Alone
I counted Three
Minutes Before You Ran
Away with Part of Me

Warriors, They Joined Me
I have this Heart of Gold
Before me, Between me, Inside me
They said it would all Unfold

I Discovered my Flower
My god, my virgin, my light
Tucked into my belly-button cupboard
Glowing like a Raven in the Night

Now I Dance the Tribute to a Million Swans.

My life is over, my time is up
My garden blooms only once
in this Heirloom Silver Cup

the Stars are Singing
inside my Wounded Knees
I’ve already Eaten the Leftovers
Leave this Ancient Haunted House

will You Please …

This Crying Shoe

A Heart-Beat at a Time …

Vulnerability.

Some say there is an armor necessary in Life.  Consequences.  Precautions.

Why throw this to the wind?

Wrapped up in the arms of our many-colored coat, in the threads of our lost fabric, there is remembrance of sweeter moments.  Moments when we cared.  Cared about life passing by.  Cared about the “filler”, the glances, the minutes of time undocumented, where we found life brimming with substance.

Feeling.

We pass our days lost in lineups, traffic, phone menus.   We think we are “going somewhere”.  But in reality, we are going nowhere.  Just ’round and ’round in circles.  Faster and faster.   Emptier and emptier.  Traveling towards imaginary “goals”, victories, accomplishments, appointments, acquisitions.

And life goes on, a Parade of Colored Dreams.  No one slows down, very few stop.

Except when death comes knocking.  Or disease.  Or Trauma.  Or you wake up one day and realize your life amounts to nothing, your friends amount to nothing, the pieces of paper on your wall – which once announced your Greatness – are simply faded artifacts of a past dynasty which is now equal to Toilet Paper.  Used Toilet Paper.

And who are you?  You, the Magnificent Adult who has survived 3 marriages, high-school, children, cancer, middle-age, flat tires, obesity, cardiac failure.  You who prided yourself on your Kingdom, your Castle, your Retirement Savings Plan.   Those who knew you as “accomplished”, those who would laugh at your jokes and applaud politely when you paid the restaurant tab.

Those good friends.

Those friends are all gone now, and when they do show up, you see their cracked masks, their feeble opening lines, their well-worn excuses.  You see their compromises, their mundane dullness masquerading as “interesting routines”, you see their resident emptiness lingering under dry smiles, wrinkles, sand-dunes beneath tired eyes.

So, you are a sage of the open road, a connoisseur of day-dreams, a taster of forbidden romance written on pages of used pocketbooks.  You have coins and car-keys to jingle, credit-cards to wiggle.  Bank accounts to ponder, investments in foreign lands beyond your control.  You have everything, and on the same breath, you realize … you have nothing.

So, your whole life has passed and you’ve perfected the art of impressing the relatives, but you have missed the value of your own breath.  Your own life.  Your own substance.  Unknown.  Unexplored.  A gift, sitting under a deserted Christmas Tree, unopened.  Dusty, decrepit.  Dead.

Or is it?

There is a fortunate truth.

Substance never dies.

(Well, if it did, we would die with it.)

So, the Act of Fortunate Substance is alive at our very core and sustains us through all this.  All this misery, all this victory, all this noise, silence, indigestion, feasting and famine.  And this Fortunate Substance, this best friend-of-friends, still remains waiting, waiting, patiently, humbly … beneath all we claim to be.

Will we feel one day, will we see one day, will we be one day.  Will we?   Can we?  May we?

This lost hope of this forbidden dream of this abandoned childhood of wonder – this one that still glows beneath all the National Flags, all the Soldiers and Armies, all the Matriarchs, Patriarchs and Victory Marches.  The dream still dreams.  It dreams of us.  It dreams of oneness, beauty, the silence of immeasurable sound, the dazzling and cleansing light of a million suns that radiates the fragrance of the Place We Came From.

And the Place We’re Going To.

Slowly, quickly, a day, a breath, a heart-beat at a time.

We wait in line.

And the Journey of Journeys … has this quality … far below the surface … that one could only describe as …

SUBLIME.

Bird of the Moon

There is a feast going on
that we are invited to …

A wondrous forest birthed
from a single tree

A bird singing at the Center of Things;
A bird with a million feathers
of a million colors,
and a million fragrant songs
each sung in the wordless Language of the Heart.

There is no Waiting for this River:
It has been flowing all your days.
There is no Jumping into this river,
you were born and will leave in this
Lovers Arms.

A single Tree and a Silent Sunset
remain embedded in a place where
they Grow Forever Undaunted

A single prayer emerges from
the Lips of Now …

“Fulfill me, because my life is passing by …
“Take me Home, because there is no other
Place to Go …”

Adorning The Hood

My Car Unravels Itself

It is Greedy for Food.
It takes me for a Ride.

It Thinks Bigger and Bolder than I do.
It Drives me Home.
It takes orders and obeys
without a Hitch.

My Car unravels itself.
There are Millions on the Planet
They move like Ants
They eat the Air.

I am enthralled with Arriving Somewhere
before I leave the House.
I am young and Testosterone-Laden
I will win the Race Home.
Dead in my Silver Casket.
Buried in  my Prayer on Wheels.

There is an Iceberg that Sighs
somewhere in the Lost Arctic Sun.
There is a Polar Bear that Dies
In the Arms of No One’s Mother.

There is a Surprise Waiting for Humanity
Sooner than a Solar Storm,
Sure as the Arctic Bear
A Crash Course with
The Infinite
the Real
Heat.

My Car Loves Itself

The True Star

The Heart of Spring is something to be known in the Winter of  life.

We gather jewels and playthings along the way; we hold rusting angels close to our hearts; we confess love for the children of our earthly womb – the ones who come and go, the silent souls who disappear into the night.

What we are left with is us.   Dim, hollow, shallow, empty.  “Concerned“.

Void.

We seek the stars within.

But not by looking into the Twilight, the Immeasurable Abyss.   There is only one place where abides the True Star.  The Harbinger of Deep Peace.  The Bird-Songs of the End of Time.

Winter’s fading light invites us to hibernate, to return, to gather strength, initiave, resource from Inside.  We walk these City Streets, the Lost Avenues of Lost Souls, the dank, dark, decayed.  Light on the planet is tentative.  Seasonally Adjusted.  Afraid of the anger of men and the Finality of God.  This Day-Light our skin longs for is a crap-shoot, and can be purchased from the vendors of Tanning Beds.

The Skin craves its Vitamins: D.  Touch.  Warmth.  The wind from the Plains.  The Hand-Holding of fellow Humans.  We wander these deserted Alleyways – like nocturnal cats – seeking the light we love, the warmth we taste, the sleepy hollows of another human form to comfort our own.  Our hungry skin.  Our aching heart.

Adults learn to behave as adults.  Never heard.  Never lonely.  Never cry.  Never in pain.  Always happy.  Always busy.  Always planning, scheming, escaping, dancing in ever-increasing circles away from the Sweet Vortex of the Moment of Now.

Masquerades.  Charades.  Naked Emperor Parades.

It’s coming.  One Day.  The Atonement.  Someone promised us this, didn’t they?  It was written somewhere, wasn’t it?  The Angels of Mercy will show up, and they will hold us in their arms, and it will be alright, won’t it …?  This redemption.  This salvation.  This Heaven that is Just Out of Reach.

How Convenient.

My arms are the Naked Arms of Now; this human.  The want is a Hunger that won’t go away with Imagined Food.  With Promised Luxury.  With the Rain Check on Love.  This Now, this Eternal Child, this Lost Voice buried deep inside … is not hiding any more.  It’s not shutting up, going away, toning down, Behaving.

It’s a wreck and a Ruin and a Wild Thing.  It’s demanding the Big Cigar, the Full Meal Deal, the Deluxe Package.

Heaven is NOW.  While we’re on Earth.  While we’ve got breath to sing, bones to rest, moments to sip.  The Treasure.  The Great Mystery.  The Unfathomable Deep.

Dive in.

Sink or Swim, it matters not.  The air is getting thin.

The Pool is filled to the Brim.