The Bulb : Students of Inner Peace

Who are you, you who are reading this post?

Are you a visitor, a stranger, a dog at the door, a crumb in the kitchen, a flame in the tinder-box forest of Love?

Are you a One-Night Stand, a Toothless Old Lady, a Bottle-Washer from Winnipeg, a Mohawk-Hair Earing Studded Leper of the U2 Colony of Extended Liberation?

Are you really Who You Are?

Are you AwArE?

of the Hardware that Certifies you as “Human” …?

of the Software that upgrades your Heart to the Silent Flame of Life, dancing in Fragility deep in the Cavern of your Inner Breath?

of the Extended Shelf-Life that you’re Living, defying the Pain of Breathing, the Obstacle of the Ancient Hill-Climb, the Marathon of the Eternally-Dying-Dog, running in the Heat of the Night?

Who are you,  you who are reading this post?

A lost Lizard in a Day-Care Center for Dinosaurs?
A Standing Tribute to all the Gay Singers of the Roaring 40′s?
A Plush Popsicle,  waiting to melt in the mid-day Sun?
A Jehova’s Witness, standing “Naked-For-Jesus” at the Door of Eternal Life?

Does God inhabit your Genitals… or is your “thinking” all above the 49th Parallel?
Are you Decaffeinated, or Simply Relaxed in your own Shoes?

Can you feel Peace in the Tentative Strings of your own Heartbeat?
Can you Hear the Vast River of Angels in the caverns of your “indoor plumbing” …?
Can you slide back the Sun-Roof and eject yourself into the Stratosphere, comfortably, quietly, without activating your Air Bags, your Nagging Housewives, or your Dumb, Eternally-Barking Inner Guard-Dog, who has ruined many Staff Picnics on your own behalf … ?

Who are you, who is reading this post?

Yourself a Poster?  A Toaster?  A Hostmaster?  Nutcracker? Sailor-Boy?  Country-Girl?  Breaker of Fish-cakes and purveyor of Manna from the Heavens?  Have you let your little girls and boys out to play?   Where, pray tell, is your playground?

Lost again, forgot the trail of Breadcrumbs.  Forgot the home buried deep in the woods.  Disowned and forsook your own Forest, your own Sacred Trees, your pure and unspoiled rivers.  For the sake of  ”Candy”.  Expensive Candy.  No Dentist, no Teeth, no Wisdom, no Food of any worldly kind will ever stop this incessant craving of the heart for that Infinite Candy not known to any scripture.

Who are you, who is reading this post?

Can you truly read, and taste the lines of silver and gold between the stupid Times New Roman, or are you caught up in the dance of words, intellect and pride.  There is no recycling plant that will handle that stuff.  It is yours to sip until you fall drunk into your own mortality.

One tiny Diamond in the Garbage Dump, and the Human Life is made Noble.

And the rest falls gently, as Oceans once again make their Claim …

Dear Baby,

I am the Harpoon Hunter
I am the Whale that got away
I am Good Friday waiting for Bad Monday
so my Mediocre Memories of  how-to-play
Get lost in the picnic frenzy of “Workahol” – the Drink of Everyday Man.

I am the Opening Door
that closes only for you
Only for the Light that sees right through
Only for Rose-colored Spectacles that Paint my world Blue
I am the Academic Scholar
that fell below his White Collar
and slid down the Shiny Breasts of Mother Maya
into the Belly Button of Nature’s Lost Fire

I am the Only One who knows My Way Home
so I journey there Alone
while dialing on my Telephone
The Crystal Number of your Name keeps coming up
(is it still the same?)
And before I fall into Melodies of Silence Insane
and become a victim of Love’s Purple Flame
There’s only One Thing that I Remain …

Yours Truly:
The Heart with no Name

The House of Breath
We go out and play
we save our tear-drops for a Rainy Day
We Play
We visit Others – our Cousins, our Brothers, our Lovers, our Mothers
We live on their Doorsteps; we Stray
We save our Dances for a Sunny Day

The House of Breath
Chance, Circumstance – finds me at your door
(have I been here before?)
You seem so familiar – the Curl of your Hair
Your hot summers’ Air
Your Roaming Fingertips of Despair
I linger and Lurk: you must think me some kind of Jerk

This House of Breath
This house of Living Life and Dying Death
This House I left behind, the only thing ‘mine’
This House of Colors, Fullness, Feeling Filled, Softness, Stillness, Willing to be Thrilled
This House calls me home at the End of the Day
This House of Breath is the only Place
My heart wants to Stay.

“The Subtle”.

This subject is not commonly addressed.
It is not commonly addressed, because it is not common Knowledge, it is known only by a few.

I talked with a friend the other day, about the depth of conversation. About the comfort-zone we achieve with another person in the context of dialogue.  One criteria we used was, how comfortable is a person “in their own skin”.   This quality speaks of a person’s relationship with Self.   The other parameter was a person’s relationship with Silence, how comfortable they are in entering Silence – again – in the context of dialogue.

So, talking and conversation occupy a whole range of human expression.

At one end of the scale, the “loud-mouth”, the one-way dialogue.  Or, the animated, self-centered “fluffy” conversation about the superficialities of life: often a nervous attempt to stave off the dreaded Tide Of Silence – as though Silence was a natural enemy, a cloaked vampire waiting at the door.

On the other end of the scale, people who somehow are at ease, both with Self and Other; people whose thoughtful pauses are conversations unto themselves.  People who convey entire manuscripts simply with a raised eyebrow, a soft smile, a deep resonance in their tone-of-voice.

These latter statements speak of people who are not only at peace with “Self”, but who also have a relationship with The Subtle – the invisible and humble counterpart of human existence that dwells in us all.  This counterpart has been described in many ways, has been burdened with many labels, name-tags and qualifiers over the ages.

We are not interested in adjectives.

We are interested in living in, celebrating and sharing the felt sense of this Inner Guest, this hidden counterpart.  We are interested in enjoying, manifesting, and realizing this felt sense, as a statement of a Life Lived.

When we share with other human beings, when we connect with others, we bring something of quality to the table. Something of the Taste of Silence.  The Fragrance of The Guest.  The celebration of the Subtle, in its Nameless Name, its Formless Form, and its enduring Beauty.

Of all human endeavors, this is one of the most worthy, the most honorable, the most sweet.

now then
here you are
dressed in blues
silent as salad dressing
examining the dull notes
your mother left in your
dry cleaning

have you no other sanctuary
than your fallen dreams
your artistic crumbling future
your dead relatives
and dying friends

life is rising to call
not the dead from graves
but the living from their caves
and the lying from their sleep
and the lions from the sheep
and the thirsty camels
who fell asleep
at the empty oasis

now then
here you are
awake at the wheels
of a brand new car
listening glistening
like a bright falling star
the journey of dreams
gives way to the
pathway of life
to cut free from illusion
you need the gleam,
the Knowledge,
the Knife.

Some people tell me, “We choose our parents before we are born..”

The idea behind this is, “stop blaming them and learn the lessons they were meant to teach you, and move on!”

The whole thing seems aimed at the foundational piece of work we call “accountability” – meaning, let go blaming externals for your circumstance, and address the only real changes you can make – changes to your self.

So, all in all, a good call, but a strange belief system to get there.

So, if I can indeed choose my parents before I was born, that implies some kind of “catalog” system, where you can choose from a variety of models. Perhaps, “blond or brunette”? Perhaps, “Hungarian or Australian”? Perhaps “angry, moody, creative vodka-drinkers” as opposed to “camouflaged, repressed, white anglo-saxon protestants”?

It’s amazing what this “catalog of parents” might have looked like. Let’s back up here a bit: there’s many assumptions that would have to be in place to “buy in” to this little belief system, akin to the leap we need to make to “buy in” to any religion.

Since we’re “choosing” our parents, this decision-making process must require some kind of brain activity, such as the ability to perceive, see or sense the choices; then the discernment, judgment or intuition needed to make the correct choice, based on the lessons we need to learn; therefore memory cells that hold the lesson plan as well. So, it seems a “brain” of some kind would be needed, long before conception took place, in order to sift through these possibilities and weigh them out.

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The World has many voices.

We listen to them all.

We believe many of them.

We are pulled, pushed, nudged, awakened, sedated, seduced, mystified, bewildered and entertained by these voices.

We rarely question.

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There is a Quiet Dream,
a Small Self that remains un-lived.
A Bouquet of Promises, a Banquet of Streams.

Through the doorway of Internal Self
we glimpse the Eternal Self: beautiful, small,
well-formed, delicately-maintained,
Impeccable in its un-judged perfection.

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We talk about the “heart”.

Do we know what this place is;  do we know this feeling well enough to call it our home?

When I grew up, we were not instructed in the understanding of this.  The only “heart” we knew was the embarrassing crimson blob we’d see on Valentine’s cards from adoring classmates, once a year.   Then, of course, the word was used carefully, guardedly, in relation to romance and those fleeting bottle-of-wine-in-the-meadow moments that often turn into jaded and forgotten memories.

And “heart”, for most of us, became an unknown item on an illegible menu in a cafe whose doors were closed to business.

In my earlier life, I enjoyed Castanada’s books on the ways of wisdom extolled by the Indigenous Peoples of the Southwest.  His mentor, Don Juan Mateus, made some interesting statements about the nature of reality, and about the pathway of those who look under the surface of life.  He said, “For me there is only the traveling on paths that have heart, on any path that may have heart, and the only worthwhile challenge is to traverse its full length–and there I travel looking, looking breathlessly.”

And so, what is this thing called “heart”?

Does it resonate with us?  Does it have a calling, a number, a face, a perfume?

Does it have any real estate in the geography of our day-to-day lives?  Do we hear its voice, its rhythm, it’s breathing, it’s beating – like a primal, invisible, voice-within-a-voice-within-a-voice Whisper?

Do we recognize “heart” when we see it portrayed in another?  Is it Kindness?  Is it Trust?  Is it Gentleness?  Is it Integrity?  Can we recognize the “heart” in another, in Life, in Creation, in Nature… if we don’t recognize it in ourselves?

Remember that old saying, often used to deflect judgment or criticism: “Takes one to know one…”?

That old saying is a very wise saying.  Because yes, indeed, it does take one to know one.  The very thing that resonates with the quality of “heart” in life, is none other than the Heart within you.  And we all have one: this silent, knowing, waiting, patient, enduring … dimension of “us”.  This is the silent “engine” of life itself; without this, we would be no more.

The “heart” has a thirst.

To feel, to quench, to know, to merge, to be content, peaceful, happy, silent, “one”.   This thirst is impossible to put into words, that’s why these black little letters on your glowing screen make no sense at all, they are trying to describe the indescribable: that which must be felt, experienced, known at a level much deeper than words.

Then, why words at all?

Well, the words, “I Love You” are meaningful … but only if the love is there.  Otherwise, they’re empty and cheap.

Some of the most beautiful words in the world are words inspired by great feeling, great understanding, great depth, great appreciation.  To me, these words, words inspired by “heart”, are the only words worth speaking.  Other “stuff” is just cheap talk, confetti for the mind, junk-food for a nation of the pathologically obese.  Look around – especially on the internet – and you’ll see it everywhere.  People regurgitating, arguing, pontificating, “proving”, blah, blah, blah.  The ego and intellect rule this realm and the “food” here has no nutrients for the heart.

So, “heart”.

At the end of the day, we all reap our own rewards.  Our cup is either full or empty.  There’s a voice in us that haunts us.  It beckons us, asks us, urges us, to move on, to know, to really understand in deep and full ways, why we’re here.  What our true nature is.  Where our true fulfillment lies.  The precious Liquid, the Fluid, the Substance, the Essence … we can truly call our own.

The only thing truly worth Celebrating in life.

Heart.

This Feeling

has been described as “Rain”.

There is a sense of accumulation
in who we are, what we move with,
breathe with,
carry …
on a Daily Basis.

Humans: what we gather
and hang onto, is not usually
the good, the clean, the nourishing.
It is more often the toxic, the negating,
the poisons.

The Un-Resolved, and Never-Removed.

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