CELEBRATION

Gift of the Horse

This day is full of nights.
Brightnesses of strange feathers; birds that align with the sky & take flight.
Small squeaks that get Big Grease, toxic Oil Spots on Troubled Waters.
Boats that float, by Grace alone; dirty Sailors and drunken captains that barely make the road home.

This day is full of nights;
broken bridges and soft blacktop that makes your footstep slop
land-waves and water-faults that sink a man up to the edge of his doubts;
cry-babies of politics and the often-wounded and rarely-dressed open books,
parading around with pages as blank as yesterday’s looks.

This night is full of days
signature scraps of diamond light reflecting in ten thousand different ways
glimmers of diamonds lost in the sand; white-gloved babies longing to take your hand;
the underfed and overweight looking for food, early to late;

This night is full of days
the weavings of humans, all trying to find the way
out of the labyrinth, into the trap, out of god’s uterus, launched off the map
only to fall into their own sap; the juices of life, no napkin to wrap

the light is full of light; let me count the ways
we can all find home; there’s a million sun rays
one ray is enough to burn my trembling hand,
to make all my wedding rings fall into the sand;
the light is full of light; let me taste the source: a mouth is a mouth,
and never think your gift will ride off on any other horse….

The Art of Eternal Childhood

An email from an old friend. He’s in the throes of raising an 11-year old daughter – amazed by the pure and vital energy of childhood – and asks, “why have we lost this as adults…?”

My answer would be, we haven’t lost this, but we’ve left this. We’ve left this for a set of distractions, protections & consequences that effectively annihilate our chances of returning to the place of innocence, possibility and magic that we knew as children.

As a child, I always knew there was something suspicious, inauthentic and dangerous about the adult character in general. We all know a lot as children, and have access to an amazing range of “emotional intelligence” – intuitive, perceptive and creative capabilities. We sense and live in the spontaneous and ongoing beauty of childhood; we don’t understand or comprehend the “hardening” that has masked and throttled the authority figures around us.

As we grow older, we silently, agreeably adopt and adapt – internalizing all the subtle toxicities and poisons that are handed to us on silver platters: ego, emotional suppression, material obsession, power acquisition & manipulation, playing the proper game and saying the proper words at the proper time – in the proper tone of voice. We learn to obey the Kings of the Adult Architecture: bosses, families, spouses, preachers, pundits and obligations … all at the cost of our own soul.

My own personal journey into Adulthood was interrupted by a “side-trip” into the Land of Self-Knowledge. A side-trip which became the Journey of Life Itself. All the other “main trips” eventually panned out as distractions and misadventures; the subtle and frail voice that pulled me into the heart of Knowing Self, became the most powerful, beautiful, joyful and insightful voice in my being.

Part of the process of Knowing Self seemed to be the reconnection and resurrection of the lost inner child, that – it turns out – is really “me”, after all. The “sweet part” of us, it turns out, is still very much alive, and simply waits like a long lost seed, in the deepest cavern of our hearts, for springtime to return.

But, yes, life presents the challenge of feeling somewhat unique and alone in your “child-craft”; your innocence, beauty and magic seek others to play with – others to share the innate beauty of life with – but, alas, such companions are few and far-between. Most so-called “adults” are busy with the concern of the “adult world” – politics, money, relationship frustrations, sarcasm, jadedness and various mixes of toxic distraction and approved anesthetics.

It does make you value what you do have: access to your own inner song. It makes you value the few companions in life who can indeed share your hearts’ journeys. It makes those moments of play, delight, rainbow-watching, flower-sniffing …. all that much more precious, fragile, fragrant and delicious. And, last but not least: it makes you savor your True Companion, the inner friend you’ve known all along, the one who has been and will be with you every step of the way.

So, the celebration of Eternal Childhood seems to be where it’s at for me.

Sorry, other stuff bores me.

I just don’t have the time be be “grown up” anymore.

The field of life awaits, and it’s brilliant with a million colored flowers.

The Agreement of Connection

Something about Nature, and the act of Being Out In Nature.   There’s a Cosmic Oxide produced by Running Water, Falling Leaves and Shooting Stars.    This replenishes  lost juices in your solar cortex.

There’s the smell of rotting leaves mixed with October Mist, punctuated by cold, gurgling streams, offset by the distinct possibility of Bears and Cougars in the territory.  There’s the raucous cawing of crows, an occasional eagle soaring high, high, high in Penthouse Douglas Fir Apartment-Land.  There’s egrets with no regrets, herons with no errands – silently sitting and waiting as gaunt lifeless silhouettes, on placid sparkling canals.

They invite you into their own mystique: soaring, calling, waiting, floating, swimming in the invigorating dance of their own True Little Bird-Souls.  Betraying the divine, detached, perfect beauty of their own unique program – performed flawlessly on this majestic stage of Nature’s mantle.

Something about Nature and the Art of Feeling It, Seeing It, Hearing It … as it really is.   There’s something about being inwardly at rest, far from the incessant internal dialogues we’re plagued with – in a place where the Glorious Cool Fingers of Fall can enter us, fondle our 3rd Chakras, spin our eyes counter-clockwise, send our Kundalini spiraling up the Central Pole of Sensory convergence.

We come to Nature – but Nature also comes to us.  So many times, I’ve sat and waited in silence – only to have been approached by insects, cats, ducks, raccoons, moths, butterflies, zebras … they come calling.  They come looking for “connection”.  They come inquiring about the Soul of the Visitor: they say, “how are your Insides feeling today, long-lost & weary friend …?”  They say “who are you?”, without noticing your face,  your wallet, your underarm odor or any of your failures in the world of finance or relationship.  They come for connection, and connection only.

The silent unspoken agreement that we all enter into, upon re-acquainting ourselves with Nature, is this Agreement of Connection.  We notice it, we feel it.  Our skin-of-skins breathes it.  Our heart-of-hearts knows it.  The Deep Silence, the Dreamer, the Lost Soul within us, finds home once again … settles into Knowing the Beauty of the Known, rather than struggling with puzzles and eating the fibrous, uncooked recipes of doubt & desire.

We settle in to the reassuring meditation of What Is, rather than the unsettling mysticism of “what was”, “what might be” or the rancid smells of all the unattended pots we’ve left on back-burners through our myriad lifetimes.

Something about Nature, the act of plunging into cool water, the Sacred Art of  Being Alive.  The beautiful symphonies that broadcast to us on a frequency only we know.  The whispers of Wind in Tall trees that we inhabit, with the Eagles.  With the Silence, the Mystery, the Dancing Clouds.

And that one Agreement we made, before the World of Words became Flesh ….

Thirst

The Fragile Human Way

This is a Central Place
This is a Park of Strangers
This is a Gathering of Fragmented Ego
Seeking to express The Inexpressible
Seeking to know the Unknowable
Seeking to merge with Rivers That Flow
in a Purposeful Direction

This is the Breath given to Life
Given for Packaging, Content & Purpose
Given for Celebration, Communication, Knowledge
Given for the Attention that gives back to Itself
For the furthering of the Infinite Golden Cycle
of Knowing, of Fulfillment, of Joy

This is the Garden of Senior Flowers
a Resting Place in the Timeless Sun
a Watering Hole of Sparkling Luminous Song
Where life renews itself under the Watchful Hand
of the Amazing Avid Gardener
Separating Thorn from Fragile Sprout
The Pulling of Weeds so Love can Breathe
Attention to Details of the Tiniest Need

This is the Central Place
An evening of Life-long Celebration
The gathering of Fragmented Eyes
to form a Single Vision:
We all Find our Way
We all Taste the River of Love
We all Know the Golden Spark of Infinite Day
While we Dance, Romance, and Chance
The Fragile Human Way

The Hand That Feeds Us All

Fitting in
something small
inside the Hand
that feeds us All

around the Garden
hidden stones harden
forming a Secret Wall

fountains of Flowers
forsaking the Hours
Span the Distance
between You and Eye

The knowing in-between pillars of uncertainty
pulses with rhythm of life sustained beyond
the arbitrary kingdoms of despair, loss, mortality, passage

In the Desert
a silent flower blooms,
a prayer in Quiet Rooms
a Star in the sky where Midnight Looms

Fitting in something Small,
inside the Hand
that Feeds us All …