lens Erotique

2012-02-25T15:05:00.000-07:00

I know the sound of the ecstatic flute,

but I don't know whols flute it is.

A lamp burns and has neither wick nor oil.

A lily pad blossomes and is not attached to the bottom!

When one flower opens, ordinarily dozens open.

The moon bird's head is filled with nothing but

thoughts of the moon,

and when the next rain will come is all that the rain

bird thinks of.

Who is it we spend our entire life loving?

Kabir

2012-02-24T15:15:00.000-07:00

Ah Love! Could thou and I with Fate

conspire

To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things

entire,

Would not shatter it to bits--and

then

Re-mould it nearer to the Heart's Desire!

Rubaiyat of
Omar Khayyam

2012-02-23T16:55:00.001-07:00

Divine Penetrating Illumination
guy matthews

The quarter moon
Pierces through my window
Brilliant delightful silver light

Threads of connection
Stretch out between us
Taking energy
To build and maintain

Extending a thread
Can be a risky business
The energy expended
Crossing the same path
As the energy received
There is a need for
Even exchange
Across this bridge
Keep a watchful eye!

To have the energy
To extend a thread
Is one thing
To steer it to
A correct destination
Yet another
To maintain it for
As long as it is healthy
Yet another
And to know when
To cut a thread
And rightly mourne
Its dissolution
And yet to know
When mourning is done
When the energy
Spent mourning
Needs to be freed up
So that a new thread
May be extended
There is an excitement
In newness
And care must be taken
Threads are no joke
To build a thread
Takes a certain energy
And more to find
Renewal each day
And still more to mourn
Its natural demise one day

For surely in the mortal realm
There will always be demise
And yet, I say, "Take heart!"
Hidden within the mystery
Of the mortal bond there lies
An eternal element
To connect a thread
To the infinite is first
And foremost in my mind

It seems too often
Have I asked for the
Draughts of immortality
From a mortal source
And all too often
Have I suggested
I might be that source
For another! Ha!
Seriously this has
Been the source of
My deepest pain
And in this moment
Of revelation, the source
For my deepest insight

Connect the thread first
To Eternal source
There is a way
If you will, you will find yours
Once you have it
Let your mortal friends
Off the hook!
Starting with your parents
Then your lovers
Past present future

When it comes to intimate
Mortal love, take special care
The thread of intimate
Connection particularly consists
Of a peculiar energy beyond
That of friendly connection
The glue of such a thread
Creates a bond through human fluid
Stickiness most dear made of
Mothers milk, semen and ovum
The very life-blood of mortal being

The energy to construct
And maintain this blood bond
In this mortal realm
Demands a particular set
Of competencies

Scariest part is that the
Drive to create the
Blood bond often runs ahead
Of the energy of eternity
The gross plane so palpable
The subtle plane so ethereal

Following lower vibrational
Drives for connection
Leads literally into
Sticky situations
Perhaps all too soon
Discovered to be wanting

The energy to direct the thread
To an appropriate destination
Can be elusive indeed
That is why I say "take time!"
These threads are best built slowly

The toll of un-mourned losses
Grows heavy until at last
Broken and weary at the
Turning of the days
A new dawn of eternal
Subtle beauty can be realized
Mourn each loss in your
Own unique way
Find the gold within
The journey
Trust, equality, honesty, respect
Key ingredients of the bond
Both in building and in
Dissolution

Write it now, right it now
Find the true energy source
Get connected there first
Wise use of blood, sweat, tears
May build anew each day

The quarter moon westerly sets
The rising sun its mate
Rides the eastern horizon
Day calls out
Penetrating divine illumination

2012-02-19T20:22:00.001-07:00

Upon love's coattails, our yearning shall be silenced.

A wicked few know our secret,

A solemn few would confess.

In the end, we are all villains

In one way or another...

amanda kalyca

2012-02-18T21:59:00.006-07:00

Then hearing it thus

With the force of your heart

I let go with breaking heart

And pick up the pieces

To see what I can find there

In the dregs of memories

And shattered dreams

In truth I thank you for all

That you've given me

Beyond recalling

And grieve what could have been

So that what may be may be

excerpt
m.t.

One shrine to the next, the hermit can’t stop for breath.

Soul, get this! You should have looked in the mirror.

Going on a pilgrimage is like falling in love

with the greenness of faraway grass.

Lalla

2011-12-24T11:18:00.002-07:00

2011-12-15T09:38:00.000-07:00

Only an awakened man

can rouse the sleeping beauty

when she's passing through

this mortal form

as though she were

the mortal form

instead of this passing.

She thinks she has a name

but her real name can't be spoken.

And even though she's forgotten me,

her promise can't be broken.

For she told me in a passion of truth

that she'd awaken whenever i called

that she would arise

like morning

from the slumber

of the mortal stranger,

that she would open her curtains

and stand there naked

trembling on the brink

of total awareness

breathing musical air

through the pores of her skin

absorbing my gaze

to the Goddess within.

Now & Again

The Ecstatic Doggerel of

Samuel Beast

2011-12-11T17:01:00.003-07:00

In all my lives you have been with me;

whether day or night I remember.

When you fall out of my sight, I am restless

day and night, burning.

I climb hilltops; I watch for signs of your return;

my eyes are swollen with tears.

The ocean of life— that's not genuine the ties

of family, the obligations to the world—

they're not genuine.

It is your beauty that makes me drunk.

Mira's Lord is the Great Dark Snake. That love

comes up from the ground of the heart.

mirabai

Sunday is gloomy,
My hours are slumberless,
Dearest the shadows
I live with are numberless
Little white flowers will
never awaken you
Not where the black coach
of sorrow has taken you
Angels have no thought of
ever returning you
Would they be angry
if I thought of joining you
Gloomy Sunday.

Sunday is gloomy
with shadows I spend it all
My heart and I have
decided to end it all
Soon there'll be candles
and prayers are said,
I know, let them not weep,
let them know
that I'm glad to go

Death is no dream,
for in death I'm caressing you
With the last breath of my
soul I'll be blessing you

Gloomy Sunday
Dreaming
I was only dreaming
I wake and I find you
asleep in the deep of
my heart dear

Darling I hope that my dream
never haunted you
My heart is telling you
how much I wanted you
Gloomy Sunday.

dissolving into the next transformation

2011-11-29T10:04:00.004-07:00

When there is nothing I can do to change a situation the most radical thing I can do is to surrender fully into the acceptance of the situation exactly as it is. To enter the moment in all its divine perfection. To enter my feelings about the moment as well with deep respect and awe. The snow falls over the Sierra and is content to rest where it is. And when the weather warms it will be content to melt away. Like water shall I be, enigmatic and deep, conforming to the shape of the container in which I find myself. Like fire shall I be also, alert and awake and watching the signs unfolding, facing all with compassion and love. Like the tree shall I be rooted in the deep soil reaching for the heavens, standing still and peaceful swaying in the breezes. Like fine and precious metals shall I be content in my beauty and value and the millennia it took to shape me refine me into the precious gem of myself. Like the Earth itself shall I be, supporting all life, all seasons, all happenings all at once. All birth, all death all living and dying shall I hold in my bosom with perfect equanimity. Nothing is forgotten nothing withheld only perfect harmony of mystery unfolding. I surrender in peace to what is all around me now in perfect measure all is granted just as it is for all is indeed as it is and in each moment revolving evolving dissolving into the next transformation.

matthew tragiews

2011-11-28T09:16:00.001-07:00

Stranger!

Come closer;

I want to know the curves of your lips like the back of my hand.

Closer still;

I want the weight of your burdens pressing down on me,

with your heart beating against mine.

My little love, it's quiet.

Let there be peace in our passion;

we can't make a sound.

amanda kalyca

2011-10-14T10:17:00.004-06:00

"That we close down is not a problem.

In fact, to become aware of when we do so is an important part of the training.

The first step in cultivating loving-kindness

is to see when we are erecting barriers between ourselves and others.

Unless we understand-in a non-judgmental way-

that we are hardening our hearts,

there is no possibility of dissolving that armor.

Without dissolving the armor,

the loving-kindness of bodhicitta is always held back.

We are always obstructing our innate capacity

to love without an agenda."

~Pema Chodron

image: mickel kalalo

It's only love...it's only love...you know...how it feels...feeling is easy...i know. When I was young...when I was young...you know...it was real...my heart was open...but now...i know...i know...i know...better. I've been shown...the other side...and now I see the way...things are. It's only love...it's only love...you know...how it feels...feeling is easy...i know...feeling is easy...i know...feeling is easy...i know.

somewhere between heaven and earth

2011-10-09T13:47:00.002-06:00

Oh wise Mira, you warned me of the peril!

The masked trickster carried the facade of an enlightened One

and I played the Fool.

The clever cad was a rapacious lover of deceit,

as was his compelling and undeniable cupidity for Love.

A crafty wordsmith of flowery language with an intoxicating system of touch,

penetrating my abandoned thirst for carnal desire and Love with shrewd calculation.
What cruel joker played this trick upon innocent flesh and blood?

How could I succumb to such a devious soul!

Once again, as I look to the Mountain Energy for sustenance and healing,

his cunning no longer holds sway.

Alas, it was always the alter of the Mountain

that holds the Way for this cast away pilgrim to lay her weary head

somewhere between heaven and earth.

The Promise

2011-10-09T10:18:00.001-06:00

Undifferentiated presence,

spontaneously arising

before heaven and earth,

still and silent, infinite, virtual,

eternally present

through interminable cycles.

It gives birth to the Cosmos,

It is impossible to name,

so I call it pure boundless immensity.

Lao Zi, Dao De Jing, #25

The bass beat. The loud music. I am still the unmoving thing when everything else is spinning. The one standing far and apart. I’ve made every excuse, thought of every reason, imagined some more, constructed stories, made cases. And then to go back to go forward, to confront make believe, fear, sadness. There is no saving in hiding. For all the moments, and all the living, for all the all that I can I will. I am a liar. I am a liar. I am a liar. My heart beats. I am a liar, I am a liar, I am a liar. There are no strings, no imaginary friends, no soft hidden places. There is no explaining, no logic to find, reason to make sense to tell to make good. There is only that I love him. I love him. I love him. The rush of blood, the beat. A time to grow up, to find again.
He covers my eyes with his hand, his fingers in my mouth.

she was

2011-09-23T17:26:00.001-06:00

i remember dearest the first time you evaporated from my mouth,

the wet deep saturation of your spirit left no trace as it had once before,

and i wept for the springtime again.

if only cupid could find his way to breathe life into our dance once again!

sometimes i catch a glimpse of your back,

or the scent of your sacred alter where i once prayed.

such a fool was i to believe that i could hold water with my hands!

Lover of Aphrodite

2011-09-22T12:45:00.003-06:00

Child of resource and a beggar,
Lover of Aphrodite,
What heart will satisfy your want
... For good and beautiful things?
Fools!
Eros will stray from your loving arms,
Ever unsheltered, ever in need

A. Kalyca

The Art of Love

2011-09-10T17:07:00.001-06:00

Why fool around with all this medicinal magic and nostrums?
     There is a better way; turn your direction, and heed.
Not long ago I said it was wise to dissemble your cheating,
     Now I reverse myself--let it be openly told.
Inconsistent? Of course, but is that any reason to scold me?
     Winds do not always blow from the same reach of the sky.
East, West, North, or South--and we plan our course in accordance.
     Drivers can hold the reins easy or tight at their will.
There are some girls who are bored with over-devoted indulgence:
     Given no rival, their love languishes, fades, dies away.
Spirit can grow too rank, when matters are going too smoothly,
     Nor is it easy to bear Fortune's continual smile.
Just as a fire dies down, and weakens, little by little,
     While the embers lie hid under the gray of the ash,
But if you rouse the flame, half-dead, by throwing on sulphur,
     Then it flares up again, brighter in light than before.
So, when hearts grow dull with too much freedom from worry,
     They must be given the spur, given incentive to love.
Heat her cooling mind, and let her grow anxious about you:
     Let her grow pale when she hears evidence your are untrue.
Lucky beyond all count is the man whom a woman grieves over,
     Pales at the word of his wrong, falls in a faint to the ground.
I would not mind, in that case, if she tried to snatch me bald-headed,
     Tore at my cheeks with her nails, frantic and weeping with rage,
Gave me her angriest looks, and wanted to do what she could not,
     Namely, live without me--what an impossible hope!
If she should ask me, "How long is a suitable time for resentment?"
     I would say, Not too long; anger flares up with delay.
While she is still in tears, put your arms gently around her
     While she is still in tears, hold her close to your breast,
Give her, while still in tears, kisses, and something much better--
     That is the only way; anger succumbs to that peace.
When she has raged her fill, and seems an enemy, surely,
     Take her to bed; you will find she will be gentle and mild.
There the arms are laid down in favor of concord and union;
     There, you can take it from me, harmony truly is born.
The doves, who were lately at war, join bill to bill in affection;
     Soft is the roucoulade, murmuring, cooing of love.

Ovid

one step at a time...

2011-08-27T11:00:00.008-06:00

There could be a day in the life of human growth and self actualization

that the love of one in one stage gives way,

and the love of another in a new stage holds sway.

Thus the the growth of the true person,

in all their royal personhood,

is the highest authority in the dictates of loyalty.

And the choice in that day is to let go of love that has been and is now over.

And then to honestly grieve all that it might have been,

and bid fond farewell.

Then new love truly may come in.

close your eyes with what’s not there

I could tell you the colour. No binary, defined by presence or lack. Each other. There is a truth to these things. A palette of knowings. When we paint we drip pigmented, liquid, tactile, truths. These drips are ourselves. We stain each other’s skin. Stains that do not wash away despite the many comfort lies we bathe ourselves in. The story of too much, it doesn’t, didn’t matter. There will be legs and hands and kindness, and eyes that see scars without asking, mouths that lick at other mouths without questioning. An absence of questions that is wrapped in understanding. There will be less words, less telling and telling and telling because telling doesn’t have to be spoken when it can be seen and understood by different and not the same. The lies of the stories are truths. Truths that obscure and hide and layer other truths. The truths of borders. The truths of knowings that cannot be unlearnt. There is the colour and the end, the confession, benediction, and lament. She tells me it wasn’t real, or, at best – dream like. Waking up alone and disoriented. I think about the names that flash across my screen. Names at the end of phone calls entered 20, 30, 50, years ago. A database byte flashing green and white. A somewhat archive that stands long after the typing fingers change. Names not erased, even when the person carrying the burden of the name and its story is dead. An electronic graveyard, no less real. There are countless ways to touch and be touched. I hold them in my mouth and not my heart.

She Was
this blog is food for my poor soul
thanks D

The beauty that you gave
Has turned upon itself
And all the things you said
Evaporated
Evaporated ...
Was I blind
Deaf and dumb
To the words slipped from your tongue?

Honestly ... honestly ... honestly
Alone in my bed
The things that you said
Go round in my head ... still
It seems to be true
That nothin' I do
Can influence you ...

I tried and tried again
(Don't you know I tried and tried again
to make you listen to me
But everything I said it always seemed to go right through you)
To make you notice me
(I turned myself into a person that I didn't like
But please believe me when I say I know it wasn't right)
But talking to myself
(I never thought that things would
get to be so complicated
I never thought that you and me would end up so frustrated)
Won't catch you attention I see ...
(You'd think that something had to come from all those good intentions
But in the end I needed something more than intervention)

Was I mad?
Was I ... mad?
Foolish me
Foolish ... me
To succumb so easily
To suc...cumb
Easi...ly
So easily
So easily

Honestly... honestly... honestly...
(Alone in my bed
The things that you said
Go round in my head ... still
It seems to be true
That nothin' I do
Can influence you... still)

Fools like me get so easily taken
And fools like me can be so mistaken

Honestly... Honestly... Honestly

The promise that you gave
(Don't you know the promise that you
gave just turned it's back upon me
I stopped believing but you couldn't take the whole thing from me)
Has turned it's back
(I never thought I'd have to pay the price to set you free)
And all you represented
Was just my projection you see...
(You know I never thought I'd ever
live a day without you
And that's the reason why
it makes me sad to think about you
and you know I never thought
I'd make it if you wasn't there
And now I'm tryin' to eject myself
from this despair)

People come
People go...
Never say I "told you so"
Honestly

Everything I know you said
Goin' round inside my head

Never thought I'd see the day
Always got a price to pay

Nothin' that I ever do
Ever seems to get to you

perchance to dream

2011-08-27T10:06:00.007-06:00

I began to cry, big tears that dripped right from the middle of my eyes and streaked down my cheeks. They welled up from deep down inside me and I could and would do nothing to stop them. I watched the world go by from a fuzzy, altered perspective that defied logic. The world was there, and yet not there, and I was in it and yet not in it.

Perhaps it was all a dream...............

.................I began to laugh.
deep resounding, resonating, uproarious laughter, as if the universe had whispered into my deepest space and fully enlightened me as to the the cosmic joke of it All.
I laughed a hurricane, and I laughed a tornado, and I laughed a typhoon.
and then I laughed.
I laughed my way to a surreal place on the other side, over there, by blissland.
the heaviness lifted from my shoulders, clambered up a tree, leapt on to a roof, and rode the smoke from my chimney through the air at an accelerating pace which cannot exist and simply vaporized.
the real and the surreal were there; not there.
as was I, as I wasn't.

perhaps it was all a dream......................

yes a better ending,
well said
thanks Andy G

for my sista W......
we're just two dolls
under a spell
on a music box
that's wound by a key

I heard once- feel the feeling and let it drop down,
deep into your pelvis.
Don't fight it, but let it sink down.
It will be a little easier to tolerate.

thanks W

A Weird Lullaby

2011-08-25T16:50:00.003-06:00

image: Nathan Appel

What a death
What a chance
What a surprise
My will has chosen life
Still, it has had me spooked,
And many others beside.....

At night I think of my piano in its ocean grave,
And sometimes of myself floating above it.
Down there everything is so still
and silent,
that it allows me to sleep.
It is a weird lullaby
and so it is
it is mine.
There is a silence where had been no sound.
There is a silence where no sound maybe,
in the cold grave
under the deep, deep, sea.

excerpt from The Piano

Healing of a Broken Heart

2011-08-23T18:07:00.001-06:00

2011-08-17T09:09:00.000-06:00

If only love would spread its savor through me!
--not to go one moment more without spring!
What I sold into sorrow was only my hands,
dearest: now leave me with your kisses.

Shut out the month's light with your fragrance;
close all the doors with your hair.
Only do not forget, if I wake up crying
it's only because in my dream I'm a lost child

hunting through the leaves of the night for your hands,
for your caresses like the wheat,
the flashing rapture of shadow and energy.

O my dearest, nothing but shadow there
where you walk with me through your dream:
you tell me when the light returns.

Neruda

I'm shakin my shimmy Sista............

2011-07-29T07:55:00.002-06:00

I can't post my girl Shug with out posting this clip below--probably the most powerful piece of film in cinema....

The Color Purple

The World as Non-Sense

2011-07-27T12:59:00.001-06:00

That our life is a dissolving moment in which there is nothing to grasp and no one to grasp it is the negative way of saying something which may also be said positively. But the positive way is not quite so effective and forceful, and lends itself more easily to misunderstanding. The sense that there is something to be grasped rests upon the seeming duality of the ego and its experience. But the reason that there is nothing to be grasped is that this duality is only seeming, so that the attempt to cling is like trying to bite the teeth with the teeth, or to clutch the hand with the hand. The corollary of this realization is that subject and object, oneself and the world, are a unity or, to be precise, a "nonduality" since the word "unity" may be taken to exclude diversity.

Alan Watts
Nature, Man and Woman

2011-07-27T12:48:00.000-06:00

2011-07-24T10:30:00.000-06:00

I know your work;

I wish I knew your name.

You seem to be the only artist here

Who knows about the other colors.

Black and white are just as well;

But one quickly tires of shades of gray.

How can they take two loves

And paint them both gray

When one is clearly magenta,

And the other royal blue?

Amanda Kalyca

possibilities

2011-07-15T12:25:00.003-06:00

Thirty-Three

I thee he she one two then three,
Ten, thirteen, thirty-three
Fingers joints vertebrae
seed root trunk branch leaf fruit
I thou he she making we, where me
Me we remembering me thee
Three free seed root sprout
Rushing hands poor soil drout
Trunk branch leaf fruit
Doubt freak out must shout
I finding me before three
Before we wandering free seed
under tree damp cool shade
Fool who is me thee we be
Wondering feel such zeal
Sweet feel apple orange peal
I thou she he together we
Fertile field wings flutter
Nest empty parents lost
Wondering feel free field
Three we went south
Spring brook river mouth
Sea waves tides shore
Wind cloud rain more
Life rolling here there
Who me here where
Hear me then share
Fair trade take dare
Give take big mistake
Who lost under rake
Leaves fall compost all
More soil buried seed
Child sprouts from heart
More roots survive drout
Doubt sure breaks heart
Rivers bends dams levies floods
Storms burst I thou he she
We tremble make thirty three
Three loads branch breaks
Baby falls then wakes
Loving arms sweet tears
Tremble shudder night fears
Day dawns noon bright
After hot follow cool night
Who there to hold tight
We she he plight troth right
Left here back there finding
Me seeking share fair pair
Tree shakes earth quakes
Big wave tsunami sweeps
Trees nests people all
Upon the other shore
Peace trips then falls
Picks up dust and all
What real dander all
Life in dust dust rust
Wreckage weaving deep fear
Trusting heaven twist turn
Where root soil deep there
Sprout reach sun sweep
Sun moon rain earth
Turning season
Crawl stand walk run
Jump fall get up call
Foul ball fair trade
Eat fruit shit all
Make soil grow tall
I thou he she we
Where me all through
Root trunk stand tall
Eyes mouth nose ears
Vagina penis anus train us
Us we what fuss dust bust
Fools sages feet stages
Joys smiles tears rages
Thorns lances sides blood
Crown heart belly loins
Time burns holes pockets
Summer fires pile ashes
Helpless standing watching blazes
Phoenix rises second city
Windy prophets driving markets
Life unfolding eyes in sockets
Watch this mom look no hands
Tears fall joy cheer home stand
Life grand number one fan
I thou she he we thirty three

Matthew tragiewS

Now. When I have overcome my fears--of others, of
myself, of the underlying darkness:
at the frontier of the unheard-of.
Here ends the known. But from a source beyond it,
something fills my being with its possiblities.

Dag Hammarskjold

dance on fearless heart!!!!!

2011-07-10T22:00:00.004-06:00

Nothing is really mine except Krishna. O my parents, I have searched the world And found nothing worthy of love. Hence I am a stranger amidst my kinfolk And an exile from their company, Since I seek the companionship of holy men; There alone do I feel happy, In the world I only weep.

I planted the creeper of love And silently watered it with my tears; Now it has grown and overspread my dwelling. You offered me a cup of poison Which I drank with joy. Mira is absorbed in contemplation of Krishna, She is with God and all is well!

Mirabai

How many more stillborn children in my Discovery for Love's Promise must I bear?
When will I learn that my heart belongs only to Shiva and no mortal man?
The soma that fills my tears must be the food for my poor heart.

thank you Wah! for another ass-kicking, kirtan rock and roll chanting evening at the chicken coup.
...inspiration abounds!

2011-07-06T10:08:00.000-06:00

Gently down this path we travel
No betrayer, no betrayed,
Only players sweetly playing
To discover truth and all it's ways

Many players on the field
All with one intent in mind
Together to lift us all higher
Some to rest, some to strive

All so that the people may live
The children thrive and each
Person's place be acknowledged
With equanimity and compassion

Ever watchful of the fears
And worries of exclusion
Each from choices long since
Made deep in subconscious

The spirit guides the energy
The energy guided the blood
The vision is our spirit
The blood our thoughts and deeds

May energy be in rich supply
This spirit work to manifest
In sweat and blood and tears
All good growth to realize

Matthew Tragiews

2011-07-02T12:06:00.001-06:00

You will remember that leaping stream
where sweet aromas rose and trembled,
and sometimes a bird, wearing water
and slowness, its winter feathers.

You will remember those gifts from the earth:
indelible scents, gold clay,
weeds in the thicket and crazy roots,
magical thorns like swords.

You'll remember the bouquet you picked,
shadows and silent water,
bouquet like a foam-covered stone.

That time was like never, and like always.
So we go there, where nothing is waiting;
we find everything waiting there.

Pablo the God Neruda

happy solstice darlings

2011-06-21T10:12:00.001-06:00

On the

day I die, when I’m

being carried toward the grave,

don’t weep. Don’t say, “He’s gone! He’s gone!”

Death has nothing to do with going away. The sun sets and

the moon sets, but they’re not gone. Death is a coming together. The tomb

looks like a prison, but it’s really release into Union. The human seed

goes down in the ground like a bucket into the well where Joseph

is. It grows and comes up full of some unimagined beauty.

Your mouth closes here and immediately

opens with a shout of joy

there.

rumi

I didn't want to know you
I didn't mean to be a friend
But now it seems
I'd run through burnin' fire
Just to see your face again

I didn't want to hurt you
(or be hurt by you)
At the closing of the game
but now it seems
Too late for that desire
I watched it all go up in flames
I watched it all go up in flames

Tell me
Darlin'
What would it take
To untie the twist in us?
'cause it's makin' my heart ache

Under a cloak of darkness
Under the covers where we laid
there I spent my dreams with you
Now I've hid them all away
I guess I've hid them all away

Nothin'
And no-one
Touches me like you
But how could I believe in this
When none of it was true?
Yes

(I knew from the first time that
i set my eyes on you)

I didn't mean to make you suffer
I didn't mean to make you cry
you didn't mean to make me suffer
You didn't mean to make me cry

Oh my darlin'
Oh my lover
All the words come back to me
I remember I remember
Everything you said to me
We went walking
Out in silence
Underneath the cherry tree
Falling blossom
Falling blossom
Falling from the cherry tree
I remember
I remember

divinity

2011-06-19T08:24:00.002-06:00

Her smile slices through

Like a hot knife

Soft butter yields

Spread by her laughter

Scrumptious jam

Oozes out the sides

Toasted to perfection

Her eyes glisten

With delight

Her mouths watering

With passion

She opens to receive

Sweet penetration

Dams burst

Sparks fly

Excitement is just

A word and mild

When compared

Actual experience

Transcends weak adverbs

She is action itself

Potent, transcendent

More real than real

Beyond fantasy

To numinous

Fulfillment

Matthew Tragiews

no more I love you"s

2011-06-09T15:05:00.002-06:00

A golden doorway

Shimmering in the distance

Seems I once walked through

Now around the next curve

Or under the next stone

My back is weary

From sitting through years of memories

And dreaming futures

Welling up choking off

The field I walk

Holds treasures untapped

While far off meanderings

Distract from shimmering Presence

Here in this moment

Unlooked for, unprepared

Arising from the mist

All the glittering wealth

Of living flesh offers

Humble reward

For honest labour.

2011-06-07T06:05:00.000-06:00

We have moved from belly to arms and lie flesh against flesh, still at home, yet distinct as two. This begins our dance of duality, our two-part harmony, our duet of self and other. We are not always one with her now. She does not take us with her everywhere. She is not always present. I cry and I cry for her. I do not know how to be with her absence. If she is my home and she is gone, where am I? Where is home? I begin my search, this human being's quest for home.

dianne m. connelly
All Sickness is Home Sickness

2011-06-06T06:34:00.000-06:00

gateway of being: open your being, awaken,

learn then to be, begin to carve your face,

develop your elements, and keep your vision

keen to look at my face, as I at yours,

keen to look full at life right through to death,

faces of sea, of bread, of rock, of fountain,

the spring of origin which will dissolve our faces

in the nameless face, existence without face

the inexpressible presence of presences

~Octavio Paz

discovering love's promise

2011-06-04T14:20:00.001-06:00

Lanterns

Hang from the night sky

So that your eye might draw

One more image of love upon your silk canvas

Before sleep.

Words from Him have reached you

And tilled a golden field inside.

When all your desires are distilled

You will cast just two votes:

To love more,

And be happy.

Take the sounds from the mouth-flute of Hafiz

And mix them into your seed pouch.

And when the Moon says,

"It is time to

Plant,"

Why not dance

Dance and

Sing?

Hafiz

Discovering Love's Promise

In which reality do I wake up and find myself.

Moving shakti through sexual visceral excitation

To awaken life energy long buried in frustration

You say you love me, you feel it throughout you

You find yourself freely exploring your ecstatic

Union with divine self, driven mad by waiting for me

Yet I have known this rush of love this burning

Repeatedly have I been party to intense longing

Consummated this driving desire in love's name

And it is a glorious ride for a period of time

Until the fuel is exhausted the candle burned

And an amorphous blob of wickless wax remains

In truth you have enkindled my passionate self

The romantic dreamer knower of union's promise

Unfulfilled for millennia under cover of darkness

Dark power hidden from view drives my being

From whence arises unquenchable thirst for

Transcendent oneness realized in sexual union

What driving force seeks to find my way back

To the moment of creation where sperm and egg

Found each other in the dark and kindled my life

Who are these people inside me who created me

What twist of fate brought them to deep embrace

Their waters mingling, their matter making me

Who am I these many people deep inside whom

I have penetrated seeking divine obliteration in

Ecstatic union to find my way back to source

Is this a blind alley? It has proven so before

What could possibly make this time any different?

Lovers embrace, seeking abandon then abandoned

Forever seeking desiring love's consummation

Devoutly to be wished devoured in embrace

Mingling waters truly blessed by divine grace

And reality of life sets in the nest of love

The feathers and sticks we must gather

Neatly weave together to create love's bower

How best to build this nest in tree branch

Thoughtfully, carefully selected for soundness

That perfect branching providing support

And the searching for that perfect branch

Going on for days and days until finally

Nest can be made for mating season flowers

And fades away and nest that once was soft

Decays and little birds grow and fly away

And life seeks life to replicate itself one day

Who am I and why am I here dancing this way

Once more penetrating into yoni's soft secret

Promise of hardening pulsing power driving deep

Perhaps this time breaking through to mystery

And discovering at last love's promise of eternal

Union with flowing font of primal source of life

The branch will not hold but break under longing's

Heavy weight placed upon weakly rooted shoot

So strong roots must be found to bear love's fruit

The toxicity at the root must be cleaned up

Lasting love on strong foundation to be born

Deep rich soil holds best the firmly rooted tree

Rushing stream may wash away the rich loam

Carry it to places yet unknown there to deposit

Seeds carried in the flood of love's intensity

That far shore calls, buddha's boat is waiting

Ores at the ready, sails set for storm surge

Batten down the hatches, time to submerge

Upon what far shores may we find ourselves

Washed up from shipwreck or safely anchored

Safely standing once again on solid ground

And the solid ground gives peace for a time

Until boredom and routine and ennui sets in

Restless love the shore abhors seeks the storm

Once more to ride the waves of wild abandon

Lost in mad driving pulsing life waters flowing

To have both storm and calm in balanced measure

Feed my soul with love's promise, from wild ride

To civil shores abiding deep inside the only path

Revealing love's true connection to all that is

a better one

2011-06-04T14:02:00.003-06:00

2011-05-29T14:54:00.002-06:00

2011-05-24T08:21:00.001-06:00

I know your work;

I wish I knew your name.

You seem to be the only artist here

Who knows about the other colors.

Black and white are just as well;

But one quickly tires of shades of gray.

How can they take two loves

And paint them both gray

When one is clearly magenta,

And the other royal blue?

amanda kalyca

2011-05-24T08:08:00.002-06:00

2011-05-23T18:38:00.000-06:00

Last night a peach petal was wetted by the rain,
And when a girl
After her toilet said:
'Which is the more bountiful,
I or the peach petal?'
And he said:
'Peach petal wetted by the rain is incomparable,'
There were tears and a tearing of flowers,

To taste the living flower
Tonight would be quite a good night, my lord,
If so you wish

Dead Flower, or Living?
Geisha Song

2011-05-21T19:09:00.000-06:00

at this time
when the light is not yet
useful, merely
beautiful

when a bright
honey pours
nectar over a curved
horizon, into a nameless

chalice, and your vision
wakes also, as if
to meet it, touching
everything

when for an endless
moment all
colors are
this

color a shimmering
fabric an infinite
wisdom this

body
of pure love, so suddenly

your own. . .

Dawn
By Elizabeth Reninger

2011-05-07T21:35:00.000-06:00

I thought that you knew it all
Well you've seen it ten times before.
I thought that you had it down
With both your feet on the ground.
I love slow...slow but deep.
Feigned affections wash over me.
Dream on my dear
And renounce temporal obligations.
Dream on my dear
It's a sleep from which you may not awaken.

You build me up then you knock me down.
You play the fool while I play the clown.
We keep time to the beat of an old slave drum.
You raise my hopes then you raise the odds
You tell me that I dream too much
Now I'm serving time in disillusionment.

I don't believe you anymore...I don't believe you.

I thought that I knew it all
I'd seen all the signs before.
I thought that you were the one
In darkness my heart was won.

You build me up then you knock me down.
You play the fool while I play the clown.
We keep time to the beat of an old slave drum.
You raise my hopes then you raise the odds
You tell me that I dream too much
Now I'm serving time in a domestic graveyard.

I don't believe you anymore...I don't believe you.

Never let it be said I was untrue
I never found a home inside of you.
Never let it be said I was untrue
I gave you all my time.

2011-04-24T07:16:00.004-06:00

Meditation is hard work. It demands the highest form of discipline-not conformity, not imitation, not obedience, but a discipline which comes through constant awareness, not only of the things about you outwardly, but also inwardly. So meditation is not an activity of isolation but action in everyday life which demands co-operation, sensitivity and intelligence. Without laying the foundation of a righteous life, meditation becomes an escape and therefore has no value whatsoever. A righteous life is not the following of social morality, but the freedom from envy, greed and the search for power--which all breed enmity. The freedom from these does not come through the activity of will but through being aware of them through self-knowing. Without knowing the activities of the self, meditation becomes sensuous excitement and therefore of very little significance.

The Only Revolution
J. Krishnamurti

Yogacharya BKS Iyengar

2011-04-21T06:46:00.000-06:00

Blessed is the Child of Light

Who is strong in body,

For she shall have oneness with the Earth...

She who hath found peace with the body

Hath built a holy temple

Wherein may dwell forever

The spirit of God.

Essene Gospel of Peace, Book 2

2011-04-14T13:43:00.000-06:00

Every day I write the list
Of reasons why I still believe they do exist
(a thousand beautiful things)
And even though it's hard to see
The glass is full and not half empty
(a thousand beautiful things)
So... light me up like the sun
To cool down with your rain
I never want to close my eyes again
Never close my eyes
Never close my eyes

I thank you for the air to breathe
The heart to beat
The eyes to see again
(a thousand beautiful things)
And all the things that's been and done
The battle's won
The good and bad in everyone
(this is mine to remember)
So ...
Here I go again
Singin' by your window
Pickin' up the pieces of what's left to find

The world was meant for you and me
To figure out our destiny
(a thousand beautiful things)
To live
To die
To breathe
To sleep
To try to make your life complete
(yes yes)
So ...
Light me up like the sun
To cool down with your rain
I never want to close my eyes again
Never close my eyes
never close my eyes ...
That is everything I have to say
(that's all I have to say)

Annie Lennox - A Thousand Beautiful Things [ Official Video 2009 ].avi

2011-04-14T13:40:00.000-06:00

2011-04-13T09:53:00.002-06:00

The essence of mysticism is that in the deepest part of your own being, in the very center of your own pure awareness you are fundamentally one with Spirit, one with Godhead, one with the All, in a timeless and eternal and unchanging fashion. Sound far out? Listen to Erwin Schrodinger, Nobel-prizewinning cofounder of modern quantum mechanics:

"It is not possible that this unity of knowledge, feeling , and choice that you call your own should have sprung into being from nothingness at a given moment no so long ago; rather, this knowledge, feeling and choice are essentially eternal and unchangeable and numerically one in all men, nay, in all sensitive beings. Inconceivable as it seems to ordinary reason, you--and all other conscious beings as such--are all in all. Hence this life of yours which you are living is not merely a piece of the entire existence, but is, in a certain sense, the whole.....This is that sacred, mystic formula which is so simple and so clear: 'I am in the east and in the west, I am above and below, I am this whole world.'

"Thus you can throw yourself flat on the ground, stretched out upon Mother Earth, with the certain conviction that you are one with her and she with you. You are as firmly established, as invulnerable, as she--indeed, a thousand times firmer and more invulnerable. As surely as she will engulf you tomorrow, so surely will she bring you forth anew. And not merely 'someday': now, today, every day she is bringing you forth, not once, but thousands upon thousands of times, just as every day she engulfs you a thousand times over. For eternally and always there is only now, one and the same now; the present is the only thing that has no end."

According to the mystics, when we go beyond or transcend our separate-self sense, our limited ego, we discover instead a Supreme Identity, an identity with the All, with universal Spirit, infinite and all-pervading, eternal and unchanging. As Einstein explains: "A human being is part of the whole, called by us 'Universe'; a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest--a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison."

Indeed, the whole point of meditation or contemplation--whether it appears in the East or in the West, whether Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, or Hindu--is to free ourselves from the "optical delusion" that we are merely separate egos set apart from each other and from eternal Spirit, and to discover instead that, once released from the prison of individuality, we are one with Godhead and thus one with all manifestation, in a perfectly timeless and eternal fashion.
Grace and Grit
Ken Wilber

wanderings

2011-04-03T16:37:00.000-06:00

These wanderings down paths of a gloomy future are but ghosts

The fear of abandonment is one of the primal fears

Breathe into them and meet them

for the false messengers that they are.

You are so precious, so dear

hold your head high.

There lies the rub. Closeness and distance

In our mother's womb were we one with all?

Then birth did rip us into the world of separateness,

And yet we teeter on this precipice

between life and death it seems.

A razor's edge

a lonely traverse from there to there.

Who made this world so?

What cruel joker played this trick upon innocent flesh and blood?

You are sweet and tender of heart.

I have no such fear myself.

I walk the glory road of life,

aware of this keen edge of false evidence appearing real.

That is a beautiful vision!

Your gardening in my heart is a cherished place,

deep and central and unshakable.

Let your spirit rest in your heart.

You need not wander down fearful paths with ghosts.

Seek the strong, eternal spirit within.

Nay, seek it not.

Rather realize it's ever presence in each and every moment

Give these troubled ghosts to the mountains.

Set them on a merry chase.

Let them no longer find you

between the rock and the hard place

weighted down by worldly fears and concerns.

In a breath, all is one.

2011-03-31T07:16:00.002-06:00

It was because of the bowl and
the spoon, hidden, so that no one else
could use them, because he refused to
take part in the risk of domestic
commerce, with its investment of wax
and polish, the sudden loss when the milk
slipped from the hand to the kitchen
floor, the fluctuation of dust
and fingerprints, the excess of rind,
eggshells, and coffee-grounds, which
would have led, despite their cost,
to profit at the breakfast table:
silverware gleaming sunlight,
plates warmed in the oven, tall
glasses filled with the fragrance of
of oranges. We could have
feasted upon those mutual returns.

It was because he made me stand
on one foot, biting the corner
of my lip, rubbing my hair
between a thumb and finger, I spoke
and then hesitated; I began again.
Words fell down, the force of gravity
stronger than hope. Pebbles lifted
my heart gradually, so that
when it finally brimmed the edge,
I could no longer tell if it was love
or hate—only that the bitterness
was more than I could swallow.
For this reason, I could never be
part of him, could not bear
to say the words “my husband”
or tell what he did for a living,
who he worked for, where I met him.

Walking, I never wanted to say
“Let us go then, you and I,”
as I did with other men
or with my daughters.
His step was not mine;
I could not, would not,
match it, and mine
was never a possible pace,
so erratic and wandering
it seemed to him.

When we talked, I used words
that did not fit my mouth,
words so hard I could only
gnaw at their edges, words so small
I could not taste them.
I did not desire to be edified;
I did not love simplicity
as he said he did. It was because
I could not sit, with my hands
folded in my lap, head bowed,
listening to a church-front voice.
I could not swallow my tongue,
could not weed out thoughts
like nettles in the grainy field of faith.

It could have been that I
was born under a bad star,
lacking the emotional equivalent
of a sturdy compass. So I,
defective and deflecting his gaze,
found my heart’s ease in a tangle
of roads and telephone wire.

Or it could have been atomic
mushrooms opening over my crib,
could have been voices radio-waving
through the air, old photographs
scattered everywhere, reflections
on an empty screen. It could have been
all of these, the whole world
breaking down, faltering to a halt.

All Reason and No Rhyme
by Joyce Sutphen

Ophelia was a bride of god
A novice Carmelite
In sister cells the cloister bells
Tolled on her wedding night

Ophelia was a rebel girl
A blue stocking suffragette
Who remedied society
Between her cigarettes

Ophelia was a sweetheart
To the nation over night
Curvaceous thighs
Vivacious eyes
Love was at first sight...

Ophelia was a demigoddess
In pre war Babylon
So statuesque a silhouette
In black satin evening gowns

Ophelia was the mistress to a
Vegas gambling man
Signora Ophelia Maraschina
Mafia courtesan

Ophelia was a circus queen
The female cannonball
Projected through five flaming hoops
To wild and shocked applause...

Ophelia was a cyclone, tempest
A god damned hurricane
Your common sense
Your best defense
Lay wasted and in vain

Ophelia'd know your every woe
And pain you'd ever had
She'd sympathize
And dry your eyes
And help you to forget...

Ophelia's mind went wandering
You'd wonder where she'd gone
Through secret doors
Down corridors
She'd wander them alone
All alone...

May the innocent be protected.................

2011-03-30T10:55:00.000-06:00

When you find that your soul, your heart, every wisp of inspiration, every speck of the vast blue sky and its shining star-blossoms, the mountains, the earth, the whippoorwill, and the bluebells are all tied together with one cord of rhythm, one cord of joy, one cord of unity, one cord of Spirit, then you shall know that all are but waves in His cosmic sea.

Yogananda

2011-03-29T11:55:00.002-06:00

People downcast, in despair
See the disillusion everywhere
Hoping their bad luck will change
Gets a little harder every day

People struggle, people fight
For the simple pleasures in their lives
And trouble comes from everywhere
It's a little more than you can bear

I know that it will hurt
I know that it will break your heart
The way things are
And the way they've been
And the way they've always been

People shallow, self-absorbed
See the push and shove for their rewards
When I, me, my is on their minds
You can read about it in their eyes

People ruthless, people cruel
All the damage that some people do
Full of hatred, full of pride
It's enough to make you loose your mind

I know that it will hurt
I know that it will break your heart
The way things are
And the way they've been

Don't spread the discontent
Don't spread the lies
Don't make the same mistakes
With your own life
You never will let love survive

I know that it will hurt
I know that it will break your heart
The way things are
And the way they've been

Don't spread the discontent
Don't spread the lies
Don't make the same mistakes
With your own life
Don't disrespect yourself
Don't lose your pride
And don't think that
Everybody's gonna choose your side

2011-03-28T06:34:00.003-06:00

What, then of Cro-Magnon men and women? Carefree savages, free to wander, copulate, and desert their partners, these ancestors certainly were not. Undoubtedly the core of their moral spirit came directly out of nature and was present in some embryonic form by four million years ago when our first hominid forebears evolved the human reproductive strategy of monogamy, infidelity, and divorce. The Neanderthals, with modern brains but a society largely devoid of art, probably had feelings of right and wrong, a few moral rules, and a sense of duty to abide by group mores. Then, by the time ancient France, our ancestors had become beleaguered by sexual codes, by peer pressure, by superstition, and by their conscience.

"The heart of man is made so as to reconcile contradictions," the eighteenth-century Scottish philosopher David Hume once said. I imagine more that one Cro-Magnon woman lay awake in her warm skin hut, tossing, listening to the sighing of the embers and the breathing of her husband as she debated whether to meet another man in a secluded glade early the next morning.

Such women would not be the last to struggle with the fickle passions of humanity.

Anatomy of Love

Helen Fisher

My body and my mind are in depression because

you are not with me.

How much I love you and want you in my house!

When I hear people describe me as your bride I look

sideways ashamed,

because I know that far inside us we have never met.

Then what is this love of mine?

I don't really care about food, I don't really care about sleep,

I am restless indoors and outdoors.

The bride wants her lover as much as a thirsty man

wants water.

And how will I find someone who will take a message

to the Guest from me?

How restless Kabir is all the time!

How much he wants to see the Guest!

Kabir

Happy Birthday Beautiful Boy

2011-03-23T08:38:00.004-06:00

Did you ever wonder how a child ended up with a specific mother? According to Sufi mysticism, the soul of the child looks down at the world and sees every soul that resides in every woman. When he finds the one that will be able to help him fulfill his life's purpose, he makes his choice. The relationship between the mother and child is no accident. At times the child may reject his mother and wish he had a different one. Remember your soul made the choice for a reason. This woman can help you live your purpose.

Source: Mother to Child Poems http://www.familyfriendpoems.com/family/mother-child-poems.asp#ixzz1HQwVJQZV

Wherever there's a woman in any home
doing her work
screening her smiles with her veil,
she is You, Ma;
she is you, Black Goddess.

Carefully rising with the light of dawn
to attend with softened hands
to household chores,
she is You, Ma;
she is You, Black Goddess.

The woman who gives alms, makes vows, does worship, reads scriptures
all correctly and with a smile
who drapes her sari over the child on her lap
soothing its hunger with a lullaby,
she is You, Ma;
she is You, Black Goddess.

She can't be anyone else;
Mother, sister, housewife
all are You.

- Ramprasad (c.a. 1718-1775)

2011-03-21T11:22:00.002-06:00

On every table there were daffodils, young, fresh, just out of the garden, with the bloom of spring on them still. On a side table there were lilies, creamy-white with sharp yellow centers. To see this creamy-white and the brilliant yellow of those many daffodils was to see the blue sky, ever expanding, limitless, silent.

Almost all the tables were taken by people talking very loudly and laughing. At a table nearby a woman was surreptitiously feeding her dog with the meat she could not eat. They all seemed to have huge helpings, and it was not a pleasant sight to see people eating; perhaps it may be barbarous to eat publicly. A man across the room had filled himself with wine and meat and was just lighting a big cigar, and a look of beatitude came over his fat face. His equally fat wife lit a cigarette. Both of them appeared to be lost to the world.

And there they were, the yellow daffodils, and nobody seemed to care. They were there for decorative purposes that had no meaning at all; and as you watched them their yellow brilliance filled the noisy room. Colour has this strange effect upon the eye. It wasn't so much that the eye absorbed the colour, as that the colour seemed to fill your being. You were that colour; you didn't become that colour--you were of it, without identification or name: the anonymity which is innocence. Where there is no anonymity there is violence, in all its different forms.

But you forgot the world, the smoke-filled room, the cruelty of man, and the red, ugly meat; those shapely daffodils seemed to take you beyond all time.

Love is like that. In it there is no time, space or identity. It is the identity that breeds pleasure and pain; it is the identity that brings hate and war and builds a wall around people, around each one, each family and community. Man reaches over the wall to the other man--but he too is enclosed; morality is a word that bridges the two, and so it becomes ugly and vain.

Love isn't like that; it is like wood across the way, always renewing itself because it is always dying. There is no permanency in it, which thought seeks; it is a movement which thought can never understand, touch or feel. The feeling of thought and the feeling of love are two different things; the one leads to bondage and the other to the flowering of goodness. The flowering is not within the area of any society, of any culture or of any religion, whereas the bondage belongs to all societies, religious beliefs and faith in otherness. Love is anonymous, therefore not violent. Pleasure is violent, for desire and will are moving factors in it. Love cannot be begotten by thought, or by good works. The denial of the total process of thought becomes the beauty of action, which is love. Without this there is no bliss of truth.

And over there, on that table, were the daffodils.

The Only Revolution
J. Krishnamurti

2011-03-17T07:38:00.001-06:00

Sweet memories of summer days

Endlessly stretching through time

The rains of spring hold promise

Of the long hot days to come

Long languorous kisses true

So much delicious joining

Summer sun kissing skin

Lips softly melting in the heat

Love dancing on the edge

Taking form in mystery

Like spring's elusive promise

One day sun, one day rain

Will summer ever come again

It seems the days drag on

The daily change slow to come

Patience faith and confidence

Seasons change as they ever have

Though winter seems to battle on

Spring's promise eternally offers

Hope in torrential rains of time

Matthew Tragiews

2011-03-12T09:16:00.001-07:00

When thou art dead, dead, and far from the splendid sin,

And the fleshless soul whines at the steep of the last abyss

To leave forever its heart acold in an earthly bed,

When, forth of the body which loved my body, the soul-within

Comes, naked from the pitiless metamorphosis,

What shall it say to mine, when we are dead, dead?

(When I am dead, dead, and they have laid thee in,

The body my lips so loved given to worms to kiss,

And the cool smooth throat, and bright hair of the head--)

e.e. cummings

2011-03-11T08:32:00.000-07:00

To meditate is to transcend time. Time is the distance that thought travels in its achievements. The travelling is always along the old path covered over with a new coating, new sights, but always the same road, leading nowhere-- except to pain and sorrow.
It is only when the mind transcends time that truth ceases to be an abstraction. Then bliss is not an idea derived from pleasure but an actuality that is not verbal.
The emptying of the mind of time is the silence of truth, and the seeing of this is the doing; so there is no division between the seeing and the doing. In the interval between seeing and doing is born conflict, misery and confusion. That which has no time is the everlasting.

j. krishnamurti

2011-03-10T07:20:00.002-07:00

photo by AARon

So that, with heat too great

Which stops and then renews

The closing and the opening of your eyes,

My life in you may still last for the present,

You have become a magnet,

For me, for my soul, O Lord most sweet.

This makes love hesitate,

Shake, fear, before he injures,

Maybe because he is blind,

For to pass to my heart,

I being with you in yours,

He would first have to break your outer rind.

That your life may not end

With mine, he does not kill me. From this anguish

Of deathly suffering but without death,

If I were my own I would be free.

Ah give me back myself so I may die!

michelangelo

2011-03-08T06:35:00.001-07:00

Nothing is really mine except Krishna.

O my parents, I have searched the world

And found nothing worthy of love.

Hence I am a stranger amidst my kinfolk

And an exile from their company,

Since I seek the companionship of holy men;

There alone do I feel happy,

In the world I only weep.

I planted the creeper of love

And silently watered it with my tears;

Now it has grown and overspread my dwelling.

You offered me a cup of poison

Which I drank with joy.

Mira is absorbed in contemplation of Krishna,

She is with God and all is well!

Mirabai

I wanna make
Something beautiful
For you and from you
To show you
To show you
I adore you
Oh you

And your journey
Toward me
Which I see
And I see
All you push through
Mad for you
And because of you

I couldn't thank you in ten thousand years
If I cried ten thousand rivers of tears
Ah but you know the soul and you know what makes it gold
You who give life through blood

Oh I wanna make something
So lovely for you
'Cus I promised that's what I'd do for you
With the bible I stole
I know you forgave my soul
Because such was my need on a chronic Christmas Eve
And I think we're agreed that it should have been free
And you sang to me

They dress the wounds of my poor people
As though they're nothing
Saying "peace, peace"
When there's no peace (2x)

Now can a bride forget her jewels?
Or a maid her ornaments?
Yet my people forgotten me
Days without number
Days without number
And in their want
Oh in there want
And in their want
Who'll dress their wounds?
Who'll dress their wounds?

2011-03-07T07:12:00.000-07:00

Never, in sooth, does the lover seek without being sought by his beloved. When the lightning of love has shot into this heart, know that there is love in that heart. When love of God waxes in thy heart, beyond any doubt God hath love for thee. No sound of clapping comes from one hand without the other hand. Divine Wisdom is destiny and decree made us lovers of one another. Because of that fore-ordainment every part of the world is paired with its mate. In the view of the wise, Heaven is man and Earth woman. Earth fosters what Heaven lets fall. When Earth lacks heat, Heaven sends it; when she has lost her freshness and moisture, Heaven restores it. Heaven goes on his rounds, like a husband foraging for the wife's sake; And Earth is busy with housewiferies: she attends to births and suckling that which she bears. Regard Earth and Heaven as endowed with intelligence, since they do the work of intelligent beings. Unless these twain taste pleasure from one another, why are they creeping together like sweethearts? Without the earth, how should flower and tree blossom?
What, then, would Heaven's water and heat produce? As God put desire in man and woman to the end that the world should be preserved by their union, So hath He implanted in every part of existence the desire for another part. Day and Night are enemies outwardly; yet both serve one purpose, Each in love with the other for the sake of perfecting their mutual work. Without Night, the nature of Man would receive no income, so there would be nothing for Day to spend.

-Rumi

2011-03-06T13:41:00.002-07:00

My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.

—Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

2011-03-06T07:25:00.000-07:00

photo by AAron

I see myself as yours, from far invoke

My own approach to Heaven, my derivation,

And reach the bait, you, through the imitation,

Like fish drawn by the line, upon the hook.

And since a heart cut into two shows hardly

A sign of life, both of its parts it gave you;

I'm left not much, you know how much I am

Since one soul of two things takes the more worthy,

I, if I wish to be, must always love you;

I am wood only, you are wood in flame.

Michelangelo

La Traviata: The Wayward One

2011-03-05T06:47:00.006-07:00

When will my shame fall away?
When will I accept being mocked
and let my robe of dignity burn up?

When the wandering pony inside
comes calm to my hand.

Lalla

There are some demons dangerous
to your soul: lust, anger.
But there's a way to kill them.

Feed them meditation only,
and clear awareness, and you'll see
the illusion of what they control.

lalla

2011-03-04T08:09:00.001-07:00

Of Despair and the Rainbow

I cry and whimper, for life is not fair
The sun filters through the falling rain
Temperatures dropping there and there
I button my coat and say it's insane
That one by one all my dreams are undone
Ticked off the list, like an efficient machine
The fun is over well before it's even begun
Heartlessly missing key lines of the scene
Who wrote this script with so much despair
Where castles can never be built in the air
Dreams shattered before sleep even comes
Life measured out in scraps, bits and crumbs
Yet still the rain falls so flowers may grow
And sunlight breaks through, behold the rainbow
Upon fairness a judgment is soon to be made
There is but life in both sunlight and shade

Guy Matthews

happy birthday little girl blue

2011-03-03T05:43:00.003-07:00

My home is the flowering mountain
my joy is purest idleness
in a rush hut by a blue grotto
at the end of a crazy winding path
at noon I take a simple meal
and when I'm full
I take my staff
and wander to the moutain top
and gaze.

who envies you
oh high and mighty
all done up in purple and dangling your badge of rank
my heart's at peace
I'm satisfied with me
there aren't many in the world today
to match this
crafty rascal.

The Wine Of Endless Life
taoist drinking songs
from the yuan dynasty
tr. by jerome seaton

The little prince climbed a high mountain. The only mountains he had ever known were the three volcanoes, which came up to his knees. And he used the extinct volcano as a foot-stool. "From a mountain as high as this one," he said to himself, "I shall be able to see the whole planet at one glance, and all the people..."
But he saw nothing, save peaks of rock that were sharpened like needles.
"Good morning, " he said courteously.
"Good morning--good morning---good morning," answered the echo.
"Who are you?" said the little prince.
"Who are you--who are you--who are you?" answered the echo.
"Be my friends. I am all alone," he said
"I am all alone--all alone--all alone," answered the echo.
" What a queer planet!" he thought.
" it is altogether dry, and altogether pointed, and altogether harsh and forbidding. And the people have no imagination. They repeat whatever one says to them... On my planet I had a flower; she always was the first to speak....."

may you have many flowers populating your planet Blue!

2011-03-02T12:42:00.000-07:00

Auguste Rodin, The Eternal Idol, 1889

All saints revile her, and all sober men

Ruled by the God Apollo's golden mean--

In scorn of which I sailed to find her

Whom I desired above all things to know,

Sister of the mirage and echo.

Robert Graves, The White Goddess

2011-03-01T09:05:00.003-07:00

What a beautiful canvas we have been given

what hands we have which to create

To say things unsaid

do things undone

feel things unfelt

Forget me not;

Things said, cannnot be unsaid.

Things done, cannot be undone.

Things felt, will be remembered.

We lie withering

with rustling petals

under the leafy blossom

From whence we came.

amanda kalyca

photos by dania

2011-02-28T10:42:00.000-07:00

The difference between fear and excitement is that excitement has breath in it!!!

2011-02-28T08:16:00.001-07:00

Through all the world I only raced:
Whatever I might crave, I laid my hand on,
What would not do, I would abandon,
And what escaped, I would let go.
I only would desire and attain,
And wish for more, and thus with might and man
I stormed through life; first powerful and great,
But now with calmer wisdom, and sedate.
The earthly sphere I know sufficiently,
But into the beyond we cannot see;
A fool, that squints and tries to pierce those shrouds,
And would invent his like above the clouds!
Let him survey this life, be resolute,
For to the able this world is not mute.
Why fly into eternities?
What man perceives, that he can seize.
Thus he may wander through his earthly day;
Heedless of ghosts, set him pursue his way,
In his progression agony and joy,
At every moment still dissatisfied.

Goethe's Faust

2011-02-26T07:35:00.006-07:00

Grain of salt?
Once truth.

Grain of sand?
Once rock (solid).

Grain of hope?
Once love.

Let there be
A drop
         of
               water

To
    break
            our
                     fall.

amanda kalyca

photo by AARon

Trinity of consciousness emerging

Couldst thou find a better way

Than in the dance of two to

Beguile the restless seeking heart

Sitting alone in my quiet place

I reach out for contact to reflect

The endless chatter of my mind

Wanting proof of my philosophy

Thou walkst by and flutter thine eye

Thine smile, thine hand, thine heart
In the open, I cry for recognition

See my vision from thy position

Do I exist without thy provocation?

Can my lonely room ever convince?

Unseen, unnoticed, no matter there

Only a vague idea of life alive

Until in thy heart I am reflected

I am nothing, nothing at all until

You and I become joined in mystery

I see I, thou see thee, through we

Matthew Tragiews

The Country of Marriage

2011-02-25T06:36:00.001-07:00

photo: Larry Clark

I dream of you walking at night along the streams
of the country of my birth, warm blooms and the nightsongs,
of birds opening around you as you walk.
You are holding in your body the dark seed of my sleep.

This comes after silence. Was it something I said
that bound me to you, some mere promise
or, worse, the fear of loneliness and death?
A man lost in the woods in the dark, I stood
still and said nothing. And then there rose in me,
like the earth’s empowering brew rising
in root and branch, the words of a dream of you
I did not know I had dreamed. I was a wanderer
who feels the solace of his native land
under his feet again and moving in his blood.
I went on, blind and faithful. Where I stepped
my track was there to steady me. It was no abyss
that lay before me, but only the level ground.

Sometimes our life reminds me
of a forest in which there is a graceful clearing
and in that opening a house,
an orchard and garden,
comfortable shades, and flowers
red and yellow in the sun, a pattern
made in the light for the light to return to.
The forest is mostly dark, its ways
to be made anew day after day, the dark
richer than the light and more blessed,
provided we stay brave
enough to keep on going in.

How many times have I come to you out of my head
with joy, if ever a man was,
for to approach you I have given up the light
and all directions. I come to you
lost, wholly trusting as a man who goes
into the forest unarmed. It is as though I descend
slowly earthward out of the air. I rest in peace
in you, when I arrive at last.

Our bond is no little economy based on the exchange
of my love and work for yours, so much for so much
of an expendable fund. We don’t know what its limits are—
that puts it in the dark. We are more together
than we know, how else could we keep on discovering
we are more together than we thought?
You are the known way leading always to the unknown,
and you are the known place to which the unknown is always
leading me back. More blessed in you than I know,
I possess nothing worthy to give you, nothing
not belittled by my saying that I possess it.
Even an hour of love is a moral predicament, a blessing
a man may be hard up to be worthy of. He can only
accept it, as a plant accepts from all the bounty of the light
enough to live, and then accepts the dark,
passing unencumbered back to the earth, as I
have fallen time and again from the great strength
of my desire, helpless, into your arms.

What I am learning to give you is my death
to set you free of me, and me from myself
into the dark and the new light. Like the water
of a deep stream, love is always too much. We
did not make it. Though we drink till we burst
we cannot have it all, or want it all.
In its abundance it survives our thirst.
In the evening we come down to the shore
to drink our fill, and sleep, while it
flows through the regions of the dark.
It does not hold us, except we keep returning
to its rich waters thirsty. We enter,
willing to die, into the commonwealth of its joy.

I give you what is unbounded, passing from dark to dark,
containing darkness: a night of rain, an early morning.
I give you the life I have let live for love of you:
a clump of orange-blooming weeds beside the road,
the young orchard waiting in the snow, our own life
that we have planted in this ground, as I
have planted mine in you. I give you my love for all
beautiful and honest women that you gather to yourself
again and again, and satisfy—and this poem,
no more mine than any man’s who has loved a woman.

Wendell Berry

a beautiful revolution blog

2011-02-24T08:10:00.001-07:00

image by bruno dayan

Dream visions sparkling dimensions calling out your name in the dark

the light piercing through the veil of elusive images arising from deep

within forgotten caverns of memory sensations stored for another day to

discover their beauty and power and intensity of pleasure or pain

once experienced in full to regain balance in the face of ongoing life

teetering on the edge of precipices

deep mountains high rivers

running lustily toward

the sea unchecked

by dams reaching

to join the ocean

under the sky.

matthew tragiews

2011-02-23T07:35:00.002-07:00

image: ellen von unwerth

You are love itself.

And my reserve too is an expression of my love.

As care must be taken with seedling that no trampling boot may threaten its taking root.

There are many boots that would ride roughshod over this nascent love.

Let us care for it well and consciously that it may come to fair fruit.

And I walk with full awareness of my own roughshod foot that may misstep upon tender shoot.

Eyes open, heart clear.

No wayward ruffian vagabond to lay low the dancing deer.

Guy Matthews

photo: chip willis

Who was it that injured you?

Were you very young?

You must have been, for

I see your mouth moving

seeking a nipple

or some sustenance from life,

that a deeper part of you

has longed for,

but has never been able to find.

I wake in the night sometimes

and find you curled

in the shadow of my arm.

Feet drawn up, thumb sucking

and it takes an effort

to pull the wrinkled member

from my mouth

to relax my legs

and straighten them out

under the cold

emptiness

of the sheets.

Stephen Harrod Buhner

Born from the night in the roaring wind
Cast out of the shadows by an unknown hand
Warmed by the light of these falling limbs
drunk on the sadness of a universe unmanned

Across the water she clings to me
and in the rising karma I feel her at my side
My father's singing in the fallin' leaves
about the complicated beauty of a river run dry

Sit down by the fire
Sit down by the fire

It's hard to say
but I think you'd better
just Say you don't love me
you don't love me anymore

I been waiting in line
now I know I'll never
Overcome this madness
if I don't know for sure

Across the water she clings to me
and in the light of dawn
I see her at my side

and my father's singing in the fallin' leaves
there's no way out of this old world even if you try

So just sit down by the fire
sit down by the fire
there ain't no way to get what I want

Sit down by the fire
oh, sit down by the fire
There ain't no way to get what I want

Some day
a little rain is bound to fall

Some day
a little rain is bound to fall

Some day
a little rain is bound to fall

Some day

Over my head my heart and my feet
I'm drawn insane
you know I need you now

Over my head my heart and my feet
I'm drawn insane

Sit down by the fire love
sit down by the fire
there ain't no way to get what I want

Sit down by the fire love
sit down by the fire
there ain't no way to get what I want.

Oh, there ain't no way to get what I want.

thanks debbie

2011-02-21T08:35:00.000-07:00

Loosen the load of sweetness I'm carrying.
The sling-knot is biting into my shoulder.

This day has been so meaningless.
I feel I can't go on.

When I was with my teacher, I heard a truth,
that hurt my heart, like a blister,

the tender pain of seeing something
that I loved as an illusion.

The flocks I tended are gone.
I am a shepherd without even a memory

of what that means, climbing this mountain.
I feel so lost.

This was my inward way, until I came
into the presence of a moon. This new wisdom

of how likenesses unite. Good friend,
everything is You. I see only God.

Now the delightful forms and motions
are transparent. I look through them

And see myself as the Absolute. And here's
the answer to the riddle of this dream:

You leave; so we two
can do ONE dance.

Lalla

2011-02-20T08:43:00.002-07:00

A good woman is a source of inspiration and attraction into the world for a man. He must never forget, however, that neither the world nor his woman is the purpose of his existence. His practice is always to feel through women and the world, without suppression or disdain, into their source or very nature. A man's attraction to women must be converted from attraction to women into attraction through women. He must feel his desire without suppression, and then feel through his desire into the source-energy of desire. he must feel through her beauty, into the very delight of which her beauty is but a ripple and reminder. His whole relation to appearance is epitomized in his relation to women, either as obsession, distraction, or revelation

In our worship of women, never forget that they die. In your enjoyment of pleasure and delight, never forget that your sensations and feelings are fleeting, and never absolutely enough. Women can attract you, heal you, and inspire your gifts, but they will never satisfy you absolutely. Never.

Your ultimate desire is for the union of consciousness with its own luminosity, wherein all appearance is recognized as your deep, blissful nature, and there is only One. Your desire for union with a woman is a stepped-down version of this ultimate spiritual need.

You can use your desire as a doorway to spiritual oneness. Magnify your desiring to the brink of madness. Sustain it with full breath, relaxed body, and open heart. Embrace your woman, if you have one, and give her what you want from her. Give it all to her. Give it away to her. Give her so much of what you want from her that you can't tell who is who, the chaser has become the tail, and all motion stops in the intensity of self-release. There is only One.

The very light of your consciousness shines as the world, and it is looking back at you, appearing as woman. She often appears as what you most fear and desire. She is the goddess, ready to fuck you, murder you, and enlighten you. Her appearance and our desire can be an endless drama of need, or they can merge, becoming a doorway to your divine source.
In a moment of attraction, let your desire feel to her, but don't stop there. Feel through her. Do this constantly. Feel through her body when you are having sex with her. Feel through her anger when she is raging at you. Feel through her darkness when she seems ugly. Feel through her beauty when she most attracts you. By feeling through all of her forms, the superior man is not distracted or obsessed. Rather, his attention feels through the mirage of other , and he is released of need in the revelation of oneness.

The superior man embraces his woman as his own form. The revelation of deep oneness is love.

David Deida
The Way of the Superior Man

The Primal Horde

2011-02-17T09:09:00.000-07:00

Darwin, Freud, Engels and many other thinkers have postulated that our earliest ancestors lived in a "primal horde"--that men and women copulated with whom they liked, when they liked. As Lucretius, the Roman philosopher, wrote in the first century A.D., "The human beings that lived in those days in the fields were a tougher sort of people, as the tough earth had made them....They lived for many revolutions of the sun, roaming far and wide in the manner of wild beasts. And Venus joined the bodies of lovers in the forest; for they were brought together by mutual desire, or by the frenzied force and violent lust of the man, or by a bribe of acorns, pears, or arbute-berries."

....so we can surmise a lot about our past from examining their lives.

Anatomy of Love
Helen Fisher, Ph.D.

LXIV

2011-02-15T09:51:00.001-07:00

My life was tinted purple by so much love,
and I veered helter-skelter like a blinded bird
till I reached your window, my friend:
you heard the murmur of a broken heart.

There from the shadows I rose to your breast:
without being or knowing, I flew up the towers of wheat,
I surged to life in your hands,
I rose from the sea to your joy.

No one can reckon what I owe you, love,
what I owe you is lucid, it is like a root
from Arauco, what I owe you, love.

Clearly, it is like a star, all that I owe you,
what I owe you is like a well in the wilderness
where time watches over the wandering lightning.

Pablo Neruda

2011-02-13T11:22:00.001-07:00

When i kiss you

it's not merely your mouth and body i caress

i kiss your questions and wishes

i kiss your thoughts, your doubts and daring

excerpt: Modupe

send me the moon

2011-02-12T13:45:00.002-07:00

Holding my breath

Last one I’ve got left

'til I see you

Deliver my heart with the

Pieces and parts of me left

Every last day seemed to carry the weight of a life time

Watch from the ground

As the gold fluttered down from the sky

Sweet sun

Send me the moon

Empty the skies out

Bringing me one step closer to you

Send it soon

And I will breathe in, breathe out

Until you come in and out

Of view

Inches away from you

Scared what I’ll take from you, darling

I can live with your ghost

If you say that’s the most I’ll get

Darkness to light

Moved from day into night to be near you

Still here I stand

I am sinking like sand in your sea

Sweet sun

Send me the moon

Empty the skies out

Bringing me one step closer to you

Send it soon

And I will breathe in, breathe out

Until you come in and out

Of view

You already do

Never you mind where the evening should find us

Together

Distance can’t take what is hidden here

Safe in my chest

I’ll wait for the day when

We finally say now or never

Till then I’ll be here wanting more

As I settle for at most fear

Sweet sun

Send me the moon

Empty the skies out

Bringing me one step closer to you

Send it soon

And I will breathe in, breathe out

Until you come in and out

Of view

Sara Bareilles lyrics - Send Me The Moon

thanks Hope

2011-02-09T10:34:00.002-07:00

The feeling of stepping into arms held open, arms that have been waiting, outstretched, for you. The soft of a kiss dropped in your hair, the knowing of certainty and want and the kind of other love that comes in an instant, that comes from desire and longing and the wrong time. Of futures already set and seen for long stretches, and you, a disruption, a hiccup, a secret, a smile for the winter days ahead. And him, for you, a reminder, a possibility, a stirring, a body, a warmth, a promise, a thawing, a breaking, a re-learning, an almost.

The lightness of running down stairs and smiles that last and last and last. The drive down country roads, in fog and rain, and gentle green rolling hills and the kind of beauty that is not in the detail, beauty you don’t have to search for because it is right there infront of you, without effort, stretching to the horizon, enveloping you, including you, making you part of the whole. Again.

Huddled together laughter, in a tram stop, the wind searing your face, your hands, the whole of your skin. The tapping of heels and the wrapping of scarves tighter around each other. The love of a sister, not a sister.

Long hours and cocktail shakers, sore wrists, torn mint leaves, lychees and sugar syrup. The raising of glasses in rememberance, in regret, well wishes, celebrations. Men, and the stories that fall out of tired and drunken mouths. The wide span bridge of a nose, the face of a lion, the pulling of hair, and the feel of cold hands on barely covered thighs. The lifting of your dress, the straddling of hips, the push of fingers, the open wetness of yes. The lap, lap, lap of the ocean. Your echo, the bell jar, like bugs trapped in amber. The burning, the cracking of the sky, the squeal of tyres, the sitting lower in your seat, the gunshot, the blood, his limp hands. Forgiveness and Corona on your tongues.

The long wait in the rain, stockings, tie and shoes, damp hair. Your reflection in the window. Fifteen minutes of loneliness. The soothe of the cool of the breeze as you lie barely covered in wading pools, your hair fanning out around you, your fingers tracing outlines of constellations long since gone, a sliver of the world at your fingertips. Dust.

Her hand warm in yours as you lie on the floor beside her, this exercise, this thing, this training, you don’t quite know, but you do well when you tell her that this too is ok, that you will stay with her for as long as she needs. She talks in whispers of him, his dirty blonde too long hair and his blue eyes, the way they crinkle when he smiles, and you remember smile crinkles that don’t quite smooth because somewhere in you there is a memory that rises when she calls him her traveller over and over again. And then she’s standing and you’re helping dust off her clothes and you walk with her to find him, he must be here somewhere she says. She’s sure and relaxed now because the lying still part is over and you say you will help her to find him because that is your job, and together the two of you walk down a tree lined street, the sun so bright you have to hold your hand up to shade your eyes. And you see him, perhaps before she does, or at the very same time, and her eyes are on him and so are yours and you ask her is that your traveller and she says yes and she runs to him. He is very tall and outside of yourself, you wonder if he is somehow walking on stilts, if you’ve stumbled into the circus, because his face reminds you of a clown’s grimace and you stand still as she jumps into his open arms and he holds her there, her legs wrapped tight around his waist, and when he looks past her and sees you he tells you You and you tell him You and it turns out that he is your traveller afterall and that you are his home.

A recurring dream.

she was

Try looking at tomorrow not yesterday
And all the things you left behind
All those tender words you did not say
The gentle touch you couldn't find

In these days of nameless faces
There is no one truth but only pieces
My life is all i have to give

Dare to live until the very last
Dare to live forget about the past
Dare to live giving something of yourself to others
Even when it seems there's nothing more left to give

Ma se tu vedessi l'uomo
Davanti al tuo portone
Che dorme avvolto in un cartone,
Se tu ascoltassi il mondo una mattina
Senza il rumore della pioggia,
Tu che puoi creare con la tua voce,
Tu, pensi i pensieri della gente,
Poi, di Dio c'e solo Dio.

Vivere, nessuno mai ce l'ha insegnato,
Vivere, non si può vivere senza passato,
Vivere è bello anche se non l'hai chiesto mai,
Una canzone ci sarà, qualcuno che la canterà

Dare to live searching for the ones you love
(Perché, perché, perché, perché non vivi questa sera?)
Dare to live no one but we all
(Perché, perché, perché, perché non vivi ora?)
Dare to live until the very last
(Perché, perché, perché la vita non è vita)
Your life is all you have to give (Perché)
non l'hai vissuta
Vivere!

Dare to live until the very last
(Perché, perché, perché Ia vita non è vita)
Your life is all you have to give (Perché)
non l'hai vissuta mai

I will say no (I will say yes)
Say dare to live
Dare to live

2011-02-08T10:24:00.000-07:00

As I lie at the feet of my Lord

I feel the tide of pain ripple across my center

where love once reside,

and the innocent was nurtured.

I bestow this pain to my Lord of the Mountain

for he is my poet and gentle priest,

my medicine man and shaman,

A face of radiant blue,

and long flowing hair,

springing forth a love so true.

2011-02-04T15:50:00.000-07:00

Your hand flew from my eyes into the day.
The light arrived and opened like a rose garden.
Sand and sky throbbed like an ultimate
beehive carved in the turquoise.

Your hand touched syllables that rang like bells,
touched cups, barrels full of yellow oil,
flower petals, fountains, and, above all, love,
Love: your pure hand guarded the ladles.

The afternoon...was. Quietly the night slid
over a man asleep, its celestial capsule.
Honeysuckle set loose its sad savage odor.

And then your hand fluttered, it flew back again:
it closed its wings, its feathers I had thought were lost,
over my eyes the darkness had swallowed.

Pablo

2011-02-03T09:35:00.000-07:00

"To proceed from the dream outward..." When I first heard these words of Jung's, they fired me. I used the idea in my pages on June. Today as I repeated the words to Henry they affected him strongly. He has been writing down his dreams for me, and then antecedents and associations. What an afternoon. It was so cold in Henry's place that we got into bed to warm each other. Then talk, mountains of manuscripts, hills of books, and rivulets of wine. (Hugo comes over while I write this, bends down and kisses me. I had just time enough to turn the page.) I am in a great fever, frantically pulling at the bars of my prison. Henry smiled sadly when I had to leave, at eight-thirty. He realizes now that his not knowing he was a man of great value almost led to his self-destruction. Will I be given time to place him on his throne? "Are you really quite warm enough?" he asks, closing my coat around me. The other night he was stumbling against obstacles on the dark road, his weak eyes blinded by automobile lights. In danger.

As I look at Henry talking I realize again that it is his sensuality I love. I want to go deeper into it, I want to wallow in it, to taste it as profoundly as he has. I feel this with a kind of desperation, a secret resentment, as if Hugo and Allendy and even Henry himself all wanted to stop me, whereas I know that it is I who stop myself. I am terribly in love with Henry, so why doesn't restlessness, fever, curiosity become attenuated? I am steaming with energy, with desires for long voyages, and last night during a concert I felt like Mary Rose in Barrie's play, who hears music while visiting an island, walks away and disappears for twenty years. I felt that I could walk out of my house like a somnambulist, forgetting utterly, as in that hotel room, all my connections and go forth into a new life. Each day there are more demands from me that deprive me of the liberty I need, Hugo's growing demands of my body, Allendy's demands on the noblest in me, Henry's love, which makes me a submissive and faithful wife--all this, against the adventure I must constantly renounce and sublimate. When I am most deeply rooted, I feel the wildest desire to uproot myself.

words: Anais Nin
photos: dania

2011-01-30T20:29:00.000-07:00

dark body;

once you bound my agile fingers with slivers,

bound my budding lips with silence,

my eyes with pity.

So in return,

I knot my fears and hopes with string,

and bind them to your branches.

Oh mountain,

suddenly you seem so vivid,

a million white flags

dancing on your branches in the wind.

amanda kalyca

on constancy

2011-01-27T07:32:00.001-07:00

So much has been written on this subject, it fills volumes. And yet I wake this morning with these arguments repeating themselves over and over.

Constancy exists in the immortal realm, and we mortals have one delicious slice of that realm within us. And all of the other slices are of the fleeting sort.

This is the underlying truth that vexes and inspires. We strive for that which is eternal, in a world of constant change. We say such words as "the more things change, the more they stay the same." and we hope that that is true. Yet all around us everything is in flux, and we are just hoping against hope that something meaningful will last, that something beautiful will not fade, that the state of perfection will at last be achieved and never again be lost.

Yet this is not to be, for all is indeed in a constant state of transformation. On the up side, we see things being born, growing, maturing and becoming more refined. On the down side we things fading, degrading, generally falling apart into their ultimate demise.

When we fall into the trap of placing a value judgment upon any certain aspect of the cycles of birth, growth, death and renewal, this is where we can get into a trap. If we find birth distasteful, then we will long for life without birth (pretty silly, but there are those who despise the idea of breeding!). If we find death unpleasant we may be seeking some secret to eternal life. The list can go on. The point is, finding fault with any one part of the process places us in a very difficult position to defend and maintain.

The art of living fully lies in noticing the beauty of change and transformation and then allowing and witnessing the process with awe and wonder. And wondrous it can be.

Now let's take this discussion into the realm of human relations. The question here is whether in the face of the dynamic changing universe that surrounds us, is it even reasonable to ask or expect constancy from another mortal human being? To expect them to "always be there for you" is too great a load to put on anyone. If they happened to be divine beings, that would be one thing. Of course, they are not. Even if they proved to be deeply sincere, and wished to live up to your expectation, we still must realize they are only human themselves. In this they are guiltless, for even though they try, they cannot guarantee, for something unforeseen might arise at any moment. And being mortal, they could fail at some point to faithfully be by your side. Quite frankly, they could die.

If we are to get through this, ultimately, we must stop placing immortal expectations on our mortal friends. Yet still in our mortal friends and relations, we may see the face of the divine. It is definitely there in all of us, though it might not always appear angelic. The divine has many faces. Indeed every face, and every back side too is all a part of the totality of existence.

And so we bravely face whatever arises in the flux and flow of life and death. In so doing, we strive to recognize the essence, the eternal thread that flows constantly through all experience. The divine face showing itself in each passing moment.

The scenery changes, the weather shifts, the one perfect sunset fades into deepest night, and with faith and expectation we await the new dawn.

Matthew Tragiews

2011-01-22T10:22:00.005-07:00

photo natesh rao

Heading into the dark of the moon

I face my essential fear

And walk through it.

I dance in dimensions of

Unparalleled anxiety.

Weaned from my mother's breast

I am alone and abandoned.

My mother is no longer there

To hold me, protect me and love me

In the sea of dangers that surrounds me.

Everywhere I turn, there is another

Mouth, another pair of eyes, another

Pair of legs and hands quicker,

Hungrier and worthier, or more needy than I.

I will lose, I will be destitute,

I will learn to live on the scraps

That fall from the table. I will

Be clever, and quicker in a devious way,

Or I will go hungry.

Facing that essential hunger, I quail,

Its power compelling, I cannot stop

The train as it begins down that track.

I reach out, I snatch, I clutch, I devour.

And for a moment I am satisfied.

Yet I suffer no illusions, the hunger will

Return again, though the table of bounty

Is not assured to ever be the same.

Another mouth, another pair of eyes,

Another pair of legs and hands, a head,

A neck and a torso full of organ meats.

They feed off me, as I feed off them,

The hungry organs run the show, and

With each meal they evolve, shift, change, grow.

What is essential remains, what is waste is eliminated.

Into the dark of the moon I descend.

Weaned from my mother's breast

I sigh and cry. A river of tears, of years

Flows from me and by me, and through me.

The many tables of feasting line up in a row,

Strung end to end, they stretch to infinity.

My need is endless, my fulfillments temporary.

Yet out there in the endless need there is a

Resting place. A place of shimmering quiet

And peace. That essential ingredient, that

Divine light of awareness, truth and beauty.

The beauty that is not the opposite of ugly,

The truth that is not the opposite of falsehood,

The light that is not the opposite of dark,

The fulfillment that is not merely the cessation of hunger.

I realize this place. It is real, and going there

I release the pain of losses many,

The setting and clearings of the table.

I know that here it ends, for here it begins.

I am essentially whole, my needs are ever met

From this place. I stand still the picture need

Not shift. The love I feel is of the eternal light

And does not shift with mortal circumstance.

The attractions are many, as I walk the midway

Of life. The food that I have to feed the hungry

Who come to feed at my table is boundless and

Eternal. Just as the table at which I seat myself

Is endlessly replenished.

Matthew Tragews

2011-01-11T11:30:00.000-07:00

let me take you to the wild place,

where spiders make homes out of living things

and the earth never lets us go.

let us go to the wild place,

where time is counted on the beats of wings

and the silver hush of moonlight.

let us be silent in the wild place, remembering

the density of our bones and the

burgeoning tide of breath.

i breathe in, you breathe out.

a cricket hesitates

something opens

excerpt~Danielle Rainville

2011-01-09T22:39:00.001-07:00

Time! You, twisted fable, nursery rhyme in a minor key.
Starving african child, curling up inside my head,
Your naked spine pressing against my skull
like a tumor...like disease.
I wish I could wash you off of me,
Like the smells of long-forgotten lovers.
I wish I could hold you in my lungs,
Like wisdom, like air.
I think, if you could see me now, you would laugh.
I think I took you for granted-and you are punishing me.

amanda kalyca

2011-01-07T08:27:00.000-07:00

The Spirit of the Fountain dies not.

It is called the Mysterious Feminine.

The Doorway of the Mysterious Feminine

Is called the Root of Heaven-and-Earth.

Lingering like gossamer, it has only a

hint of existence;

And yet when you draw upon it, it is

inexhaustible.

-tao teh ching

I wonder

2010-12-16T07:53:00.003-07:00

All that I want these days...

..is that first 3 minutes of sunlight in my eyes just as the sun is rising

..the feeling of my son's arms around me when we are falling asleep

..to daydream about what it would be like to be as free as a bird and not care about what I am doing on this planet

..to invent a squirrel sensor on cars so that they all should live happily

..inspiration

..to realize union with the divine

2010-11-10T07:27:00.001-07:00

I’ll be there, I’ll be with you
When the stars start to die
I’ll be there, I’ll be watching
For the sparks in your eyes

It’s when you find out what you’re made of
Underneath the scores of scars
Ripples of imperfections,
cast reflections

Fight me for your heart
Kiss unto the dark
Do your eyes deceive you?

Are you here? Are you here?
Can you feel my breath?
Do you feel the tension?
Our world will melt away
All the worlds of my silence
All the worlds of my fears
Wilt my lips, drench my eyes
We are committed to it.

Chalk on the wall, blood in my heart
Afraid to admit what hides in the dark
Tally the score

A simple sentence expresses more
Than the great open sky,
The great open doors

How must it be said for the world to understand
When the millions of phrases fall like snow flakes
In the palms of our hands
Where’s the ring of sincerity?
Where’s the coveted truth?

Undiscovered unanimity

Amanda Kalyca

photo: dania

It’s good to feel you close in the night, Love,

invisible in your sleep, earnestly nocturnal,

while I untangle my confusions

like bewildered nets.

Absent, your heart sails through dreams,

but your body breathes, abandoned like this,

searching for me without seeing me, completing my sleep,

like a plant that propogates in the dark.

When you arise, alive, tomorrow, you’ll be someone else:

but something is left from the lost frontiers of the night,

from that being and nothing where we find ourselves,

something that brings us close in the light of life,

as if the seal of the darkness

branded its secret creatures with a fire.

Pablo Neruda

2010-11-02T21:07:00.000-06:00

2010-10-11T07:01:00.001-06:00

It still feels like sleepy under the covers
when the curtains are drawn on my internal eyes.
Everything sounds like hammers and nails.
The voice in my head bellows out about
the danger of becoming one of the mad cows
among the multitude of who walk to slaughter
and bleed on the bun of the good, once noble savage.

Birthday with my little Prince

2010-09-22T20:10:00.000-06:00

Sonnet XXV

Before I loved you, love, nothing was my own:
I wavered through the streets, among objects:
nothing mattered or had a name:
the world was made of air, which waited.

I knew rooms full of ashes,
tunnels where the moon lived,
rough warehouses that growled 'get lost',
questions that insisted in the sand.

Everything was empty, dead, mute,
fallen abandoned, and decayed:
inconceivably alien, it all

belonged to someone else - to no one:
till your beauty and your poverty
filled the autumn plentiful with gifts.

Pablo Neruda

Happy Fall Equinox

2010-09-16T08:37:00.000-06:00

photo by martin wieldraaijer

there is a
moon sole in the blue
night

amorous of waters
tremulous,
blinded with silence the
undulous heaven yearns where

in tense starlessness
anoint with ardor
the yellow lover

stands in the dumb dark
svelte
and
urgent

(again
love i slowly
gather
of thy languorous mouth the

thrilling
flower)

e.e. cummings

2010-09-03T08:19:00.000-06:00

I should know better than to

…trust without being given a reason to trust first.

…believe in the literal meaning of words flung together and whispered across naked skin.

…look for answers in the night; particularly when my eyes haven’t adjusted to the darkness yet.

…hope that I would be missed. Eventually.

…forget about the past.

…envy a life I would never want for myself.

…expect nothing. (Even a null expectation is an expectation.)

…compromise my wants and needs for a roaming hand on my bare thigh.

…like it.

…resist writing about all this fire inside me.

…think I had nothing to say.

Your turn. I should know better than to…?

Hope Dies Last

2010-09-01T07:59:00.000-06:00

It is ironical that the deepest experience of my life has come to me when I am famished not for profundity but for pleasure. Sensualism consumes me. What is deep and serious I look at with less intensity, but it is that which fascinates Henry, the depths he has not yet lived out in love.

Is this the high moment? If only June would return now, to leave in Henry and me that taste of the climax, never to be reached again, never to be annihilated.

Henry said, "I want to leave a scar on the world."

I write to him how I feel about his book. Then: "There will never be darkness because in both of us there is always movement, renewal, surprises. I have never known stagnation. Not even intorspection has been a still experience...If this is so, then think of what I find in you, who are a gold mine. Henry, I love you with a realization, a knowledge of you, which takes in all of you, with the strength of my mind and imagination, besides that of my body. I love you in such a way that June can return, our love can be destroyed, and yet nothing can sever the fusion that has been...I think today of what you said: 'I want to leave a scar on the world.' I will help you. I want to leave the feminine scar."

Today, I would follow Henry to the end of the world. What saves me is only that we are both penniless.

Henry and June

Anais Nin

2010-08-30T08:01:00.001-06:00

There's hidden sweetness in the stomach's emptiness.
We are lutes, no more, no less. If the soundbox
is stuffed full of anything, no music.
If the brain and belly are burning clean
with fasting, every moment a new song comes out of the fire.
The fog clears, and new energy makes you
run up the steps in front of you.
Be emptier and cry like reed instruments cry.
Emptier, write secrets with the reed pen.
When you're full of food and drink, Satan sits
where your spirit should, an ugly metal statue
in place of the Kaaba. When you fast,
good habits gather like friends who want to help.
Fasting is Solomon's ring. Don't give it
to some illusion and lose your power,
but even if you have, if you've lost all will and control,
they come back when you fast, like soldiers appearing
out of the ground, pennants flying above them.
A table descends to your tents,
Jesus' table.
Expect to see it, when you fast, this table
spread with other food, better than the broth of cabbages.

Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi
English version by Coleman Barks
poetry chaikhana

2010-08-28T08:12:00.000-06:00

I like small strings of stand alone words grafted together. I like the ways that you make them. I like that they are for me. I think you weave me baskets. I think you make me things that matter. I think that I hold the baskets that you weave on my hip and I carry the washing out to the line. Or, I hold the tiniest of baskets in my palm and inside there’s something very small and very important and very hidden and very secret and very timid. But you are not timid and I am not timid and we are not timid and we are not quiet or in the corner. I think we are the flash of eyebrows and the darting of tongues over nervous lips. I think we are the curve of mouths in the language of smiles that no one else understands. I think we are the clouds sitting heavy on treetops before the rain. I think we are the moment before the weather breaks. I think we are the whispered words of it will be ok, the ones that come late at night in bed after the stories are told. I do not think we are the list of mean things we tell ourselves late at night in bed when the night isn’t dark enough and sleep won’t stick. I think we are the distance of all the footsteps between us. I think we are all the time that travelled in circles before we met. I think we are all the lost and lonely tears. I think we are the feeling of fingertips slowly traced down naked backs. I think we are the feeling of sinking deeper further into soft places. I think we are the feeling of welt raised skin held firm between teeth. I think we are the new beginnings and the end of endings and forever and for now and for yesterday and for tomorrow and for this moment and for the next. I think I could find you anywhere. When you’re not here. With me.

She Was

2010-08-27T10:46:00.000-06:00

photo: chip willis

Mental discipline is dealing with our perception of the world and how we relate to it. Whether we are healthy or diseased depends, to some degree, on the environment in which we live. Most of your know that we interact emotionally, and we can develop emotional imbalances that can cause disease. Mental discipline involves using your body and mind to relate to your environment and the people around you. If your body is in pain, if it develops some type of physical, mental, or emotional imbalance, there may be something faulty in the way you perceive and relate to yourself, to the world, or to those around you. How do you perceive yourself? What is your perception of the environment of which you are a part? Is it harmonious?
To achieve mental discipline, you must have mental clearing. Mental clearing is a tool that helps you become sensitized to the world around you and its help initiate you into the Tao. It consists of four stages:

Self-examination and Forgiveness;
Understanding desires;
Recognizing infinity;
Affirming cause and effect.

Every
Day
Tao
Leonard Willoughby