"Whatever I am imparting to you, please don't do the same as has been done down the ages by millions of people, misunderstanding or trying to manipulate things according to their own vested interest.

I am telling you about these sutras [spiritual insights] just to remind you that if other people, simple and ordinary, were capable of becoming buddhas, it will be a shame if you die before you become a buddha. Let us make a deep commitment -- not to anybody, but to yourself -- that you are going to invest every breath for the ultimate purpose of being an eternal light, a lotus in full bloom. Without being a buddha you don't have any meaning in your life." Osho (No Mind: The Flowers of Eternity)

Happy Birthday To Me

Dear Universe,

Thank you for the acknowledgement and for the record, this is truly the very first year I have "advertised" it is my birthday to any and all who'd listen. Whatever could that mean? That I am more glad than ever to be alive.

So much time to LOVE....

*************************

Thursday, February 23, 2006

TO: Deborah Drake

FR: The Universe

Happy Birrrrthday to Youuuu,

Happy Birrrrthday to Youuuu,

Happy Birrrrthday Dear Deborah,

Happy Birrrrthday to Youuuu!

A few years back… not so long ago, heaven and earth erupted into a major celebration with the news of your impending adventure into this very time and space. You see, someone like Deborah Drake doesn’t come along all that often… in fact, there’s never been a single one like you, nor is there ever ANY possibility that another will come again. You’re an Angel among us. Someone, whose eyes see what no others will EVER see, whose ears hear what no others will EVER hear, and whose perspective and feelings will NEVER, ever be duplicated. Without YOU, the Universe, and ALL THAT IS, would be sadly less than it is.

Quite simply:

You’re the kind of person

Who’s hard to forget,

A one-in-a-million

To the people you’ve met.

Your friends are as varied

As the places you go,

And they all want to tell you

In case you don’t know:

That you make a big difference

In the lives that you touch,

By taking so little

And giving so much!

Deborah, you are so AWESOME! For your birthday, friends and angels from every corner of the Universe, including buddies you didn’t know you had, will be with you to wish you the HAPPIEST of Birthdays and an exciting new year in time and space. You won’t be alone!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Deborah!

Mike

Orlando, Florida, USA

cold morning after a cold night

a light white frosting
was airbrushed o'er now crispy grass
Jack Frost's graffiti art

brrrh..

Three Crows and Falcon

two crows and falcon
perched in tall bare hard wood
watching cold grey sky

crows harrassed falcon
falcon stayed its branch calmly
crows hopped about

crows wouldn't give up
falcon followed suit silent
what pointless effort

one gave up and then
another took to the sky
leaving one falcon

falcon looked left
and right and around; then chose
left with the gloaming

As did I.

imagine a hat

imagine a hat full of adjectives or nouns or verbs or adverbs...hundreds or thousands of options and the mission being...

compose now
extemporaneously
and see what fruit is born

Evidence of Angels

A waterfall of pure and milky white light
poured down the side of the tree edged hill
and onto the slate grey ribbon
called the road I travelled

A sun eclipsed by cold morning mist
made Brigadoon of half the rising peak
A pure silver orb did it appear
pushing light rays by the millions
through prickly pointed evergreens
appearing as deeply serated knives
protruding from the mound of earth

So white, so light, so bright the soft edges
overlaid upon the blue-black backlit slope
like a downy quilt cast aside
and the sun did rise and shine and reach and breach the
permeable screen of trees as light popped through
and took the form of an angel with wings
as I rounded to curve and began my ascent to heaven and earth

Where is a pin hole camera when you need it?

It's a grand thing

In eight days time I pass again a landmark

feeling no older but a little wiser

realizing with my new found wisdom through living and loving

I have so much I do not know

Non-Haikus

I take the long way

Ribbons of road before me
Morning mist rising off frosty fields
The smallest birds flitting from one slender branch to another
Silken strands of spider's art; are they they supporting the crooked branches?
Things are not always what they seem to be
Or are they?

***
This morning again
I gathered all the silver threads
Left behind on my pillow
By my dreams colored with desire and red, red, red
That woke me at 4:19am
Then commenced again once I fell again into slumber
Gently I gathered them all up and cast them to the wind

Some harbinger of spring building a nest for young ones to come
May find themselves with particularly passionate songbirdlings

But what is a dreamer to do with dreams that are not to be realized the next day?

Release and let them be re-cycled in useful ways
No worries, this I do.
Fearlessly I surrender them
They'll return tonight as the moon grows riper still
Silver orb it is in close consort with Orion these days

I'll pay homage again under a cold clear sky
And pray for that same dream again
with an extra prayer request
more color
more texture

more, more, more

That I might wake breathless in wonder another day even before I look out a window

***

Sarah Vaughn my friend
has kept me company well
Black coffee and love

(oh how could I not post a haiku?)

Beloved

Privately I write so much more than I ever would publically declare
What a strategy I believe myself to be executing with perfection
What a fallacy to hide feelings from the other side of the coin
That is simply another facet of me.

Extemporaneously

God, make me a bird to fly far far away
God, make me a bird to fly home today

I'll pick a good tree to call home for the hour
I'll carry from one field to another
the seeds that will burst to become the next flower

I'll surrender the desire to create an original
I'd rather be once again with all that I am

Come from nowhere
Part of everything
Divesting myself of this cloak calling itself Ego that will protect me at all costs. Even when it costs me myself.

Yes, the meadows support both grasses, weeds and flowers
but how do we tell one from the other? Are they not all part of the master plan intelligently designed?

God, give me wings this day
I'll put them to good use.

a series of quasi related...haikus

he sees the future
as he stands at a highpoint
he waits patiently

what he sees is what
he claims his own; what dreams
may come to be real?

she whispers into
the many ears of the wind
what fun we shall have

nevermind that a

dark storm is brewing
trees destined to fall this night
courageous ones too

wind tickling, darting
among moss draped pines, childlike
attentive at play

waiting for the word
from God to remind us all
we're all connected

so honor the clan
rock, tree, bird, and also man
within the circle

ask not to be set
apart, even when you choose
to live more alone

what is...

what is...

what is green?
the color of growing

what is laughter?
the sound of play

what is seashell pink?
the dreams of the sun setting come to life

what is love?
for some the real thing that matters

what is next?
whatever comes that one acknowledges


I catalogue my lovers for the day
the evergreen sentinels. their forest feathers; the frame of a salmonberry bush with new leaf buds not yet burst, a slate grey sky, the statue of Quan Yin by the fishless pond, and a wind that envelopes all of me on the back stoop

Something though is missing, yet something is still near enough to sense for what it is unseen. Seeing need not be part of believing. For me.

I cannot see the sea but I know it is there waiting for my next visit.
I cannot see the wind but I know it to be in my lungs on every inbreath.
I cannot see my god but I know god to be at play in the garden where I dwell.

Leaving gifts for me on paths I've yet to walk.

To my fellow muse and troubadour

So imagine, this
This conversation, this one
that one, and so on

Like a tree in spring
bearing leaves then blossoms bright
ripe fruit; fall's bounty

The days with friends
Who speak their truth, openly
Tomorrow's butterflies

The dialogue we're on like the Yellow Brick
follow, follow, follow, follow
follow the Yellow Brick Road