autumn equinox

new moon, this night unseen
we know you are ALL there always
your backdrop we'll saturate
with tender feelings
watercolor our story
and on the shadowy edges
paint the diamond stars
till a fresh canvas appears
full front

silver white

New Moon

Autumn debuts again this day
No sign of a moon
I light a candle
single, white candle with red wick
burns giving heat and taking on mine
clarify my soul this night

I am alive. I have power. It is real.
I am alive. I have power. It is real.
I am alive. I have power. It is real.
I am alive. I have power. It is real.
I am alive. I have power. It is real.
I am alive. I have power. It is real.
I am alive. I have power. It is real.

the week in film

I write not so much this week, as I recover
From an illness that made me want only to lie down
Stay down and wimper to be spoonfed love
But there was no one. Just me and my film friends.

Almost peaceful, the tailors got back to living post war and love restored.

I saw Dr. Lewis seduced.
"Oh Germain." Life is breathed back into the fishing village. And community made it possible.

Pass me a piece of Maya Angelou pie heavy with cream and love and I swear she was marrying me to Frankie Anderson, gentleman and artist who waited till bonds were tied with words of love and wonder.

Who did God create for me? And will they spoon feed me weak sweet tea while my fever burns through my body, someday?

For having survived without the companion to care for me I was reminded of how strong I am and yet how vulnerable I want to be.

Whole and part and whole and part.

Arundhati Roy

"To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never, to forget." - Arundhati Roy

As the moon grows fuller

So grows my inability to sleep
The cycle again re-cycling
The sense of enchantment
The feeling of being but one

To sleep would mean to dream
And last night I climbed a tall hill
Waking up exhausted was perplexing

So then goodnight and sweet dreams
For now I am tired and welcome the sand in my eyes

Maintain (3.20.04)

The Wisdom of Iris Murdoch

****

Every human soul has seen perhaps even before their birth, pure forms such as justice, temperance, beauty and all the great moral qualities which we hold in honor. We are moved toward what is good by the faint memory of these forms, simple and calm and blessed, which we saw once in a pure, clear light, being pure ourselves.

****
Human beings love each other in sex, in friendship, and when they are in love and cherish other beings. Human, animals, plants and even stones. The quest for happiness and the promotion of happiness is in all of this and the power of our imagination.


Note to self and you dear reader:

Something about these absolutely moves me to silence and contemplation today. And while I keep to myself out of arms lengths of those I would have hold me, I pray that light keeps me company in their stead.

haikus

What about tonight
and then what of tomorrow
Fresh sunrise for all!

Moon come to bed now
with me alone this evening
Promise you the Moon

All the trees I trust
Are urging me, Surrender
You will like the ride

To Pause, to Wonder
To Declare, to Surrender
To Dive in, Divine

All the birds agree
Offering advice on love
All they do is Love

The catalyst

I meet myself to indulge in a feast for my senses
revisiting the scent of a promised embrace
imagining the feel of being firmly caught up
by outstretched arms
and making sweet love against a standing stone that faces the sea

Sand between my toes
I will take to bed with me this night

And to think it has yet to happen

A grand dousing of possibility colored my fresh canvas this day
A watercolor wash rich in pure bright pigments of passion and vitality
Applied heavily in undulating brush strokes
Took my breath away
I look now like a spent native dancer
bejewelled and drenched in colors
that smudged all I touched

A grand dousing of possibility colored my fresh canvas this day
And to think it has yet to happen.

It is a lovely conversation that leaves me
closer and closer and closer
to the Beloved

The longest note of the year

I shall cry myself to sleep tonight I suspect
Moved by my own state of feeling complete vulnerability
Wondering if the last days hours have been
Real or Imagined

Real or Imagined
Still real.
Oh how easily I will open the door to those who knock
Inviting ecstasy in for a rendez-vous
Eternally spontaneous me always praying for the Divine Beloved to drop by for tea
And stay.

And with Uranus in orbit above me
A shimmering network of light dancing about her body
My hands reach to brush the electric tendrils
I am shocked
Ever so gently again and again
By electricity hungry for connection
A hunger I had misplaced in myself
And found again last night

And so I will begin to compose to the muse

The longest note of the year.

Refuse to fall down.

A Prayer

Refuse to fall down.
If you cannot refuse to fall down,refuse to stay down.
If you cannot refuse to stay down,
lift your heart toward heaven,
and like a hungry beggar,ask that it be filled,
and it will be filled.You may be pushed down.
You may be kept from rising.
But no one can keep youfrom lifting your hearttoward heaven - only you.
It is in the middle of miserythat so much becomes clear.
The one who says nothing goodcame of this,is not yet listening.

© Clarissa Pinkola Estes
From The Faithful GardnerPublished by HarperSanFrancisco, 1995

"We're like trees: our roots spread through the earth, anchoring us and helping us absorb water and minerals that keep us alive. But when a tree gets cut down and is disconnected from it's life force the earth, it slowly withers away and dies. Just as our spirits do when they are disconnected from our life force the earth." - Unknown

If I were a personal ad (but I'm not or so I say)

Dear Reader,

Of my profile that is...it's 1 a.m. as I let a few words fall to the screen freely.

I'm happy to characterize myself as innocently optomistic and hopefully romantic and plan to stay this way despite the stories I could tell but then don't we all have some great stories we could share (not naming names to protect the innocent and the foolish that took a chance or three at romance). What I care most about as I make new friends and connections is that intentions be genuine. Mine are. Mine are simple really.

There is more than one but it all crystallizes to one...do well by doing good in all areas of Life 101. Remembering each day as a gift and knowing that anyone who comes into your life (even for a short span of time) is that...What would I suggest for a first date? A good long walk and talk that started with coffee or tea. What would I tell you at that time? That I love to listen as much as I like to share. What interests me about you if you write back?

Your story, that one that is uniquely yours.I am enjoying the journey (would prefer good company for some parts of it).

Some of my best friends are trees, books, and children. What do these three things have in common? Ask me for my answer or offer me yours. Let's compare how our minds work and if they work in tandem with the heart, odds are we'll have good chemistry.

In a nutshell if you are bright, sensual, compassionate, adventurous, committed to good health and taking care of your one and only "temple" and relatively ambitious I will find you captivating...success as defined by you is fine by me.

Does that make sense?

Your willingness to put yourself out there always gets one brownie points!

Regards,

A Writer

P.S. ...etc...

The Wedding

Good friends of mine got married today. The couple I regard as my meditation teachers, longtime devotees of Osho and simply an amazing couple that fully engages in all aspects of relationship. They have the sweetest love/hate relationhsip I have seen yet. I understand fully AGAIN that love and hate are not opposites. For as it was again described, in both states of being, take note, one is fully engaged.

To not care would be the opposite of love. Imagine a fine, fine, fine, barely visible line between the field known as love and the field known as hate. You sure know when you've crossed it even though you couldn't see it as you stepped to far.

So perhaps it is simply that easy to step back across the line? Just keep on being engaged and growing more and more able to observe yourself being: annoyed, enchanted, disturbed, blissful, aggravated, peaceful, sad, happy, mad, accepting, generous, stingy and so on and so on.

For more than 23 years Shanti and Subhan have been love/hating one another through light and dark times. Building community as they cultivated a Meditation Center in three different cities throughout the world before coming to Seattle to do so here.

Today 150 "family" members from many chapters and layers of their merged lives gathered to bear loving witness. The rain fell at just the right times to remind us all of our lack of control. We all laughed and ran for cover till it passed.

That I might be so blessed to meet and spend 25 years with someone who would be committed by choice and then after years of devotion wish to go deeper and marry me all over again.

"The Shadow of Awareness is Love, the Shadow of Love is Awareness."

I perceive that I agree

There is nothing ugly; I never saw an ugly thing in my life: for let the form of an object be what it may, -- light, shade, and perspective will always make it beautiful.

--John Constable

Haikus

Haiku at bedtime
Releases the tensions of
Another full day

I am thus counselled
Observe what keeps me company
Embrace then release

Not to worry, sleep
The lessons vow to return
Early tomorrow

And with me they will
keep pace, focused on one thing
teaching, live as Cause

So that none may claim
they took my power from me

life imitating life

could mean saying goodbye
when it is the last thing one wants to do

artfully done
it lives on as a bittersweet memory

i'm not one for bittersweet chocolate
but i must remember it is a crucial ingredient for the finest
homemade brownies

i love

what was not meant to be

just wrote this lucid, spontaneous memoir
backed out of it to center the corresponding picture
and lost it all
can't get it back in the same way
for the thoughts passed through me
as all thoughts do
were they really mine?

all i know is i can't sleep
and the warm night makes me hungry for a good conversation
where i can listen as much as i want to
and my burning desire to be seen
exceeds my desire to be heard

a burning desire to be
is what it all comes back to

how funny
how quickly we can lose what we thought was ours
this time what was lost was a little memoir of a moment of reflection
what might it be tomorrow?

sweet dreams reader.

Do you have an explanation for this?

Or all the times that things occur that we believe aren't real?

I am real. Are you? I hope so.

The simple, powerful, subtle art of talking.

Have you done yours today?

To whom did you talk?

Of what did you talk?

More importantly, how did you listen?

Oh wait, did you listen?

Of course you did. I know you. You are a very fine listener.

At least last time we spoke.

Bliss,

Me

thoughts on the penny

what are yours?

i love pennies
penny on a sidewalk once saved my life...
pennies add up
pennies are about the value of little things
pennies from heaven?
pennies get discarded only to be picked up
by those with an appreciation for the little things they are
pennies are under-rated in my humble opinion

...it was because I bent down to pick up a penny that once I just missed being hit by a bus in San Francisco at dusk as I prepared to cross the street one block from my house...so I love pennies.

veiled in a comment

I will imagine
bound'ries in focus, now blurred
the joys of souls merged

12.15.05

today's question

watch how time passes
no concern for attention?
why do I need it?

Thank you Dave

A follower of my posts paid me a sweet kudo...

"I like the way your thoughts fall onto the keyboard and jump out at all of us."

Do they? And thank you.

Is my voice so clearly conversational and unedited in tone...and I am seeming both lucid and fluid and connected?

Then I am glad, glad, glad.

Writing what feels true in any given moment without great amounts of editing and censoring is not only how I cultivate this journal but how I strive to live my life.

And YOU who visit are appreciated by ME.

We are all but energy seeking to express itself.

How are you doing? Feeling free to flow and express yourself? Hope so.