Pausing at the Trumpet Vine

2012-01-27T07:01:00.001-08:00

I could fly to you right now
On wings of broken promises
Yet somehow continue to walk
This solitary white path
Bone stripped of flesh
Shrouded as a wraith
Like the flustered dove
Of a soul’s departing
Spellbound pristine naked
Coming before God
To claim this mount and ride
From here to the heavenly
Spheres of the Moon
Leaping into chasms of longing
With blind optimism
And the blood-orange
Dawning awareness
Of a consciously embodied life
Smelting the burning illusion
Of a penitential separation
With the flood of orgasmic waters
To drink from the cup of knowing.

Don't Worry ~ Be Happy

2012-01-19T08:43:00.000-08:00

I believe that our true happiness is one of the leading indicators of doing “God’s Will”. Which is not to say the “happiness” of being blindly led by selfish, transitory desires (which almost certainly leads to un-happiness). Rather, that contented state of being, which comes from no striving. That is where I find myself most attuned with my own god-presence, my own god-purpose. When I am in that flow things click, even my mistakes become teachers. But this takes practice and deep contemplation at times; contemplation to still the mind enough to find that place of true happiness within and practice with acknowledging but quieting all the other transitory voices.

This thought came about from a discussion on Facebook about morality and the image of God watching over us. First of all, I do not believe in a judgmental god. I do, however, believe in the concept of karma which I believe is a sub-conscious judgment of myself brought about to teach me lessons which ultimately bring me closer to G-O-D. I can also needlessly drive around the block 20 times until eventually I pull into the driveway of my home. It all leads back home, back to me, back to god. The side trips and meanderings are just part of the play, all part of the lessons we learn. And, if God isn’t enjoying the show then I must be doing something outside of His Will / my true purpose / my happiness.

Hmmm...

Poem for Saturday

2012-01-14T09:16:00.001-08:00

Dreamy cerulean mists
Awash in moonlight
Between the veils
Between the sheets
Cock pierces the milky dawn
A secret group of two
Building foundations upon chaos
Ripped from syntax of parallax
Voracious visions of me
Consuming you
With mandala eyes
Concealing …
… Revealing …
Healing …
Tying you up
Letting you down
Kinky kismet daring
To sip and sup
These rosy hips
Unsanctimonious vessel
Sacred waters
Left hand of intuition
Take away pain of suffering
Concupiscence and lechery
Taken aback by your affrontary
Sweet mystery
Dark desire
Carbon dating
Ordinary time

An ember glows ‘neath layers of ash
Whispering, “Never is a very long time….”

Saturday, 14 January 2012

A Ritual To Read To Each Other ~ William Stafford

2012-01-04T17:46:00.000-08:00

If you don't know the kind of person I am
and I don't know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.

For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood
storming out to play through the broken dyke.

And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail,
but if one wanders the circus won't find the park,
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.

And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should consider--
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.

For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give--yes or no, or maybe--
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.

(image: Dark lovers by sifudragonfly)

Dear One

2011-12-30T13:05:00.000-08:00

In March of 2000 I received completely unexpected a large bright orange envelope in the mail (both the name and address have since changed so hold your hate mail) via Air Mail par avon Royal Mail with an exotic colorful stamp postmarked Reading Mail.

The mind filled with anticipation and wonder. Who would send me such a card from the UK?

No return address.

Upon opening the envelope I found a card of quality stock paper with the message "Why Meditate" from Swami Sivananda. Attached to the card was a red and gold enamel lapel pin with the Sanskrit symbol for "Om". My first thought was "What a nice little treat, I must have lent my name to a nice mailing list".

It wasn't until I turned the card over that I realised the cosmic and spiritual significance of the gift. It was sent from "The Office of George Harrison" rubber stamped in purple ink.

It was only three months after he'd survived the tragic knife attack in his home. I stood in stunned disbelief in my post office, trying the catch my breath amidst the tears beginning to flow.

It was the culmination of a years long one-sided correspondence with a man who was more than a BeaTle to me, more than a musician. It affirmed for me that at least one of my silly letters reached him and made some kind of impression for him to include me in such a kind gesture. I have since heard of one other ardent fan who also received one of these cards.

Sadly, I swiftly lost the Om pin. After wearing it on my person like a sacred talisman one day it disappeared. I cried over its loss, cursed my own carelessness and then decided someone must have needed it more than I.

George Harrison was my first concert in 1974. I was 12. I had to beg my mother and wear her down to let me go.

The clipping I saved from the Rolling Stone concert review article. (Note the Babaji badge on George's shirt.)

But even more significant than that is the gift of bringing me to my guru, Paramahansa Yogananda, which first occurred during the reading of the liner notes of George's song Dear One which George dedicated to Yogananda. And this prompted me to look more deeply into Yogananda's teachings. I read the Autobiography of a Yogi. And soon after my feet were firmly entrenched on this path.

~ Om Guru ~

2011-12-14T09:35:00.000-08:00

" The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek. " ~ Joseph Campbell

2011-12-13T21:39:00.001-08:00

2011-12-13T21:38:00.001-08:00

2011-12-13T21:37:00.001-08:00

Kundalini ~ SoulCollage®

2011-12-01T22:20:00.000-08:00

I am the One who embodies the Kundalini Fire.
I am the Serpentine Power coiled at the base of the spine.
I am the lotus flower plunging its roots deep into the mud bed and blossoming into the radiant Sun.

I give you an open heart center.
I give you self realisation.

I want you to raise the life force by withdrawing consciousness from the senses.
I want you to become inwardly ablaze and awaken from the sleep of delusion.
I want you to seek the inner light.

You will know when the energy moves upward through the triune tunnels of the astral cerebrospinal centers: the base-coccygeal, sacral and lumbar, up through the dorsal heart and cervical throat and the medullary luminosity of the Spiritual Eye into the Sahasrara Crown of the Thousand-Petaled Lotus Sun of Cosmic Consciousness and dissolving into the ineffable bliss of Spirit.

Haiku

2011-12-01T08:15:00.000-08:00

Upon arrival
Ultimate destination
Do not curse the road

Because I Love You ~ by Terri Plewa

2011-11-29T23:59:00.000-08:00

Because I love you
as a friend
or as a lover
as The Friend
or as the Beloved,
I will give you privacy.

We blast so wide open
in LOVE.
There is a violence
in some that comes
after the blast.
A violence that says
“You must stay open to me
all the time.
You must tell me everything.
You must give me everything.”

But no.
This is not love.
This is invasion.
And when Love blasts,
so much shows up.
Maybe we don’t
want to share it all.

Know this,
Dear One,
we are under
no obligation
to share the riches
of our hearts.
We are under
no obligation.
We always have
a right to our privacy.

Love is to say,
you can have the privacy
of your Heart, Dear Love.
It is yours, yours, yours
not mine.
I love you.
I take what you choose
to give.
Each offering
a sacred treasure.

We all need
a place
to hide
sometimes.
You needn’t lock the door
of your heart.

I will not take
the treasures
of your heart
for granted.

I won’t barge in.

~Terri Plewa

Permission to share graciously granted by the author. Please visit her blog.

2011-11-24T23:11:00.000-08:00

2011-11-20T06:39:00.000-08:00

Chocolate childhood memories
Hints of some dark, rich future unknown
Sweet wetness melting languid
It goes down merging within
The child-woman
Touch this softness, pure white
Tactile dream that smells of clean linen
Clothesline, sun-dried
Swaddled in that reverie
The earthy scent of that wood
Where I got lost that summer
The timbre of that caliginous night
Spent alone, like every night
Of this dreamscape calliope
The rush of alchemy
Bittersweet, as life’s melting
I go down
In soft white
Like the sound of snow under boots
Touch this softness that is me
Before it melts into memory.

(c) 19 November 2011

No Expectations

2011-11-16T23:11:00.001-08:00

Tell me whom you love

2011-11-16T08:11:00.000-08:00

Something recycled from the interspace but cozy nevertheless.

The Rose

John Blanchard stood up from the bench, straightened his Army uniform, and studied the crowd of people making their way through Grand Central Station. He looked for the girl whose heart he knew, but whose face he didn't, the girl with the rose.

His interest in her had begun thirteen months before in a Florida library. Taking a book off the shelf he found himself intrigued, not with the words of the book, but with the notes penciled in the margin. The soft handwriting reflected a thoughtful soul and insightful mind. In the front of the book, he discovered the previous owner's name, Miss Hollis Maynell. With time and effort he located her address. She now lived in New York City. He wrote her a letter introducing himself and inviting her to correspond. The next day he was shipped overseas for service in World War II. During the next year and one month the two grew to know each other through the mail. Each letter was a seed falling on a fertile heart. A romance was budding. Blanchard requested a photograph, but she refused. She felt that if he really cared, it wouldn't matter what she looked like. When the day finally came for him to return from Europe, they scheduled their first meeting - 7:00 PM at the Grand Central Station in New York. "You'll recognize me," she wrote, "by the red rose I'll be wearing on my lapel." So at 7:00 he was in the station looking for a girl whose heart he loved, but whose face he'd never seen.

I'll let Mr. Blanchard tell you what happened:
A young woman was coming toward me, her figure long and slim. Her blonde hair lay back in curls from her delicate ears; her eyes were blue as flowers. Her lips and chin had a gentle firmness, and in her pale green suit she was like springtime come alive. I started toward her, entirely forgetting to notice that she was not wearing a rose. As I moved, a small, provocative smile curved her lips. "Going my way, sailor?" she murmured. Almost uncontrollably I made one step closer to her, and then I saw Hollis Maynell. She was standing almost directly behind the girl. A woman well past 40, she had graying hair tucked under a worn hat. She was more than plump, her thick-ankled feet thrust into low-heeled shoes. The girl in the green suit was walking quickly away. I felt as though I was split in two, so keen was my desire to follow her, and yet so deep was my longing for the woman whose spirit had truly companioned me and upheld my own. And there she stood. Her pale, plump face was gentle and sensible, her gray eyes had a warm and kindly twinkle. I did not hesitate. My fingers gripped the small worn blue leather copy of the book that was to identify me to her. This would not be love, but it would be something precious, something perhaps even better than love, a friendship for which I had been and must ever be grateful. I squared my shoulders and saluted and held out the book to the woman, even though while I spoke I felt choked by the bitterness of my disappointment.

"I'm Lieutenant John Blanchard, and you must be Miss Maynell. I am so glad you could meet me; may I take you to dinner?" The woman's face broadened into a tolerant smile. "I don't know what
this is about, son," she answered, "but the young lady in the green suit who just went by, she begged me to wear this rose on my coat. And she said if you were to ask me out to dinner, I should go and tell you that she is waiting for you in the big restaurant across the street. She
said it was some kind of test!"

It's not difficult to understand and admire Miss Maynell's wisdom. The true nature of a heart is seen in its response to the unattractive.

"Tell me whom you love," Houssaye wrote, "And I will tell you who you are."

Surrender ~ SoulCollage®

2011-11-14T20:25:00.000-08:00

Surrender
sur- means high / above / over
-render means to melt

Essentially surrendering is melting into our higher self.

I am the One who seeks to find surrender.
I am the One who surrenders to this art with exhaustive abandon. I am the One who peacefully surrenders to the mortal fang of the viper as it deals a deathblow to intangible ideas.

I give you endless frustration of trying and failing. I give you the ability to hit rock bottom and to rebound in faith and trust in your higher source.

I want you to realise the futility of spinning your wheels and swimming against the currents. I want you to surrender your expectations of yourself and of others.

You will remember when you finally wake up to the truth that you are in control of nothing other than the moment when you place your trust in the Supreme wisdom of the Divine.

Thy Will be done. ~Matthew 6:10

La petite mort

2011-11-12T23:11:00.001-08:00

je peux toujours me souvenir...

11-11-11

2011-11-11T11:11:00.000-08:00

"We can never obtain peace in the world if we neglect the inner world and don't make peace with ourselves. World peace must develop out of inner peace."

"Peace, in the sense of the absence of war, is of little value to someone who is dying of hunger or cold. It will not remove the pain of torture inflicted on a prisoner of conscience. It does not comfort those who have lost their loved ones in floods caused by senseless deforestation in a neighboring country. Peace can only last where human rights are respected, where people are fed, and where individuals and nations are free."

~ The XIVth Dalai Lama

2011-11-10T11:45:00.000-08:00

My dreams of perfection are the bridges that carry me into the realm of pure ideas.
~ Paramahansa Yogananda

Haiku

2011-11-04T08:39:00.000-07:00

A dream arises
Like mist from a lake at dawn
Departs in silence

I Kissed Jeff Beck...and I liked it

2011-11-02T12:30:00.000-07:00

A few of the more faithful readers of this blog may be aware of my sincere love as well as fanatical obsession with my personal guitar god JEFF BECK! Perhaps, you might even be sick of hearing about it, but I can no longer resist the telling. I've savored the moments privately in my mind for over 24 hours now. Dreamy memories I'll always have.

Halloween night. JEFF BECK! In my home town. How magic is that? Despite my continued semi-unemployment blues we managed, by the grace of the ghost of Les Paul himself, to obtain the coveted tickets to the show this past July. Then the quiet waiting. Stuffing down the anticipation while catching reviews of preceding shows. Halloween talk is in the air. The bewitching hour arrives.

The security at the Wells Fargo Center, still affectionately called the Luther Burbank Center, is often "friendly", and the walk back to the car relatively short, so I opted to try to get the Canon through the door despite their posted policy prohibiting photographic equipment. Success as we sail by the smiling security sentinel. The atmosphere is typically wine country uptight (read $10 plastic flute bubbly - keeping me at a respectable limit of two) with a cutting edge of rock and roll fantasy and Halloween fright.

The opening act, Tyler Bryant, was a cute kid born in the era when parents named their kids Tyler and Emily (read practically a baby) put on a solid solo acoustical set. The kid must be in possession of some gigantic sized balls to share the stage with the legendary likes of JEFF BECK! And he did so entertainingly. Okay on with the show.

I don't have the set list notes and I never remember those things but there were moments I was weeping. Moments of sublime ecstasy. Even though this was my tenth grateful opportunity to see the Guv, he never fails to please or impress. I managed to get a few pictures despite the kindly usher lady tapping my shoulder once and shaking her bony finger at me and across her throat. The pictures will win no awards but there is a certain psychedelic flavour to them that suits my tastes (remember my taste for bubbly, not champagne from France, mind you, which is more to my true tastes, but decent Sonoma County "bubbly") still I post them for your enjoyment and ridicule of my photographic skills.

I call these Blur Wind 1 and 2

Classic JEFF!

Goin' Down

Flaming trails

Nope, that's not a zombie photo bomb, it's Jason Rebello, JEFF's keyboardist.

JEFF with the sexy, Goddess of Funk, bassist Rhonda Smith in witch hat. Which hat? (sorry)

This last photograph, the one in focus with moody spot lighted shadow was taken by my talented husband and date. I think these photographs may also illustrate our (sometimes) differing views on life.

I did however manage to capture a great video of JEFF performing the seraphic Nessun Dorma (translation: None Shall Sleep) one of his encore numbers. (With grateful acknowledgment to all concerned, most especially the maestro himself).

After the show, knowing from previous experience the set up for artists to exit the venue and since there was some mix up at the box office failing to locate my backstage passes, we decided to wait for JEFF to board his tour bus. After about 90 minutes, after having waited out all the other die hard fans and autograph seekers, during which time I saw a flaming comet shooting star fall from the ether, the musicians finally begin to emerge. First, the multi-talented Narada Michael Walden who took the time to say hello and exchange a few pleasantries. Then the vivacious Rhonda Smith, looking way too good and too stylish for this cow town. I think I saw her return our smile as she passed us by.

Now, I'm starting to get a little excited. I see him through the glass. He's walking towards me talking to his entourage about whether he will ride on the bus or in the van. JEFF says he's 'on the bus'. I interject, "Can I get on the bus?" JEFF turns to look at me and smiles and says "Sure", in his inimitable impish sort of way. I take his arm and we stroll toward the bus under the stars and moonlight. I hand him an envelope of stories and such I'd written for him. He teased "It's not going to blow up is it?" I reply "Of course not!" and reminded him of the story I told him when we met before about Roy Buchanan which sparked a brief look of recognition from him. Such a sweet and humble and affable man in a rascally roguish rock and roll way. I hugged him and I kissed his scruffy cheek. My only regret is that I did not get a photograph of us together. The moment passed so quickly. I didn't want to bother him more than necessary. But I have the memories of strolling in the moonlight together, and looking him in the eye, beyond the sunglass rock and roll veneer, right in his eyes and told him that I love him. And that is worth more than everything.

She Let Go ~ Ernest Holmes

2011-10-28T23:11:00.000-07:00

She let go. Without a thought or a word, she let go.

She let go of the fear. She let go of the judgments. She let go of the confluence of opinions swarming around her head. She let go of the committee of indecision within her. She let go of all the 'right' reasons. Wholly and completely, without hesitation or worry, she just let go.

She didn't ask anyone for advice. She didn't read a book on how to let go... She didn't search the scriptures. She just let go. She let go of all of the memories that held her back. She let go of all of the anxiety that kept her from moving forward. She let go of the planning and all of the calculations about how to do it just right.

She didn't promise to let go. She didn't journal about it. She didn't write the projected date in her Day-Timer. She made no public announcement and put no ad in the paper. She didn't check the weather report or read her daily horoscope. She just let go.

She didn't analyze whether she should let go. She didn't call her friends to discuss the matter. She didn't do a five-step Spiritual Mind Treatment. She didn't call the prayer line. She didn't utter one word. She just let go.

No one was around when it happened. There was no applause or congratulations. No one thanked her or praised her. No one noticed a thing. Like a leaf falling from a tree, she just let go.

There was no effort. There was no struggle. It wasn't good and it wasn't bad. It was what it was, and it is just that.

In the space of letting go, she let it all be. A small smile came over her face. A light breeze blew through her. And the sun and the moon shone forevermore."

- Ernest Holmes

Scorpio Rising ~ SoulCollage®

2011-10-27T23:00:00.000-07:00

I am the One with Scorpio on the rise.
I am the One who chose the hour of birth to represent the I AM.
I am the One who is wary and doesn't trust easily in others.
I am the One who is discreet and can keep a secret.
I am the One who is loyal and suffers deeply when that loyalty is betrayed.

I give you the ability to protect yourself with venomous defenses.
I give an awareness of Shadow in yourself and in others.
I give you the power of inner transformation and regeneration.

I want you to still the muddied waters of your deeply intense emotions.
I want you to cautiously reveal yourself through the mask of personality to a chosen few.
I want you to recognize the healing powers of your Shakti.

You will remember when you no longer hide from yourself.
You will remember when the personification of power becomes about empowering others.
You will remember when you gather the disparate parts of Self - the jealous one, the rascally one, the heartfelt one, the enthusiastic one - into a picture of complete wholeness.

Going Home...

2011-10-22T09:27:00.000-07:00

They say you can never go home again and I say that's mostly true, if home is a physical place. But if home is the people you love, those who take you in no matter what, if you have that you can always go home again.

I recently was blessed with the opportunity to do just that and visited my dad, who turned 70 this year and whom I had not seen for twenty years, ten of which we did not speak or write. These are a few of the stories I harvested on my recent visit, back home to the heart land of Ohio.

* * * * *.* * * * *

My grandfather Zelman Marion Lewis was born in 1903 in Marion Ohio in the same farmhouse that I visited as a child and young girl and later as a young woman with my own children. That makes five generations on one plot of land, that means home to me.

Zelman, “Grandpa Z”, as I would have called him had he lived past my first birthday, was the grandson of John Lewis and Ann Evans, who left their native homeland of Wales to escape the harsh life of work in the coal mines. Turning left at Liverpool they arrived in America and settled in Ohio.

Zelman was the son of a farmer, Albert, and a former beauty contest winner, Mary. A Victorian era photographic portrait of my great-grandmother Mary hung in that farmhouse and depicts a captivating dark haired, young woman with soft features, save for dramatically dark eyebrows. She appears to be a petite woman with a tiny waist that is dwarfed by the burgeoning bustle skirt behind her. She stands besides a chair appointed with rope fringe and needlepoint cushion. (Perhaps, this photo was another prize from the beauty contest? From which she won a finely beaded purse, which remained in the family.) I imagine it may have been quite a shock for such a refined looking woman to take up housekeeping and child rearing in the green valleys of Ohio.

A later photograph shows the family in front of that familiar farmhouse at the turn of the century. Mary, who by now has brought forth four boys and a girl, still has a same small frame and tiny waist, her skirt now a much more practical floor length sans bustle. Her hair is still soft but lighter, perhaps greyer. The patriarch Albert stands nearby. His dark hair and graying temples match the dark three-piece suit her wears looking Easter Sunday formal. Zelman, the youngest, is dressed in a toddler’s smock, and appears fair-haired. He stands near his mother and sister Goldie. The older bothers, Dale, Dennis and Royal Glen appear to separate themselves slightly. Indoor furniture, several chairs, a settee, are set about the yard which makes me think it may have been late spring or summer. A good looking bicycle rests against a tree. A bull terrier reclines with a steady gaze in the forefront.

An even later photograph shows Z as a young man standing with a baseball glove in hand and ball cap turned reverse (catcher?) wearing a white cotton shirt long sleeves rolled up to expose Popeye-like forearms, bow-tie askew with dark vest and pants. He has the wide-legged stance of a charismatic leader. The other young men, one of whom is brother Dale, all have baseball gloves and one poses with a bat. It is a classic photo of my grandfather who loved baseball and instilled that love in his children as he would later sit around the radio with them listening to the baseball games.

My dad described my grandfather as a college graduate (not a common feat for Ohio farm boys in those days), an avid reader, and a lover of books and of storytelling. He loved to take his children on walks in the woods behind the farmhouse and describe things in nature to them while teaching them proper names of plants and birds, something that I have my own memories of my dad doing with me.

That such a man would later court and marry a woman fifteen years his junior, the daughter of coal-miners and moon-shiners from the hills (yeah, I said it) of Kentucky and bring her back to that farmhouse in Ohio and raise two girls and two boys. Grandma Sibyl, who always bragged of her “injun blood”, played guitar and told a good ghost story with a Scorpio Sun for a kicker. She named her first-born son, my dad, Ronnie Zelman Lewis, after Ronnie Reagan, her favourite actor. She had nothing but gall when he added politician to his acting credits, adding insult to injury by switching to the GOP seriously offending my liberal grandmother and her Democratic principles.

My dad is a small man, barely a half-inch taller than I am at 5’5. Now 70, he still bears those intense dark eyebrows of his grandmother but his hair is no longer dark and is a soft shade of grey, where it still grows. He has a thoughtful attitude and a wicked sense of humour. He loves to tell a joke. A truly fastidious Virgo, he irons his own cotton shirts P E R F E C T L Y. A live-alone bachelor who maintains a (nearly) spotless home, warmly appointed with everything in its proper place.

We had a great time reminiscing and attempting to fill in all the missing holes of our separate lives. We watched a lot of sports on the tele, mostly baseball, though he claims basketball is now his favourite sport and is unhappy with the current status of negotiations and player lockout. He chided me for my inexplicable love of the Yankees and the Padres. Teasingly disowning me for such foibles. We watched political satire (he faithfully records The Colbert Show and John Stewart’s Daily Show). And this is where we are most alike. Our philosophy on such things as politics, peace and justice has always been 99% exactly matched. So much of his beliefs inform my own. Not to mention our mutual love of words and birds and walks. As I told him in the airport, as I was leaving, hopefully not for another 20 years this time, that even though I am 49 years old I still feel like his little girl. The only thing wrong with that is that there just never was enough, enough time, enough of him. I doubt there could be. But I love him for everything he is… to me.

more to come...

Hummingbird by Karmym

2011-10-21T11:00:00.000-07:00

Karmym is a self-taught artist. He says "I try to integrate the yoga spirit into all my art. Yoga is experiencing the unity of body, mind and spirit. It is a way of living."

See more of his work here

I love this colorful bird.

2011-10-16T10:34:00.000-07:00

"Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from indomitable will"
~Mahatma Gandhi

(photo shows Paramahansa Yogananda reading a note just handed to him by Gandhi who was observing a day of silence.)

Too Sweet

2011-10-13T23:11:00.000-07:00

Late summer blossoms float
Upon the surface of your pomegranate wine
And pour out like words
Onto the lips of another autumn
The taste of that dark fruit lingers
Yet not to pass again
In just this same slant of light
Of an Artemis Huntress Moon
Should under the crushing weight
Of broken barking boughs
These golden apples fall
Silent as an offering
Within this soft, sable night
Carrying the too sweet scent
Of yesterday’s transcendent dream
Passion suppression detrimental
Restoration of faith required
Shape shifting serpent arise the eagle
Brought low in order to be exalted
Emptied in order to be filled
With the radiant sun of spiritual love
Prana rises in the spinal core
She is the secret church
Containing hidden truths
Listen to that small voice
That speaks through the veil
“The only way out of this labyrinth of darkness
is by the inner light of self-illumination.”

(c) 2011

2011-10-08T11:01:00.000-07:00

I Will Be A Hummingbird

2011-09-26T19:48:00.000-07:00

Wangari Maathai, the first African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, passed on yesterday at the age of 71. Among her many great contributions, she left us this creative and inspirational video. Her singing spirit flies with the hummingbirds.

Sitting

2011-09-20T09:04:00.000-07:00

Sitting, mindful
Upon an aerie of observation
Contemplating the unseen
Brooding over fragile
Eggs of possibility

Sitting, not in judgment
Not rushing to change
Sitting in the shade
Of a more favorable sun
Rotating like musical chairs

Sitting in meditation
At the blue lotus feet
Of my Divine Mother
Chanting the sonorous murmur
Of a heart’s secret yearning

Sitting, sitting shiva
Silent, woeful lamentation
Mourning the death of ego
Rending the heavy shroud of sadness
To rise from these ashes of burnt offerings

© 2011

(artwork: Knowledge by Alex Grey)

~ Sunshine ~

2011-09-17T08:33:00.000-07:00

I sold my soul for a one night stand
I followed Alice into wonder land
I ate the mushroom and I dance with the queen
Yeah we danced in between all the lines

I followed daylight right into the dark
Took to the hatter like a walk in the park
But then I met her yeah she felt so right
No child of the night yeah was she

They call her sunshine
The kind that everybody knows
Yeah yeah
Sunshine
She's finer than a painted rose
yeah yeah
Sunshine
Yeah

Her kind of love is what I adore
What kind of trouble am I in for
My kind of heaven lies in hells back door
And I got more than I need

Cause I need sunshine
The kind that everybody knows
Yeah yeah
My sunshine she's finer than a painted rose
Yeah yeah sunshine yeah

I got the karma but it don't come free
I chased that rabbit up her bodhi tree
That caterpillar's tryin to cop a plea
But the smoke ain't got nothing on me

I got to have my sunshine
The kind that everybody knows
Yeah yeah
My Sunshine
She's finer than a painted rose

Sunshine the kind that everybody knows
My sunshine she's finer than a painted rose
yeah yeah
Sunshine
Sunshine yeah!!

Animus~SoulCollage®

2011-09-15T17:00:00.000-07:00

I am the One who is your inner male. The One. The Animus of Jung.
I am the One that knows you to your beautiful, wicked core.
I hold the sacred symbol treasure map and the keys to that locked door.

I give you the rainbow bridge between your conscious and subconscious mind. I give you the armour needed to fight the good fight.

I want you to honour your innate reasoning abilities. I want you to have the courage to express your beliefs. I want you to follow your dream guides like a brave warrior stalks the mighty buffalo, and like the noble knight searches tirelessly for the Holy Grail.

You will remember when you lift yourself up to resist inertia and fear. You will remember when you recognize the security you so desperately seek from The Other can only be found in yourself.

Thank you

2011-09-15T07:46:00.000-07:00

I want to thank all of the followers of this blog, both new and not so new. Besides myself, YOU are the only reason I do this. As you may know, I have refused to post ads on this blog, so there is really no purpose to it other than my own creative expression. And the fact that you would be even mildly interested in these trivialities humbles me beyond measure. Thank you for your comments and encouragement. I am so pleased to be sharing this journey with you.

(Un)chosen

2011-09-13T21:10:00.000-07:00

The Pisces Moon skitters across
A black slickery sky
Dousing my hallucinatory dreams
In wet, hot perfumed ambergris

Confront this inner darkness
And liberate the mask of ego
Allow the disparate forces
To come together
In the natural harmony
Of an equinox balance
Toward that Libra Sun

Releasing my heavenward arrows of aspiration

For if I am to focus the mind
I must face my fears

Fear of failure

Fear of isolation

While an alabaster heart
Pours out emotional desires that
Only frustrate the dance of two lovers
At their alchemical wedding

So look carefully at choices
As we don our intuitive wings
Thrusting the Ace of Swords
Into the air of analytical mind
Remember where it falls

This blinding truth eclipses all other lies
When one path is chosen
Another dies.

© 2011

love actually...

2011-09-11T21:19:00.001-07:00

Haiku

2011-09-07T07:10:00.001-07:00

Golden sky morning
Quiet time meditation
Peace fulfill my day

2011-08-30T19:54:00.001-07:00

The promise of April has melted
Simmering in the exquisite empty
Of an August forlorn in despair.
Effusive emotions erupting
Slow rolling magma of desire
Scorching fertile ground
Under a blaze of quiet recoil
Where seeds of passion restrained
Linger in recondite stance
Awaiting the recrudescent dawn
Of an eternal spring.

Scamp ~ SoulCollage®

2011-08-22T14:20:00.000-07:00

I am the One who is a scamp. I am the One who writes herself into starring roles of your deepest fantasies. I am the One who wants to play.

I am the perfect paramour, the succinctly successful succubus, and the tantalizing tempestuous temptress singing your siren song. I dance through your reverie with childlike chimera and a toying trompe l’oeil.

I want you to want me.

I give you the illusion of attaining your dearest heart’s desire. I give you the illusion it exists outside of yourself.

You will remember when you temper your temerity and realise you are the dream that you seek.

Pluto in Virgo ~ Soul Collage®

2011-08-21T09:08:00.000-07:00

I am the One with Pluto in Virgo and I am part of a generation.
I am the One who is a product of the sexual revolution, the civil rights revolution, and the environmental revolution. I am the One who destroys outdated systems, whether you like it or not. I am the One who is God of the Underworld, and of things unseen.

I give you the ability look deeply within. I give you the ability to transform yourself, like a butterfly. I give you the penetrating intensity to see into what is not working and the passion to set things right.

I want you to use your power for good.

My Pluto in Virgo is a sharp-dressed man but he will cause worlds to collide in my little life just to teach me a much-needed lesson. Bullshit egos and fancy ideas will take you so far but if your shit ain’t straight that motherfucker will cut you.

2011-08-19T07:41:00.001-07:00

Rabindranath Tagore, 7 May 1861 ~ 7 August 1941

2011-08-07T10:53:00.000-07:00

I know the day will come
When my sight of this world shall be lost.
Life will take its leave in silence
Drawing the last curtain before my eyes.
Yet stars will still shine at night.
And mornings rise as before.
And hours will still leave like sea waves.
Casting up pleasures and pains.
When I think of this end of my moments
The barrier of the moment breaks,
And I see by the light of death
Your world with its careless treasures.
Rare is its lowliest seat.
Things that I have longed for in vain,
And things that I got -- let them pass.
Let me but truly possess
The things that I ever spurned and overlooked.

Unending Love ~ Rabindranath Tagore

2011-08-07T10:52:00.000-07:00

I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times…
In life after life, in age after age, forever.
My spellbound heart has made and remade the necklace of songs,
That you take as a gift, wear round your neck in your many forms,
In life after life, in age after age, forever.
Whenever I hear old chronicles of love, it’s age old pain,
It’s ancient tale of being apart or together.
As I stare on and on into the past, in the end you emerge,
Clad in the light of a pole-star, piercing the darkness of time.
You become an image of what is remembered forever.
You and I have floated here on the stream that brings from the fount.
At the heart of time, love of one for another.
We have played along side millions of lovers,
Shared in the same shy sweetness of meeting,
the distressful tears of farewell,
Old love but in shapes that renew and renew forever.

This...

2011-08-04T10:47:00.000-07:00

This is where I want to be
This is the fragrance I’ve been seeking
All my life
This is the touch
The breeze on the cheek
The look
The blush
The rush
Within my heart
Carrying me beyond
Everything I’ve ever known
Beyond all reason
Only a finger trickle of awakening
Along my spine

Why should I follow
The parade of your lovely followers
Or dance to your flute songs
When I have a garden at my feet
A celestial choir in my heart
Dance... Frolick...
You eager nymphs of Dionysus
Keep the blood, piss and pus
Keep the spit and sweat
The fucking cum
Flowing through the back alleyways, bus stops and bath houses
You beggars of praise
Suckle your broken dreams
At the breasts of idolatry.

This. This this that defies all
Logic and description
All glaring sideways glances
This. Which requires
Full attention of heart
This Apollo Sun of Truth
This is home.

© 2011

2011-08-03T08:39:00.000-07:00

...sunset on the Thames from the the Village Green...

2011-08-02T23:55:00.000-07:00

And we ourselves shall be loved for a while and forgotten.
But the love will have been enough;
All those impulses of love return to the love that made them.
Even memory is not necessary for love.
There is a land of the living,
and a land of the dead
And the bridge is love,
The only survival
The only meaning.

~ Thorton Wilder

(Japanese Footbridge by Claude Monet)

Blessed Lammas

2011-08-01T10:37:00.000-07:00

Blessed Lammas ~ Harvest of the First Fruits

May all children be well fed.

(artwork: Gathering Wheat by Daniel Ridgway Knight)

Hallucination Stew

2011-07-31T22:36:00.000-07:00

The house lights go down. The anticipation climaxes, as the long-awaited show is about to begin. Scanning the crowd through a haze of smoke I see him standing on the floor. Cloaked in darkness a light shines from his face as his gaze meets mine. He smiles that irascible smile of his I know so well. Immediately, I go to him. No, instantaneously, I go to him, as is only possible in dreams. Wrapped in his embrace, I tell him he is the man. The Man. I forget WHO ELSE! could possibly be there, for now I have forgotten even the headliner. Jeff Beck is the man. The Man. The only one I’d pay to see play anymore.

He seems to read my thoughts in my dreamy confusion. Motions with his eyes that he wants to take me backstage. Whispers in my ear, “Isn’t there a guy…or a girl waiting for you somewhere?” I think for a minute and reply assuredly that whoever it was is jealous of me now.

My pounding heart goes from a Tom Tom’s pitter-patter to a BOOM BOOM bass drum as our lips meet…

Oh my God, what is happening to me? The agony of the previous three hours, the expurgation of the entire table of contents of my bodily fluids, the feverish chills and pounding blood pressure in my head and in my limbs. What the fuck is happening to me? BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. This throbbing pain in my skull won’t quit. Am I fucking dying? Oh God, please don’t let me die. Not here. Not now, in a stranger’s bed.

It’s dark now. Quiet.

I hear hushed noises outside my door. “How’s she doing?” “Not good. Not good.”
I try to be still to find out what they are thinking, what they aren’t telling me.

It’s no use. I can’t be still. The enteritis is in full-fledged war with the leukocytes within. The battle wages as I kick and thrash at this unseen, internal enemy. I damn it. I curse it. I struggle to make peace with it. Fighting the bedclothes into a sweaty clump wrapped around my leg. I heave. Earn a few moments peace for my valor.

Backstage, the tables are filled with celebrities, mostly lesser known. They all recognize Jeff but not the beautiful woman at his side. Except for one. He sits behind the cloth-covered table, smiling, hands folded in front of him. Those famous blue eyes smiling the look of recognition. Those twinkling eyes and that sparkling smile. Paul. Newman. I will just allow you to look at me with those eyes for as long as you like. The demure smile crossing my face tells him everything he needs to know about me…

Visions of the offending egg bubble and gurgle. Uh, make it stop please. Please. Deliver me from this evil. Flying clouds of fried egg white sunny yolk centers sailing across a dark blue plate special sky.

Sunny side. Over easy.
Cook it well or you’ll be queasy.

The thought of Paul Newman watching me makes Jeff jealous and he rushes to me. He begs me to give him my phone number. I try to think about all of the ramifications of such a request. I struggle to tell him of our compatible synastry. About his Sun and my Venus but I’m losing him. I feel him fading away. I pull him back in with the enticement of my phone number. I bargain with him. I offer to give him my phone number if he would give me his address. Of course, I’d only write to him regularly I’d never drop over unannounced, him being all the way over there in England and all. No. Really. Of course, you can have my phone number. He kisses me again full on the mouth…

Wait. How long have I been sleeping? Have I been sleeping? Who would dare to call this fitful somnolence sleep? Not any decent person. The pain battle wages on in my muscles and joints, the stomach feels like it’s been kicked from the inside. I try to bargain with God. Please don’t let me die. I will never….

Oh. Fuck. God. I’ve got to watch my damn mouth there are children in the house. I’m probably scaring them. I’m fucking Linda Blair. Twelve hours of wretched retching. I’m freezing. Why aren’t there enough fucking blankets? Why aren’t four blankets fucking enough? It is dawn. I hear the birds outside and it tells me the window is open. I’m too cold and too weak to close it. I shiver until my guardian angel comes to close it.

Why does every sound in the entire house reverberate in my head? My fever is pitching this boat of swill. All navigation systems down, my anchor a bucket.

The cars. The trucks. The motorcycles and their bobbing and weaving in and out of traffic. Riding in the car listening to the music that makes me think of someone else. Bytes of images jigsaw puzzled in between compartmental units of storage rings and the time space continuum that the yogis solved hundreds of years ago, by bobbing and weaving in and out of time constant.

Remember the techniques. Struggling to find the inner sense of peace and balance. Om. Om. Ohmygodwhatisfuckinghappeningtome? Hurl.

Scouring all of my evil deeds and finding none worthy of this torture. Recalling every other time in my life when I was nearly as sick and trying to pep talk myself into thinking that I’ve survived worse.

Or have I? The fever is causing my blood pressure to peak out. Damn. He worries about my blood pressure on a normal day. I better not even tell him that I feel like my arteries are going to explode any minute in a bloody mess. This fucking incessant pounding. Pounding. POUNDING. Am I having a fucking heart attack? Is that what this is? What are the symptoms of a heart attack? Pain in arms and shoulders. Check. Shortness of breath. Check. Pounding heart rate. Check. Am I over-reacting or ignoring the obvious? I can’t fucking tell it just hurts like hell. Should I get to the ER? Or is that being silly? Should I tell them to call for the paramedics? Do doctors even make house calls? Why do they paint walls and ceilings different colours? Does it make the room look bigger? Green is a mellowing colour. The ceiling fan reminds me of a daisy.

My hands they felt just like two balloons.

A White Sulpher flits and dances outside the window and I can see it momentarily through the only small opening in the light blocking curtains. It tells me two things. One, there is a semblance of daylight and continuity going on outside these four walls and two, it was a sign of hope, that I would not be forsaken and that I would come out of the hell I had plunged into. Thirty six hours ago.

I try to keep up with my daily yoga practice. Have I missed any days? What day is it? I do the poses in my head. Mostly just to occupy my mind. Test the synapses. I manage a supine tree pose and savasana, corpse pose. I practice deep breath pranayama. But the breathing just feels like hyper-ventilation. It hurts to breath. It hurts to think. Sleep.

Jeff kisses me goodbye. Tells me he will call. I know he will.

A dove’s coo-ooo coo coo outside offers me a steady reassurance of renewal. The realization of the concern of others would soon filter into my awareness. And that and the love of all my dear ones, including Jeff and Paul and Linda and the yogis and the butterflies would continue to nourish me and be my mainstay throughout my long life.

Don't Give Up ~ Peter Gabriel

2011-07-23T00:11:00.000-07:00

Elegy for Dunkirk ~ Jeff Beck (sublime)

2011-07-22T22:17:00.001-07:00

amaranthine dreams

2011-07-22T20:02:00.000-07:00

I want you
To know
I straddle
The bounds of punctilio
Riding this phosphorescent
Outpouring of emotion
Set to the Aeolian harp strings
Of a soul’s ancient yearning
Ever turning toward
Its amethyst significance
Reckoning time and changing colour
Visions of luminescence
To be the name that seeks its release
From the locked keystone chamber
Of a soul’s verdant longing
On the wings of a quivering voice of recognition
Rolling off of your silver tongue
Reaching into the crystalline depths of my affection
These fingers
Grasping yours
Interlacing
Hoping bittersweet
Through that open door where
We stand perched
Two abreast
Glances showing
The all-knowing – YES !
Paraglide into sanguine skies of ever clear
On updrafts of amaranthine dreams
In the moonshine of passionate persuasion
Make no mistake
I want you
As the dew seeks the rose
I want you
As the lilac and honeysuckle
In their proper season
Culminate in a shining
Undercurrent of verity
Self-evident truth
Holding fast
Still…
Knowing…
Wanting…

© 2011 July 21

Haiku

2011-07-15T01:23:00.000-07:00

Dropping illusions
As a rose drops its petals
Allowing what is

Hmmm...?

2011-07-14T23:11:00.000-07:00

Four Directions

2011-07-06T12:22:00.000-07:00

Oh Great Spirit!

We honour and greet those Spirits of the South, Our Grandmother Spirits who are tending the seeds of our good intentions.

Bless us on our journey.

Oh Great Spirit!

We honour and greet those Spirits of the West, the Great Black Bear who transforms us for the good of All.

Bless us on our journey.

Oh Great Spirit!

We honour and greet those Spirits of the North, Our Grandfather Spirits who teach wisdom in the white frozen mirrors of reflection.

Bless us on our journey.

Oh Great Spirit!

We honour and greet those Spirits of the East, obliterate our darkness with the golden rays of illumination and enlightenment.

Bless us on our journey.

As Above ~ So Below.

AHO!

(Note: The photograph in the Spirit of the West SoulCollage® was taken by Edward Curtis in 1905 of Red Hawk, of the Ogala Nation.)

* smile *

2011-07-05T15:58:00.000-07:00

spotted this whimsy on my walk yesterday.

perspective...

2011-07-03T16:20:00.000-07:00

Irony

2011-07-03T07:26:00.000-07:00

When I was younger and had presumably more time, I was prone to rush head-long, head-strong towards the objects of my desire (very often getting burned in the process). But now that I am older (wiser?) and presumably have even less time, I prefer to wait, to allow situations to unfold in the fullness of time, surrender to the process as well as the inevitable. I push the results less fervently and simply observe. And I'm not worried about outcomes. The only solid outcome is this very moment. I am content with that.

Over the years I've learned one can't rush things such as a rose unfolding from its centre or a butterfly struggling to free itself from its cocoon. That to rush such delicate, ephemeral things is to destroy its very essence.

And so I observe.
I unfold.
I struggle to free myself
from the illusion of self
I surrender to possibility while allowing for inevitability.

And so it is.

All for now.

Peter Frampton - Black Hole Sun

2011-07-02T14:22:00.000-07:00

Peter Frampton, whose seminal double LP Frampton Comes Alive literally punctuated the pivotal summer of at least one 15 year old girl and Matthew "Foo" Cameron, fellow BVHS alum, together performing Soundgarden's Black Hole Sun in the Pearl Jam studios. This is so cool it is beyond words.

Good Medicine

2011-07-02T11:11:00.000-07:00

Meditate everyday.
Go slow. Go within.
Hug. Release. Breathe.
Be positive.
Be compassionate.
Be confident.
Be clear.
Be circumspect.
Powerful.
Beautiful.
Competent.
Maintain equanimity.
Protect a secret hope.
Remember a promise.
Inner Light.
Meditate everyday.
Be bold.
Be grateful.
Be honest.
Trust.
Forever giving thanks.
Have courage.
Have faith.
Breathe.
Do your fear.
Allow for abundance.
Appreciate more.
Still waters run deep.
Magic is a tricky thing.
Don’t miss the bliss.
Build it up from nothing.
Break it down to something.
I am lovable and capable.
Excuses are for sissies.
Bridges may fall but so can walls.
All rules subject to change.
Except...
Meditate everyday.

Love can change anything...

2011-07-01T22:56:00.001-07:00

no explanations required...

Lima Oscar Victor Echo

2011-07-01T02:00:00.000-07:00

Folding paper airplanes
With pages of poetry
Flight plans all forgotten
Course is destiny.

Perfect three-point landing
Into my hanger heart
Give me cause for wonder
Senses flying off the chart.

By the stars in your blue eyes
All of Heaven I’d navigate
Into clouds or clear blue skies
It’s in your hands I trust my fate.

Romeo and Juliet
Tango and Foxtrot
Love’s the only music set
To a cloud dance in Camelot.

© 2001

and everything comes to america ~by Doc Huckster

2011-06-30T16:50:00.000-07:00

and everything comes to america
the sufi buddhist but we gotta give it back
and everything you give a fuck about
you can carry around in one little garbage sack

records books but these are obselete
photographs lost i have precious memories
poems i wrote but i set them free
i wrote them on water rest in peace

we are gypsies dancing making love
eating sweets drunk on the wine
swirling swirling we spiral down
to the awakening of the deep divine

your skin is glowing illuminated
the darkness love just before the dawn
music playing then a beautiful silence
as we stand naked looking into the great beyond

*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~**~~~*~~~*~~~*

Another offering from another of my talented Facebook friends. Doc regularly stuns me with the depth of feeling in his poetic allusions. A self-described Southern Zen Poet, he is not only one of my favourite poet friends on Facebook, he is one of my favourite all-time poets. I am so grateful for the window that Doc and his lovely wife Terea share through their words and pictures.

He even looks the part of the quintessential beat poet.

There's some deep water there in South Carolina and Doc is tapped into it.

(photo courtesy of Terea Doster)

Holding Back The Years

2011-06-30T00:30:00.000-07:00

Don't be dismayed at goodbyes. A farewell is necessary before you can meet again. And meeting again, after moments or lifetimes, is certain for those who are friends.
~Richard Bach, Illusions

Holding back the years
Thinking of the fear I've had so long
When somebody hears
Listen to the fear that's gone
Strangled by the wishes of pater
Hoping for the arms of mater
Get to me the sooner or later

Holding back the years
Chance for me to escape from all I've known
Holding back the tears
Cause nothing here has grown
I've wasted all my tears
Wasted all those years
And nothing had the chance to be good
Nothing ever could yeah

I'll keep holding on
I'll keep holding on
I'll keep holding on
I'll keep holding on
So tight

I've wasted all my tears
Wasted all of those years
And nothing had the chance to be good
Cause nothing ever could oh yeah

I'll keep holding on
I'll keep holding on
I'll keep holding on
I'll keep holding on
Holding, holding, holding

That's all I have today
It's all I have to say

The Light Shines

2011-06-29T13:25:00.000-07:00

The light shines above your head alone
and all the signs point the way back
to that ephemeral moment
etched upon this heart of stone
when I looked deep into your eyes and saw
my soul reflected within those mirrored pools
pointing me, pushing me

back
back
back

to that one original wild
untamed unrehearsed
devastatingly significant
moment in time
when I first heard the light
pierce the fertile seed

and all of my inner knowing was born.

© 27 June 2011

Jet Flight Decastich by Ron Porter

2011-06-27T15:02:00.000-07:00

you flew furious through my life
like a blazing fighter jet and me, i
got caught up in your slipstream
sent hurling heart-long through space
twirling and swirling; spiraling
into the vortex of your heated rush
oh! you left me dizzy and spinning (dizzy!)
grinning at the sin we shared before.
until you bought your ticket to gone
I'm not mad, I've flown jets of my own...

~written by one of my more talented Facebook friends, Ron Porter. Read more of his works and other great poets at his blog Blind Dog Poetry Corner

Ron has opened my eyes to more poetry forms than anyone or any class ever has before. Such as the 10-line Dacastich.

The Unspoken Word

2011-06-27T08:00:00.000-07:00

The unspoken word
between you and me
leaves a veil of mystery
a dark territory
yet unexplored.

Awareness strings
a golden thread
across a vast and silent void
Knowing (and unknowing if)
a heart beats at the other end.

Exposed

2011-06-26T19:48:00.000-07:00

That door you flung wide open
Releasing a flock of scared birds
Roosting in my heart
Fluttering in a million wingbeats
Before disappearing into the light of a new dawn.

The veils you casually stripped away
Exposing the masks of my own undoing
I now stand before you
Revealed in your presence.

The door is opened
The veils are dropped
The hermetic seals are broken
All that remains is an empty vessel
Filled with a holy light.

(c) 2011

Donovan featuring the Jeff Beck Group....

2011-06-24T10:32:00.000-07:00

In love pool eyes float feathers after the struggle.
The hopes burst and shot joy all through the mind
Sorrow more distant than a star.
Multi colour run down over your body,
Then the liquid passing all into all
Love is hot truth is molten.

Happy Birthday Jeff Beck !

2011-06-24T10:18:00.000-07:00

I love this man !

Threadbare

2011-06-23T19:16:00.000-07:00

The fabric of society
Is ripping at the seams
Sub-prime market swindlers
Destroyed American dreams.

While our lives become more threadbare
With every Wall Street excess
Pollyanna meets Doubting Thomas
Along the Main Street of distress.

Foreclosure, unemployment
Have wrecked your credit score
And that wolf at your front door
Just had puppies on your floor.

Our moral compass broken
Compassion all but lost
Leading success rates of failure
While the weak pay the cost.

Joe Sixpack drinks a debt death brew
Suffering the pains of poverty
Choking on the bitter dregs and
Toasting our mutual misery.

The lunatic fringe feral government
Drove a big rig down a dead end street
With corporate personhood at the wheel
Constitution’s trampled under feet.

Jails and shelters over flowing
In the north and in the south
National debt keeps on growing
Like rhetoric from a lipstick mouth.

Middle class, Middle America
Who haven’t a dime to spare
Will meet for Sunday dinner
On the corner of Futility and Despair.

Tycoon capitalist overlords
Are buying property on Easy Street
While good folks in bad times
Find it harder to make ends meet.

© 23 June 2011

Jealous

2011-06-22T23:41:00.000-07:00

Jealous?

Yeah, I’m jealous.

Jealous of the postman
Who walks daily to your door

Jealous of the clerk
Who helps you at the store

Jealous of the barber
Who gets to cut your hair

Jealous of the doctor
Who gets to touch you there

Jealous of the walls
That claim you in their space

Jealous of the sun
That lights upon your face.

© 2011

F*ck yeah !!!

2011-06-13T22:21:00.000-07:00

(warning contains the word F*CK)

I absolutely love this.

This is officially my 600th post. Seems appropriate. No apologies. Thank you to my 13 followers. Let's hope you stick around after this one. Here's to the next 600.

The English Are So Nice! ~ D.H. Lawrence

2011-06-11T16:57:00.000-07:00

The English are so nice
so awfully nice
they're the nicest people in the world
And what's more, they're very nice about being nice
about your being nice as well!
If you're not nice, they soon make you feel it.

Americans and French and Germans and so on
they're all very well
but they're not really nice, you know.
They're not as nice in our sense of the word, are they now?

That's why one doesn't have to take them seriously.
We must be nice to them, of course,
of course, naturally -
But it doesn't really mater what you say to them,
they don't really understand -
you can just say anything to them:
be nice, you know, just be nice -
but you must never take them seriously, they wouldn't understand
just be nice, you know! oh, fairly nice,
not too nice of course, they take advantage -
but nice enough, just nice enough
to let them feel they're not quite as nice as they might be.

a Tribute ~

2011-06-09T19:41:00.000-07:00

Poetic verses he could pen
Lacking rancor and repentance
And found within these eager ears
A ripe and ready acceptance

His poems he gave for nothing
Like some Promethean fire
Seductively enticing
An uncontrollable desire

Erotic heady phrases
Consumed imagination
Probing words that left me
Open for interpretation

With dexterous prolificity
Wove a web of total trust
Tempting proscribed promiscuity
Stoking wild and primal lust

This Don Juan Casanova versifier
A Pirate by self-definition
Spun cautionary tales of beguile
Spurning my own admonition

Implicit wicked parlance
Made it feel so good to be bad
For a dreamy illusory fantasy
It was the best sex I never had.

© 2011

Buoyant

2011-06-09T10:09:00.000-07:00

I

Naming constellations
Before they slide into the sea
Nothing means more
than you being here with me
Sextant or compass
Merely point the way
Love can only blindly lead
Where others go astray.

II

By the stars in your eyes I could navigate
dark waters of my soul’s secret longing
Where hope is buoyed upon choppy seas
by the steady rhythm of a beacon heart

Where I hug the forbidden shoreline
find comfort in shelter of harbour
And drop this heavy anchor of desire
Into the berth of tomorrow.

© 2011

The Emerging Feminine Archetype

2011-06-04T17:41:00.000-07:00

Just sharing music these days, as I am not sharing much writing (again).

Dark Night of the Soul

2011-06-04T09:56:00.000-07:00

Kali ~ Dangerous Mother

2011-06-03T23:02:00.003-07:00

Ancient Love ~ Anoushka Shankar

2011-06-03T22:42:00.000-07:00

2011-06-01T07:12:00.000-07:00

Honeyed words drip over me
Arousing slumbered ecstacy
'Til every last drop is squeazed
From your honey-combed chamber heart
Sticky sweet on salty skin, what alchemy
Come! Taste your wild elixir.

(c) 2011

A Senseless Story

2011-05-28T08:32:00.000-07:00

First string
String quartet
String theory
String me along
String bean
Stingy stripling youth
Studiously strumming
Strung out heart strings
Serendipitous strip tease
Don’t tease…please
Please.
Singing stinging
Strophic structures
Stronger sturdy
Stalwart ruptures
Several severed strumpets strolling
Seven seraphim on trumpets trolling
Serenade servile servitude
Platitudes of gratitude
Serrated unsated grated
Serving sestinas for siesta
Gracias. Por Favor.
Set not your sights
Nor your store
Nor sink your tooth
Into this truth: That
What is set aside
Set apart
Will one day
Steal your very heart
Steel your mind instead
Set the stage
Set to music
Set in motion
Striding stringently
Stroking seductively
Stoking intensity
Simmering obscurity
Shining sprinkling sparkly spreading
Saturation masturbation
Self-flagellation
Stupendous stupidity
Rank rigidity
No safe word
No wafer bird
No one ever heard
Such a silly senseless story.

(c) 2011

You Belong to Poetry

2011-05-27T15:43:00.001-07:00

When you find a man
Who transforms
Every part of you
Into poetry,
Who makes each one of your hairs
Into a poem,
When you find a man,
Capable,
As I am
Of bathing and adorning you
With poetry,
I will beg you
To follow him without hesitation,
It is not important
That you belong to me or him
But that you belong to poetry.

~Nizar Kabbani

My Pen

2011-05-26T14:00:00.000-07:00

My pen is a like a mighty sword
I wield it like a cock
I never want to lay it down
Tho’ it tends to give a shock

My pen is like a magic wand
To cast a rainbow spell
I dip it in the colours
Of my magic mind’s ink well

The bluish ink that I’ve put down
The countless Bics I’ve drained
The sweat and toil, blood and tears
Have left these fingers stained

But when my pen is quiet
I keep it close to me
Perchance in some dream state
I’ll scribble legibly

For the words from me they do not come
My pen, a mere lightening rod
A quicksilver messenger
From this hand to God.

(c) 2011

Ego's Upper Hand

2011-05-23T10:42:00.000-07:00

Been contemplating my ego, (because, of course, she likes it so much when I do). But I’ve been thinking about how huge and powerful she is. I am so grateful to her for her survival instinct, she has kept this body thriving and she has kept this mind enthused about the life we are living, but sometimes she gets a bit full of herself. She actually thinks she’s running the show!

The ego thinks it to be a sun and not merely a lowly star like the rest of us!

How easily fooled she is! At times like these especially.

My ego wants to believe she is doing us a world of good – and very often, most often she does. She motivates us to get up each day and risk losing herself one more time. However, her motivation is always self-serving, self-actualizing in a selfish sense of superior survival.

She wants to believe her own press.
She wants to believe we can’t survive without her guidance.
She wants to believe she is running the show.

So I’ve watched this buildup for sometime, even saw what was happening on a subtle level but continued to ignore the warning signs and instead focused only on those things that aligned with ego’s selfish view of how things should be; even when the conflicting evidence was incontrovertible. Ego was singing me yet another siren swan song. And in a dervish whirl we tested the fires. Ego all the while pushing and pushing me to see how close we could dance to the flame. And we did dance so ecstatically at first that I didn’t even notice the acrid smell of burning flesh just as the intensity and heat became too much and ego falls back in an exhausted expenditure of energy.

But now what – who pulls me from the flames? Ego again? Maybe; but only in that self-persevering loop. Once again, ego’s job is done with me and I am thrust into the position of having to bandage the wounds of her reckless desires but also gaining insight and compassion in the bargain.

We tangled in the best of ways. We tested each other’s mettle. And I bow to a formable opponent, not a foe or enemy but a good spirit warrior that sharpens the blade upon her opponent’s sword only for the purpose of gaining a more finely honed weapon with which to carry on battle with one’s self. As long as I continue to keep ego in check and narrow ego’s desires to those that serve us well we should prevent getting burned too badly.

But why take my word for it? This video illustrates it so much more beautifully than I can.

Thanks to Paul Coehlo's Blog for sharing. You do want to go full-screen for this. I especially like how the warrior touches her opponent's heart in the end. Sweet!

Nothing

2011-05-20T22:32:00.000-07:00

I have Nothing to offer you except a full and honest expression of myself. Too few really understand the value of Nothing. That Nothing is more essential than Nothing and Nothing frightens more than Nothing. Nothing is the highest art that seems so deeply foolish. It is useless to the senses. Its imperfect appearance deceives the mind’s need for logic. It’s only when we surrender logic that we achieve a more enlightened intelligence. Intelligence and eloquence depend upon a willingness to be stupid and awkward. This has been my shining satori, a heart breaking open into Nothing.

I want Nothing but.... But what really holds me is the mystery of that spark in someone’s eye that ignites the spine and tells me there is more going on here than I could ever hope to learn in an hour or twenty-four. But it’s all ok too, if I never do.

Whatever we do, let’s not make this an All or Nothing thing. We, you and me, are not the eternal thing. The eternal thing is all of us and everything. I have a deeper understanding of this now. I welcome you with open heart and open arms and consider the luminous wisdom and warmth of friendship that you’ve shown me to be a precious gift. And it is without shame and without pride that I assert I do savor that blessing.

Hummingbird Medicine

2011-05-18T07:14:00.000-07:00

"Hummingbirds are revered in indigenous cultures, especially in Central and South America, where they proliferate. To have Hummingbird as your power animal is indeed very fortuitous!

Hummingbirds are masters of vibration. They can see into the near ultra - violet range (violet is the color of the crown chakra, which connects us with the etheric realms). Their rapidly vibrating wings give them an unsurpassed buoyancy, speed and maneuverability in flight. They can shift from a very swift heart rate while in flight to a very slow rate while at rest, allowing them to conserve energy. Their beauty, delicacy and refinement matches the flowers that they pollinate. Flowers are like chakras and Hummingbirds love red (passion), pink (love) and orange (creativity) flowers and their long pointed beaks and pinpoint accuracy in using them allows them to extract the sweetest nectar.

When we have Hummingbird medicine, we are lighthearted and adept at modulating our frequency, enabling us to fly freely in multidimensional realms. Our mastery of vibration and finely tuned focus allows us to fly with passion, love and creativity, obtaining the sweetest joy - nectar in any situation. When at rest, we can go into deep meditation and when active, we move with grace, refinement and efficiency, excelling at sharing our gifts (pollination) in a way that helps others open their chakras and blossom into the beauty, bliss and freedom of self - realization.

Astrologically, we can see that Hummingbirds embody the qualities of Uranus (unique, flight, freedom), Mercury (swift, agile messenger), Chiron (mastery of vibration, pinpoint accuracy) and Venus (beauty, grace, refinement, delicacy). I humbly offer you the gift of Hummingbird Medicine!" ~Geordie Numata

Waves on Sand

2011-05-14T23:56:00.000-07:00

Waves of euphoric desire
Crash upon sandstone cliffs of doubt
Eroding and crumbling resistance.
Caught in a whirlpool of emotion
Swirling miasmic samsara
‘Till it finds you
and grinds you
and refines you
as silica polishes glass.

The sandpiper peep-peeps
Running in circles
Fleeing the wave
That brings her next meal
While the gull drinks in deep
Of both sea and salt-air
While just beyond a sand dune
A turtle buries her eggs
Like secret seeds
Of future dreams
Her lonely life just begs.

And we make love
In the sand
On waves of tumult and calm
Caressingly lap at wet bodies
Foamy aphros bubbles up
Euphorically lifted
On pounding surf
Riding each
As it rises and swells
Undulating sensation
Carried up as yet unfamiliar streams
Back to the Source
Sated. Yet, hungering more.

(c) 2011

Take This...

2011-05-14T09:12:00.000-07:00

I have no want for meal tickets
When your one word is my daily bread
My only nourishment
This Blessed Sacrament
A daily requirement
Of bodily entanglement

Take this cup…
(and this) to wet your lips

Take this bread…
let it feed my soul.

(c) 2011

Image Source

Saturn in Aquarius

2011-05-13T11:56:00.000-07:00

I am the One who has Saturn in Aquarius.

I am the one who can Quiet the Mind, Focus the Attention and Gain Intuition.

I am the one who hates to waste time!

I am the mother who tells you to wear sensible shoes.

I am the drill sergeant who busts your ass in Basic to save your ass on the battlefield.

I give you common sense and the ability to find the common denominators in common relationships; To see the ties that bind.

I give you lessons learned by limitation.

I give you no shortcuts to the top.

I want you to set aside the Ego and find the Impartial Truth of Universal Law.

I want you to submerge certain instincts in order to accomplish goals and make dreams a reality.

I want you to be aware of the passing of time.

I want you to soldier on.

You will remember, by slowing down, the values of Maturity, Patience and Sacrifice, either for later, greater gratification or for the Good of All.

Stronger Than Feeling

2011-05-04T16:36:00.001-07:00

Stronger than passion, stronger than pride
No science predicted the astronomical tide
The flood of emotion as deep as the sea
Your love, like the ocean, washed over me.

The world now seems smaller and yet ever turning
Will time and distance only quell the yearning?
Where arms and lips have yet to find
Spirits have lingered, intertwined.

Whispers in the dark awake sleeping memory,
Arousing ancient dreams and timeless reverie
If passion burned eternal and love was truly healing,
Could we still say we’re stronger than our feeling?

Oceans of time cannot keep us apart
You’re closer to me than the beat of my heart
For as the sky has no vow with the sea
Still they are for all eternity.

© 2002

Holy Whore

2011-05-01T07:33:00.000-07:00

I am the One who is the Holy Whore
I am the Sacred Prostitute
I am the One who is called many names

I am Inanna
I am Ishtar
I am Astarte
I am Isis I am Venus
I am the Magdalene and the Madonna
I am Lilith I am Eve

I am the daughter of Hieros Gamos
I am the Rose of Sharon
I am the Radiant Star

I give you access to the Soul through the senses of the body
I give you the Twin Flame of Spiritual Force and Sexual Joy
I give you sex as prayer

Like the rose I am sweetest when fully opened to my spiritual, sexual, creative core

I want you to embrace the Divine Feminine, the Inner Sanctum, the Goddess Within
I want you to honour your Holy Spirit
I want you to bare witness to the Secret Joys and Silent Wisdom of a vulnerable heart center
I want you to be a guardian and an inspiration for the poetic soul

You will remember when you engage in honourable interactions of ecstatic intimacy with the Anointed One

You will remember when the pomegranate seed between your tooth and tongue bursts open and that tart juice trickles across your lips and is met with a kiss from the Divine

Leaning into Heaven

2011-04-30T08:17:00.000-07:00

There are all kinds of Hell.

"...shall I show you to a room?"...

And there are all kinds of Heaven. It kind of depends on which side of the river you're going to sit on. Because you're still watching the same River of Life flow.

Me, given the choice, I prefer to watch from the side of Heaven. It's all a state of mind anyway. It's all just another mind game of duality.

Heaven/Hell has less to do with a place we go when we're dead as much as a state of being, here and now. Because it is the same movie. To be Heavenly is to be in a state of grace versus a state of torment. To carry an ultimate desire for goodness above all else. To trust our inner wisdom and not be twisted by the dictates of outer circumstances.

Lessons

2011-04-22T15:05:00.001-07:00

The lessons we learn on the path to love will teach us everything we need to know. Teaching is not always about passing on one’s knowledge. It’s often passing on who you are. You can teach things you don’t even know yet, because you are still learning about yourself. As long as you continually open up to the lessons being whispered in your heart, the secret coded messages from your soul that only you can decipher, that Spirit of Love will lead you to wherever you need to be.

Even your pain can be a teacher. Pain keeps you raw. Like raw peanuts, eh? Until you heat them up in the fire of your belly they cannot sprout into seedlings of compassion. Be open to your pain but not attached to it, rather let it flow through you unobstructed. By not holding on to it you allow it to transform into the higher vibration of empathy. Still, if I but could I would, with one look deep into your eyes, kiss away all the pain that’s ever touched you.

Self-examination is part of my healing; I can’t heal it until I can feel it. I am learning forgiveness of myself for hiding from the darker places of my soul, for being to damn compliant at my own expense. It has taken me years to realize that my yielding has ultimately helped no one. I forgive myself for years of closing my eyes to my truth. But that’s all in the past and I can’t go back to sleep now that I’ve seen what I’ve seen and know what I know about love.

Love is the only worthy teacher.

All for now.

(c) 2011

Two Truths

2011-04-20T21:12:00.001-07:00

Two truths
in which do I believe

the one
my heart
tells me

or

the one
my eyes see?

I have made a sacred pilgrimage
around your barren shores
and I have opened many doors
and still no soul call echoes back

In a dark and musty basement
long forgotton bottles of a vintage rara
are gathering dust
where a hopeless moth
beats her wings
against the solitary shaft
of a beam of light
scattering her golden wing dust below
in a slow dance of self immolation

The poison cannot be sucked from this wound
my jaw is slack
and words fall
like rain
upon the incoherent compost
of surrender and passion

I throw myself into my work
just to work it out of my system
and though my pinions have been hidden from me for a time
This avis rara can no longer beat these wet wings
against the bars of your cagey indifference

Two truths
in which do I believe

the one
my heart
tells me

or

the one
my eyes see?

(c) 2011

Lady Godiva and Tax Day

2011-04-14T22:07:00.000-07:00

As tomorrow is tax day, I am reminded of the legend of Lady Godiva who rode naked on horseback through the streets of Coventry in an effort to win leniency for the citizenry from oppressive taxes. Out of respect no one was to be on the streets or open their windows while she did so. Only one betrayed that trust and he was struck blind.

(Artwork: Lady Godiva by John Collier, 1897)

Queen Bee

2011-04-14T13:43:00.000-07:00

One finds safety in numbers
So many bees in the hive
One never bothers with self
Repeating endless mantra
"The Self is the Hive. The Hive is the Self."
One just doesn't ever contemplate
that she might be a Queen !

I know it's not standard SoulCollage® wording but that's the beauty of SoulCollage®, there are no rules!

2011-04-05T22:02:00.000-07:00

April 5

Life goes slow without love.
It moves along unhurried.
The sun rises.
The sun goes down.

There are those who pass by
changing the life-cycle
if you are willing to wait.

I am always shy
with these journeymen at first
and by the time I get to know them
they have gone away.

~Rod McKuen
from "In Someone's Shadow," 1969

Awake

2011-03-31T21:16:00.000-07:00

You woke up
A part of me
That I had put
neatly to bed...

All milk and cookies
fuzzy feet pjs
brush your teeth
say your prayers
one last drink of water
downy pillow feather bed
patchwork quilt
of a bed time story

put

to

bed

Only to wake
Up to you
finding me
in that dream state
all bleary eyed
messy bed head

And I can't believe
It's already morning

But the cock is crowing
the dawn has broken and
I am awake
once more.

(c) 2011

The Universe is playing with me and I’m letting it.

2011-03-27T17:15:00.000-07:00

Today was a magical day for finding hidden treasures.

Every morning for the past year or so it has been my habit upon waking to do my prayers and mediation, then I check Facebook and eMails and then do some yoga. If it’s not too stormy and my hip bursitis is not giving me grief I take about a two to three mile walk past the duck pond where I feed the old goose and the other ducks, and the crows and seagulls if they’re around, whatever bread crumbs we had in the house. The last part of my walk takes me through the graveyard and into the Luther Burbank Experimental Farm. I was feeling a bit nostalgic in the orchard today, as I have spent many cathartic hours there over the past year and a half. And since I may be having less time for that in the next few months, I wasn’t eager for my time to end there today. After walking the trails I sat down under one of the bigger oak trees that stand sentinel in the orchard. I sat for about twenty minutes just counting my blessings and marveling at the changes I’ve seen myself through during this “season of timelessness”. When I rose I looked into the bowl of the tree I had been sitting under, where the branches all meet the trunk, just about eye level. There among the dried leaves and sticks and rotting acorns was some camoflage duck tape and I saw that it was covering a plastic container. My first thought was that I’d discovered someone’s secret drug stash…hmmm, curious.

I poked at the container with a stick.

Here, I had a flash of the state of our sad society incumbent with indoctrinated fears and then laughed at myself for thinking any terrorist would leave a bomb to detonate in an old oak tree in the middle of nowhere and even if it were I was so happy at the day I was having that it didn’t matter to me if it all ended right then. Nothing happened when I poked it. I rolled it over I could see a little writing through the plastic bottom which had no tape. Still, I thought maybe it was someone’s private letter to God or something and it wasn’t any of my business.

Still.

Curious.

I thought about Pandora and her box that contained all the evils in the world. And just what would I be letting into my life by opening it.

(Pandora's Box by Marta Dahlig)

Still.

Curious.

I open it and see that it contains a tiny book and something else wrapped in a paper napkin.

Experimental Persimmon Letterbox handmade rubber stamp.

The book is decorated with various stamps.

A website address was written on the inside of the container www.letterboxing.org

After I get home and I look up the website a most amazing phenomena unfolds. It is a truly an art form that I was not aware of. According to the website letterboxing began in Dartmoor, England and the practice is over 150 years old. After an article about letterboxing appeared in America individuals began hiding letterboxes on this side of the pond! In fact, there are currently no less than seven in my hometown. The idea is to create a secret logbook and a personal rubber stamp. The book and stamp are stashed in a remote, interesting or beautiful spot and clues are left (for example on the website, which begs the question how the clues were shared before the advent of the internet). The treasure hunters then search out the letterboxes and when they find one they place their own homemade rubber stamp on the next page and date and if they choose they can put the letterbox rubberstamp in their own log book like a record of all the letterboxes found.

I am so amazed that I found this secret treasure quite by accident. Even though it was not a homemade rubber stamp I placed a rubber stamp impression from one that I’d had at home and dated and signed the little book and placed an extra Ziploc around the contents and replaced it back in the tree where it was discovered.

Finding the letterbox today was a affirmation to me that this dark night of the soul during which I have been richly blessed in many hidden ways but struggled in many ways too, that perhaps maybe it is a sign that the hardness of winter is indeed melting into a warm caress of possibility. And I am eager to start the next season of my life and look for ever new treasures in secret places.

2011-03-18T21:25:00.000-07:00

Timeless passion seeks its Source
To fuel the drive and plot its course
And so she hung on every word
Amusing, silly little bird.

A lot of words he strung together
Like pearls upon a thread
She fell for every one of them and
Filled her pretty little head.

Bereft in her own Undoing
In her Truth, she stood alone
His words, just words, meanderings
Became her sticks and stones.

Every poet needs romance
If even in her own head but
Honeyed words that passed between
Were better left unsaid.

For she held her heart out to him
Advances politely declined
Now leave her quietly wondering
Had it all been a trick of the mind?

(c) 2011