100129 04:57
{Today is a demarcation between yesterday and today’s dedication towards a new direction/definition.}
“Jack Spratt’s 69 cent Guide to Salvation”
©2010 by Jack Spratt All Rights Reserved
. . . well guys I never asked to be born and obviously had nothing to with the name on my birth certificate so here goes . . .
I was “sawing wood.” What we, in my soon to disappear generation, called sleeping. And I had a vision in my dreams. It was a miniature scenario, sort of like a geode, something you could hold in one hand. Fascinating but too small and intricate to really see. So small it was sorta, kind of, like the City of Chicago in miniature. So I looked closer, then closer yet, and suddenly in the very center I saw two people on a handcar crossing a bridge on an elevated railroad track; what we Windy City dudes call the ‘El’.
Well folks I started laughing in my sleep and my smile lit up the darkness like the end brought to you by nuclear fusion and all my questions were answered.
My dad always seemed to need to be remembered as special. He was. Between us we had this madly rude, salacious and ribald humor about everything. God included. So at first I thought the other person, opposite me, pumping wildly away was dad, Jesus, or, maybe God Him/Herself. And then, low and behold I imagined Osama bin Laden and Mohammad . . . you get the picture. Don’t you!?
Railroad tracks always go someplace and they are always parallel; we are born, we live and then we die.
Right?!
What we do in life is, sorta, kinda, the energy we apply to moving towards the inevitable. And knowing myself--well--I know I’ve just been along for the ride for most of it.
. . . which reminds me of bridges I’ve crossed at 100mph + on my way to high school in daddies green Ford Station Wagon with the Thunderbird engine. It wasn’t that I was anxious to get there. I didn’t want to go there. No Sir! Didn’t want to live either. Oddly his best friend, and a guy I liked a lot, was killed there in a rear-end traffic accident: Route 95, bridge over the Mianus River Bridge, Cos Cob, Connecticut. The bridge later fell apart and killed three people in the river below. And now, come to think of it, I remember several other kids speeding away from the police, State or Local, who went in the drink as well before the defective bridge was installed.
I don’t know who is the greatest comedian, God or Life.
Long time ago I fell in love with a young woman who treated me with kindness. Nice looking girl, but not a ravisher like those you see in Playboy or the movies. We met in Haiti on a religious retreat. I was growing a beard at the time and it came in white; like I had stuck my face into a bag of powdered sugar donuts, I shaved it off. After all I was old enough to be her father but did not want to look like her grandfather.. Women, to me, are like a Greyhound Bus moving through the night and I’m a moth attracted to light winding up a greasy smear on their headlights. Whatever you want to call what you love, the other is more-or-less like that; Bang! Smash! Everything changes.. . . Disintegration.
I began a journal after my encounter. The primary motive was given to me by a cleric whose attention I sought to figure out why my life didn’t work. He said that there was a person who’d made himself sane by keeping one and so I began to write. . . .Some days as many as eighteen pages single space. I was taught, at any early age, that I was “too stupid to get in out of the rain” and other wonderful epitaphs like “you have diarrhea of the mouth” so most of what I wrote--along with everything else I ever created--is resting in a sanitary landfill in Naperville Illinois. Maybe dad was correct; I’m still writing.
--Josh Billings
"Be like a postage stamp. Stick to one thing until you get there."
Friday, January 29, 2010
. . . soars amongst the stars . . .
100128 05:41
Soar like an eagle
live like a dove
be love four squared
when you love give yourself
To know this in my dreams, what awakens and writes, still soars amongst the stars
. . . if I weep for joy it is no shame, for a person who knows death, knows life better. Your time will come sooner than you know it now, for you are held in the highest regard by the Author of Love;
We all are.
I do not write for you, or for me, but the source of light seeking us in the darkest, coldest frozen night. And I am but a paper match struck in the infinite mirror night sea covered with stars soon extinguished.
Regarding love, I was and remain, will always be, a Wild Child. Whose reverence for the Other/others is profoundly silent. Night en-kindled and burned luminescent. My love rejected, or welcomed, remains constant, since it is mine to give. We are love. Suffused in Love. Yet long for it from others until we love ourselves enough to know it now and definitively our own--given/received.
Attempting to understand the warp and woof, the spinning clay of this day, or iron of those in harms way disintegrated, I listened to the State of The Nation and following commentaries. What remains were a few comments, rude and salacious, regarding the mockery of us. We who voted and thought we were moving forward now slipped back into the mire of loss.
Everything is either political, theological or philosophical. Our value is ours to give and can never be measured by those who send us, or take our gifts, to their own power or profit.
Spiritually I stand in line for the showers/ovens of Auschwitz, in the night’s snow upon the mountain passes of Afghanistan; skull cap, helmet, or Swastika I become all persons enslaved to the agenda’s of those who purport to administer life and it’s meaning.
In my self I become love for others and through them The Other who created us equally.
Soar like an eagle
live like a dove
be love four squared
when you love give yourself
To know this in my dreams, what awakens and writes, still soars amongst the stars
. . . if I weep for joy it is no shame, for a person who knows death, knows life better. Your time will come sooner than you know it now, for you are held in the highest regard by the Author of Love;
We all are.
I do not write for you, or for me, but the source of light seeking us in the darkest, coldest frozen night. And I am but a paper match struck in the infinite mirror night sea covered with stars soon extinguished.
Regarding love, I was and remain, will always be, a Wild Child. Whose reverence for the Other/others is profoundly silent. Night en-kindled and burned luminescent. My love rejected, or welcomed, remains constant, since it is mine to give. We are love. Suffused in Love. Yet long for it from others until we love ourselves enough to know it now and definitively our own--given/received.
Attempting to understand the warp and woof, the spinning clay of this day, or iron of those in harms way disintegrated, I listened to the State of The Nation and following commentaries. What remains were a few comments, rude and salacious, regarding the mockery of us. We who voted and thought we were moving forward now slipped back into the mire of loss.
Everything is either political, theological or philosophical. Our value is ours to give and can never be measured by those who send us, or take our gifts, to their own power or profit.
Spiritually I stand in line for the showers/ovens of Auschwitz, in the night’s snow upon the mountain passes of Afghanistan; skull cap, helmet, or Swastika I become all persons enslaved to the agenda’s of those who purport to administer life and it’s meaning.
In my self I become love for others and through them The Other who created us equally.
Pollyanna I am not.
100127 06:09
“Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.” --Carl Jung
In conversation with random strangers I discover we live in a world community having a love affair with all life. Rippling outward our concerns lave all others equally. If there is a difference it is not measured, or weighed, by age, race, creed or gender. Merely expressed differently--exclusive, or inclusively--by degree, not kind.
Every experience, thought and dream, reconciles us through the prism of our attention. Perhaps it is a luxury of maturity; I ‘think therefore I am’ . . . what I am--from childhood until now is fully realized and growing. We are all related to one another and none should be sunned.
There are some I meet, &/or am aware of, that I would place personal limits on, those who take instead of give. Not to banish so much as know better than to follow them into their conceits or agendas blindly.
We all have an awareness of life, and love ours, yet remain unsure of all others who share this planet. My curiosity is reconciled to a model person of empathy for those who killed Him. And through my thoughts/conclusions now I know you and myself better.
To reconcile all the diversity of experience I encounter is pointless since I would not tamper with one character in the book of you--think letter, symbol or personality.
I play with my curiosity regarding the issue of “Original Sin” and conclude, with growing conviction, that it was, and remains, a perversion of consciousness to respond in fear and flight. The alternative--fight, is of no interest since I prefer the word engage. I feel as though I am simply a shuttle cock wending my way through the tapestry of life weaving a new image of potential for consciousness and conscience. Where once I would name the weaver I can no longer do so since the Name is various, even multitudinous; expressed, experienced and seen differently by others.
None choose to be born and the choice to die, by few, is seized upon, by choice or chance. All else, the in between is, in truth, our choice. Though we costume our lives with identities, badge, rank, symbols of power yet we will join in death equally.
“ 11:09
Pollyanna I am not. I am too conscious of our conflicts on every front. Yet I persist in seeing the good instead of the waste made of life, liberty and peace. My experience and vision/version of the future is informed by various, historical and contemporary resources that all affirm our choice to become what we want the world to be. Again I return to “The Serenity Prayer” and am compelled to acknowledge that while it WORKS! it took a long time to take root in me. My thoughts and prayers have become a bridge from our true self to truth, love and peace. I offer this to you who are willing to take the first simple step towards that self inherent in your life. Every soul is precious, period.
“Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.” --Carl Jung
In conversation with random strangers I discover we live in a world community having a love affair with all life. Rippling outward our concerns lave all others equally. If there is a difference it is not measured, or weighed, by age, race, creed or gender. Merely expressed differently--exclusive, or inclusively--by degree, not kind.
Every experience, thought and dream, reconciles us through the prism of our attention. Perhaps it is a luxury of maturity; I ‘think therefore I am’ . . . what I am--from childhood until now is fully realized and growing. We are all related to one another and none should be sunned.
There are some I meet, &/or am aware of, that I would place personal limits on, those who take instead of give. Not to banish so much as know better than to follow them into their conceits or agendas blindly.
We all have an awareness of life, and love ours, yet remain unsure of all others who share this planet. My curiosity is reconciled to a model person of empathy for those who killed Him. And through my thoughts/conclusions now I know you and myself better.
To reconcile all the diversity of experience I encounter is pointless since I would not tamper with one character in the book of you--think letter, symbol or personality.
I play with my curiosity regarding the issue of “Original Sin” and conclude, with growing conviction, that it was, and remains, a perversion of consciousness to respond in fear and flight. The alternative--fight, is of no interest since I prefer the word engage. I feel as though I am simply a shuttle cock wending my way through the tapestry of life weaving a new image of potential for consciousness and conscience. Where once I would name the weaver I can no longer do so since the Name is various, even multitudinous; expressed, experienced and seen differently by others.
None choose to be born and the choice to die, by few, is seized upon, by choice or chance. All else, the in between is, in truth, our choice. Though we costume our lives with identities, badge, rank, symbols of power yet we will join in death equally.
“ 11:09
Pollyanna I am not. I am too conscious of our conflicts on every front. Yet I persist in seeing the good instead of the waste made of life, liberty and peace. My experience and vision/version of the future is informed by various, historical and contemporary resources that all affirm our choice to become what we want the world to be. Again I return to “The Serenity Prayer” and am compelled to acknowledge that while it WORKS! it took a long time to take root in me. My thoughts and prayers have become a bridge from our true self to truth, love and peace. I offer this to you who are willing to take the first simple step towards that self inherent in your life. Every soul is precious, period.
Time will erase . . .
100126 07:20
Time will erase the vanity of our era. To be conscious of this one must know our own conceits and delusions. We stand both in the moment and eternity. Let no one, and nothing, define you or the value of your life as poor; too impoverished for their attention or yours.
As a child I sought, and did not receive, the attention of those from whom one would normally presume kindness and I learned to live alone by my own lights. Yet it is true of me that I sought validation from those unable to give it to themselves. And in consequence prostituted my life in service to their poverty. If I love them more now it is merely that I love myself adequately and celebrate their many gifts as sufficient. Enough love was received and that I remember and pray for their healing assured the result.
Time will erase the vanity of our era. To be conscious of this one must know our own conceits and delusions. We stand both in the moment and eternity. Let no one, and nothing, define you or the value of your life as poor; too impoverished for their attention or yours.
As a child I sought, and did not receive, the attention of those from whom one would normally presume kindness and I learned to live alone by my own lights. Yet it is true of me that I sought validation from those unable to give it to themselves. And in consequence prostituted my life in service to their poverty. If I love them more now it is merely that I love myself adequately and celebrate their many gifts as sufficient. Enough love was received and that I remember and pray for their healing assured the result.
“Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous.” -- Albert Einstein
100125 08:43
--Albert Einstein
“All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree.”
“Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous.”
“Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts.”
The most starling aspect of my joy--collecting quotes--is that many affirm my intentions and previously annotated thoughts/conclusions. I am reminded of what Albert Schweitzer called the “Brotherhood of Pain.” I reject the sexist aspect now and do translate “Brotherhood” into the “Family of Humankind.” His point was that once we pass beyond the sense and experience that everything is okay we tend to stay in consciousness that to return is impossible and undesirable. Judging by my life, we all go by different paths towards our truth, and those of us who do not, become addicted to one form or another of avoidance and denial. We are all people but few, it seems, are willing to become discrete and unique personalities. By experience, personal and collective, I sense this the origin of most, if not all, dysfunctions. Our unwillingness to take responsibility for, and participate in, our own lives. But then I am well aware of those twists and turns you and I are forced to take and the paths taken by choice.
It is often tempting to say “The Devil Made Me Do It!” The obverse is equally true in that some, perhaps too many, say the same thing about God. To be self-righteous is equally false since it leads to control, dominance and manipulation of others to the extreme of killing them for disagreement. The world does not belong to any one race, creed, gender or age. The power to destroy moves from one sane become lunatic civilization or epoch to another and the folly of the former revealed and reviled.
Moving into society, at large, I seek not affirmation of my conclusions but a sincere sense of what people want and need.
I am better informed by my failures in life than by my successes. Such success I have experienced were once jealously proclaimed yet experientially hollow. Upon close examination I came to question my motives and understand that I was seeking my truth from others who could only respond with theirs and none seemed adequate when taken to a logical conclusion imply exclusion of all life, others less worthy or adequate.
The wonderful part of being self-educated, and derived, is to recognize that all life seeks the same freedom from tyranny and fear. My sense and conviction of the numinous is inclusive of all life and not exclusive to a few forms or individuals. My normal inquiry swiftly reveals motives of taking rather than giving; to take is self-impoverishment and to give is to know a greater wealth. After a lifetime of shame I have begun to choose my truths as passed through the prism of what had former been a mirror; ala 1 Corinthians 13. If our minds are prisms then we come to wonder what is the source of the light?
Everyone has a talent for love and life, but few recognize that the greed for either, or both, disables our inherent genius to have abundance defined by our true self as created. Life will teach us everything we need to know . . . in a sense we are in The Presence all the time . . . and the numinous is far more kind and forgiving than all the previous constructs of belief and knowing allow, and so we judge ourselves unworthy of life or love, and the future hopeless. What we are and have are adequate to the intention that life is worthy of continuance.
Thinking of Haiti now, it seems an appropriate simile for my experience of being buried under the rubble of other’s conceits and conclusions. How I survived is all that I wish to share.
--Albert Einstein
“All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree.”
“Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous.”
“Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts.”
The most starling aspect of my joy--collecting quotes--is that many affirm my intentions and previously annotated thoughts/conclusions. I am reminded of what Albert Schweitzer called the “Brotherhood of Pain.” I reject the sexist aspect now and do translate “Brotherhood” into the “Family of Humankind.” His point was that once we pass beyond the sense and experience that everything is okay we tend to stay in consciousness that to return is impossible and undesirable. Judging by my life, we all go by different paths towards our truth, and those of us who do not, become addicted to one form or another of avoidance and denial. We are all people but few, it seems, are willing to become discrete and unique personalities. By experience, personal and collective, I sense this the origin of most, if not all, dysfunctions. Our unwillingness to take responsibility for, and participate in, our own lives. But then I am well aware of those twists and turns you and I are forced to take and the paths taken by choice.
It is often tempting to say “The Devil Made Me Do It!” The obverse is equally true in that some, perhaps too many, say the same thing about God. To be self-righteous is equally false since it leads to control, dominance and manipulation of others to the extreme of killing them for disagreement. The world does not belong to any one race, creed, gender or age. The power to destroy moves from one sane become lunatic civilization or epoch to another and the folly of the former revealed and reviled.
Moving into society, at large, I seek not affirmation of my conclusions but a sincere sense of what people want and need.
I am better informed by my failures in life than by my successes. Such success I have experienced were once jealously proclaimed yet experientially hollow. Upon close examination I came to question my motives and understand that I was seeking my truth from others who could only respond with theirs and none seemed adequate when taken to a logical conclusion imply exclusion of all life, others less worthy or adequate.
The wonderful part of being self-educated, and derived, is to recognize that all life seeks the same freedom from tyranny and fear. My sense and conviction of the numinous is inclusive of all life and not exclusive to a few forms or individuals. My normal inquiry swiftly reveals motives of taking rather than giving; to take is self-impoverishment and to give is to know a greater wealth. After a lifetime of shame I have begun to choose my truths as passed through the prism of what had former been a mirror; ala 1 Corinthians 13. If our minds are prisms then we come to wonder what is the source of the light?
Everyone has a talent for love and life, but few recognize that the greed for either, or both, disables our inherent genius to have abundance defined by our true self as created. Life will teach us everything we need to know . . . in a sense we are in The Presence all the time . . . and the numinous is far more kind and forgiving than all the previous constructs of belief and knowing allow, and so we judge ourselves unworthy of life or love, and the future hopeless. What we are and have are adequate to the intention that life is worthy of continuance.
Thinking of Haiti now, it seems an appropriate simile for my experience of being buried under the rubble of other’s conceits and conclusions. How I survived is all that I wish to share.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Love is not what you have but what you give.
100124 07:13
Nothing that I can report, or make sense of, this morning, regarding last night’s dreams. Yet they were dominated by the event of a friend and nephew’s birthdays. Cause enough for me to ponder the impulse behind my penchant for affirming their births. Which I do with all my friends and family.
I discovered, while processing my dream, an unconscious impulse to tell others how special they are and nurture our community and through this the world at large. I should not be, but remain surprised at the growing list of friends no longer with us. Perhaps this is a mode of prayer which surprises me since it has taken me so long to get a clear sense of what I want to be and have in this life and world. I remember my maternal grandmother’s greeting cards with endorsements eradicated and resent.
These precious days, so near the end of my life, are celebrated daily through affirmations gleaned by a collection of quotes on my iGoogle page. I did not begin the practice until after I had begun the work of establishing boundaries between what is mine and that which is yours. Of course not having a television made it simpler and at this point I no longer want one. You might assume that I am a fan of ‘religious’ radio or some such thing. No. I am offended by anyone shouting anything at me and find that my experience of God is not religious and thus I am not addicted to crutches. If I respect myself respect for all others flows naturally into my consciousness. Then my current and former addictions are clearly drawn. It would stupid of me to say, for instance, that “at least I am not an alcoholic” since both parents were dependent upon at least one quart of their favorite poison daily. I have come to honor them nonetheless and forgive all the fear inculcated in me by them, finding that I love them more than I could understand in all my previous life.
We need no permission to live but that truth was hard won by me. The balance is between respect for our love given freely though denied or otherwise defined as inadequate. Love is a verb, not a noun.
Regardless of what all civilization and culture tells us, by way of entertainment, in retrospect I continue to wonder why, where and when it became apparent to me that I was the origin of my love for all others. And at that my love is given without expectation of return.
I do sense how ridiculous this may seem to others and know it better by how foolish it seemed to me once.
Journal keeping has allowed me to establish a sense of what I am and what I am not. In the privacy of my soul it is possible to accept my folly and sincerity of intent. Equally it is possible for me to weep with gratitude that I have life and live meaningfully, at least to myself. As for you it is my intention to offer the honor of my prayer that you become whole, self knowing and beloved of the truth . . . which, obviously, is God, true and loving.
“ 22:51
This has been an surprising day and I fell exhausted after dinner. I am beset with computer problems: three crashes in the past six months, the last fatal, my old friend expired from old age. When everything else fails I no longer become enraged, or feel victimized by this, or similar events which I am not ashamed to confess motivated hysterical reactions to in former times. Exhaustion can do odd things to our judgement and we never really know what will happen now or in the future. It is not that I do not care it is simply that I am willing to know and accept that which I cannot change and accept my helplessness.
Yet in closing this entry I am revitalized by signs of hope and find within myself expanding boarders of potential in response. I fully accept my follies and failures and forgive myself for being imperfect to the needs we all have to become fully alive and persons becoming healed and whole. I am now at peace with not being a diamond in the rough, or an imperfect pearl. The metaphor of being a “rock polisher” has been transformed into myself as a river stone polished by the abrasions of time. Think of water as the wine of life and its moving me over and over what makes me myself. Replace the word “me” with us or you and accept that all life is love when you give up fear. Love is not what you have but what you give.
Nothing that I can report, or make sense of, this morning, regarding last night’s dreams. Yet they were dominated by the event of a friend and nephew’s birthdays. Cause enough for me to ponder the impulse behind my penchant for affirming their births. Which I do with all my friends and family.
I discovered, while processing my dream, an unconscious impulse to tell others how special they are and nurture our community and through this the world at large. I should not be, but remain surprised at the growing list of friends no longer with us. Perhaps this is a mode of prayer which surprises me since it has taken me so long to get a clear sense of what I want to be and have in this life and world. I remember my maternal grandmother’s greeting cards with endorsements eradicated and resent.
These precious days, so near the end of my life, are celebrated daily through affirmations gleaned by a collection of quotes on my iGoogle page. I did not begin the practice until after I had begun the work of establishing boundaries between what is mine and that which is yours. Of course not having a television made it simpler and at this point I no longer want one. You might assume that I am a fan of ‘religious’ radio or some such thing. No. I am offended by anyone shouting anything at me and find that my experience of God is not religious and thus I am not addicted to crutches. If I respect myself respect for all others flows naturally into my consciousness. Then my current and former addictions are clearly drawn. It would stupid of me to say, for instance, that “at least I am not an alcoholic” since both parents were dependent upon at least one quart of their favorite poison daily. I have come to honor them nonetheless and forgive all the fear inculcated in me by them, finding that I love them more than I could understand in all my previous life.
We need no permission to live but that truth was hard won by me. The balance is between respect for our love given freely though denied or otherwise defined as inadequate. Love is a verb, not a noun.
Regardless of what all civilization and culture tells us, by way of entertainment, in retrospect I continue to wonder why, where and when it became apparent to me that I was the origin of my love for all others. And at that my love is given without expectation of return.
I do sense how ridiculous this may seem to others and know it better by how foolish it seemed to me once.
Journal keeping has allowed me to establish a sense of what I am and what I am not. In the privacy of my soul it is possible to accept my folly and sincerity of intent. Equally it is possible for me to weep with gratitude that I have life and live meaningfully, at least to myself. As for you it is my intention to offer the honor of my prayer that you become whole, self knowing and beloved of the truth . . . which, obviously, is God, true and loving.
“ 22:51
This has been an surprising day and I fell exhausted after dinner. I am beset with computer problems: three crashes in the past six months, the last fatal, my old friend expired from old age. When everything else fails I no longer become enraged, or feel victimized by this, or similar events which I am not ashamed to confess motivated hysterical reactions to in former times. Exhaustion can do odd things to our judgement and we never really know what will happen now or in the future. It is not that I do not care it is simply that I am willing to know and accept that which I cannot change and accept my helplessness.
Yet in closing this entry I am revitalized by signs of hope and find within myself expanding boarders of potential in response. I fully accept my follies and failures and forgive myself for being imperfect to the needs we all have to become fully alive and persons becoming healed and whole. I am now at peace with not being a diamond in the rough, or an imperfect pearl. The metaphor of being a “rock polisher” has been transformed into myself as a river stone polished by the abrasions of time. Think of water as the wine of life and its moving me over and over what makes me myself. Replace the word “me” with us or you and accept that all life is love when you give up fear. Love is not what you have but what you give.
“Eros will have naked bodies; Friendship naked personalities.” --C. S. Lewis
100123 02:46
“Eros will have naked bodies; Friendship naked personalities.” --C. S. Lewis
Some days I’m Toto, and others, I’m Dorothy, twirling in the cyclone of chaos we’re in. We’re not in Kansas any more. In truth I am a man in love with a woman who I, in faith, believe loves me as a friend and our friendship is the greatest love I’ll ever know on this mortal coil. I am as loyal to her as nothing I can understand beyond using the Sufi metaphor for the love of the ‘Devil’ for God. In the myth God says “Be Gone!” and the ‘Devil’ took that as his greatest love and left Heaven behind.
My understanding of grace began long ago with Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea” and is now reconciled with his “To Have, and Have Not.” Perhaps it is inappropriate for me to use/abuse, works that others would understand differently . . . but in life and death I’ll stick with mine, as I do the sense that The Bible is my Handbook, or Owners Manual, for life.
Again, and yet again, I use Confucius’s rendering of the Golden Rule; "How about 'shu' [reciprocity]: never impose on others what you would not choose for yourself(?)"
We are collectively and individually caught in two dimensions: a Tsunami and enveloped in a gossamer web of love with our Creator and all life. In advance I ask you to forgive this simpleton’s conclusion that it is the work of love to accept the beloved as having a equal voice; and through that come to understand the meaning of Jesus’ “Love your enemy.” God will not do for us what we must agree to do amongst ourselves now. Regardless of the power to destroy, there is a greater power capable of making love and life possible.
“The Golden Rule” has a special meaning since it was introduced, conceptually, to me by Bert Bigelow, a onetime neighbor of my parents. He and is wife sailed into the Atomic Test site mid-Pacific ocean to protest the weapon.
Courage to love and act is a talent/genius we all possess, yet it is too often avoided or ignored. The beloved friend did not announce to me that she was a psychologist until after she had saved me from suicide. Our relationship informs my opinions and choices in regard to all things. It is my prayer for all of us that we find such a level of cooperation and move forward making sense of the chaos we are now in. Regardless of resources we have a communal family to reconcile with the future.
“Eros will have naked bodies; Friendship naked personalities.” --C. S. Lewis
Some days I’m Toto, and others, I’m Dorothy, twirling in the cyclone of chaos we’re in. We’re not in Kansas any more. In truth I am a man in love with a woman who I, in faith, believe loves me as a friend and our friendship is the greatest love I’ll ever know on this mortal coil. I am as loyal to her as nothing I can understand beyond using the Sufi metaphor for the love of the ‘Devil’ for God. In the myth God says “Be Gone!” and the ‘Devil’ took that as his greatest love and left Heaven behind.
My understanding of grace began long ago with Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea” and is now reconciled with his “To Have, and Have Not.” Perhaps it is inappropriate for me to use/abuse, works that others would understand differently . . . but in life and death I’ll stick with mine, as I do the sense that The Bible is my Handbook, or Owners Manual, for life.
Again, and yet again, I use Confucius’s rendering of the Golden Rule; "How about 'shu' [reciprocity]: never impose on others what you would not choose for yourself(?)"
We are collectively and individually caught in two dimensions: a Tsunami and enveloped in a gossamer web of love with our Creator and all life. In advance I ask you to forgive this simpleton’s conclusion that it is the work of love to accept the beloved as having a equal voice; and through that come to understand the meaning of Jesus’ “Love your enemy.” God will not do for us what we must agree to do amongst ourselves now. Regardless of the power to destroy, there is a greater power capable of making love and life possible.
“The Golden Rule” has a special meaning since it was introduced, conceptually, to me by Bert Bigelow, a onetime neighbor of my parents. He and is wife sailed into the Atomic Test site mid-Pacific ocean to protest the weapon.
Courage to love and act is a talent/genius we all possess, yet it is too often avoided or ignored. The beloved friend did not announce to me that she was a psychologist until after she had saved me from suicide. Our relationship informs my opinions and choices in regard to all things. It is my prayer for all of us that we find such a level of cooperation and move forward making sense of the chaos we are now in. Regardless of resources we have a communal family to reconcile with the future.
Coincidence or synchronicity?
100122 13:07
Coincidence or synchronicity?
Carl Jung, one of the fathers of contemporary psychology, defined the word ‘synchronicity’ as an “outward manifestation of an inward thought.” We all have moments of revelation when someone else, or another source, is addressing the same issue simultaneous with our thoughts overtly. In my life and times this has happened frequently yet I dismissed the experience as merely coincidence. The consequence was that I muddled along with the ‘best that I could do’ by my own discernment. Or, worse, I fell in love with the source misapprehending the author.
Experience with my own addictions lead me to conclude that I paid too much attention to the person, place or thing I was “addicted “ to.
Everyone, by lose definition, processes life experience through experiential filters: thinking, sensing, feeling or intuition with minor combinations of a secondary influence. I have begun to balance the four instead of the two I normally used inherently.
Retrospectively I should have said “am attempting to integrate” the four kinds of perception. We learn more by our failures than our successes. It is not an ideal of wearing rose colored glasses all the time but of really paying attention to the source of our information. Most of the time we are seeking affirmation of our convictions, “magical thinking”, instead of what we can learn. It follows that when I consume information I am now attempting to parse the meaning of everything I allow into the rock polisher of my mind. More often than not I find myself attempting to understand the motives involved through a filter of prophesy versus profit.
I have nothing against wealth and profit but when it costs me too much I begin to bridle. The consequence is that I vote with my wallet, feet or attention. At the same time I take umbrage at those who use psychology to manipulate me into their ideal behavior and so my response is considered and conscious, not reactionary.
In this regard I sense I’ve painted myself into a corner and find myself addressing, yet again, “Love your enemy.” And flowing into that consideration is a host of other sayings/parables of Jesus that inform me that I am moving in the right direction. “Innocent as a dove and wily as a fox.” Neither are stupid as some would presume.
I was once addicted to dysfunctional relationships, unconscious of my motives to heal them so I could have a life. Despite my many failings I am still moving forward toward a self-derived understanding. No longer worshiping resources that would otherwise use and abuse me to their ends or agendas.
Attention to synchronicity is near constant now. I am often humbled by grace especially that given by strangers and those who actually love/loved me when I could not love or accept myself.
In a sincere sense it was I who failed to respond to all the opportunities freely given in life to live better than I did previously. The primary source of my self-loathing originated in my parents anxiety that I become better able to survive economically--they were both young adults during the Great Depression--so I better understand and forgive their vehemence defining me as “too stupid to get in out of the rain.” If I have empathy for my ‘enemy’ now it is because I was once an enemy to myself.
Coincidence or synchronicity?
Carl Jung, one of the fathers of contemporary psychology, defined the word ‘synchronicity’ as an “outward manifestation of an inward thought.” We all have moments of revelation when someone else, or another source, is addressing the same issue simultaneous with our thoughts overtly. In my life and times this has happened frequently yet I dismissed the experience as merely coincidence. The consequence was that I muddled along with the ‘best that I could do’ by my own discernment. Or, worse, I fell in love with the source misapprehending the author.
Experience with my own addictions lead me to conclude that I paid too much attention to the person, place or thing I was “addicted “ to.
Everyone, by lose definition, processes life experience through experiential filters: thinking, sensing, feeling or intuition with minor combinations of a secondary influence. I have begun to balance the four instead of the two I normally used inherently.
Retrospectively I should have said “am attempting to integrate” the four kinds of perception. We learn more by our failures than our successes. It is not an ideal of wearing rose colored glasses all the time but of really paying attention to the source of our information. Most of the time we are seeking affirmation of our convictions, “magical thinking”, instead of what we can learn. It follows that when I consume information I am now attempting to parse the meaning of everything I allow into the rock polisher of my mind. More often than not I find myself attempting to understand the motives involved through a filter of prophesy versus profit.
I have nothing against wealth and profit but when it costs me too much I begin to bridle. The consequence is that I vote with my wallet, feet or attention. At the same time I take umbrage at those who use psychology to manipulate me into their ideal behavior and so my response is considered and conscious, not reactionary.
In this regard I sense I’ve painted myself into a corner and find myself addressing, yet again, “Love your enemy.” And flowing into that consideration is a host of other sayings/parables of Jesus that inform me that I am moving in the right direction. “Innocent as a dove and wily as a fox.” Neither are stupid as some would presume.
I was once addicted to dysfunctional relationships, unconscious of my motives to heal them so I could have a life. Despite my many failings I am still moving forward toward a self-derived understanding. No longer worshiping resources that would otherwise use and abuse me to their ends or agendas.
Attention to synchronicity is near constant now. I am often humbled by grace especially that given by strangers and those who actually love/loved me when I could not love or accept myself.
In a sincere sense it was I who failed to respond to all the opportunities freely given in life to live better than I did previously. The primary source of my self-loathing originated in my parents anxiety that I become better able to survive economically--they were both young adults during the Great Depression--so I better understand and forgive their vehemence defining me as “too stupid to get in out of the rain.” If I have empathy for my ‘enemy’ now it is because I was once an enemy to myself.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
"One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar."
100121 05:38
We are all artist. Our masterpiece is the creation of our Self. To be known and loved for being our self is asking a bit much of life and others. Since it is apparent, the so few of, the many of us, love or ever really know and accept ourselves. We are in process and waste a great deal of our lives in jealousy and admiration of the lives of those who are esteemed historically.
Sadly it is the criminal who steals life, most often remembered, and in a perverse way celebrated. It is too easy to kill instead of love. An artist of death is feared and fear becomes our ideal polarity.
Yesterday I arrived at a nodal point in my life’s process; a place of choice between going forward or simply destroying not only what I write but what I am. But as an old man I’ve learned patience with myself and am willing to suffer pain. Since I know my end is inevitably near and each moment of life dear.
I am tempted to deconstruct the moments of consequence and the agents of my knowing God’s intervention and what now results in this moment celebrated. We sense, think, intuit or feel God as either an idea or real.
--R. Buckminster Fuller
“Faith is much better than belief. Belief is when someone else does the thinking.”
Love is the catalyst of life. As I wander through the museum of all Creation, including pre-history and the future, I am caught by those few who, as artist, annotate their lives that we better understand and appreciate ours. Artifacts can be worshiped but should become instead portals passed through and into what they tell us about ourselves. God is obviously the greatest artist, and my list of life’s artist surrounds God in a constellation of stars ever expanding. We all have a talent and genius but in general avoid responsibility for that. Instead we become addicted to things, activities, drugs or dances of avoidance proclaiming ourselves as Indian Chiefs, Bakers, Candle Stick Makers, Bankers or consumers. In a profound sense longing for the attention of others to affirm our value and right to live and be loved when we love not ourselves.
I have a vision/version of our collective future, either terminal or infinite, depending upon choices made by, or for, ourselves. I am not impressed by what you say you are but what you do. It is not for me to judge you since that is God’s role and you will know it in the end of your days. Since I love Jesus I wonder what I do on a daily basis to make love possible in an impossible world filled with fear, hatred and greed measuring everything in “Good, Better, Best” ways. Worse; I win, you lose.
Keep it simple stupid. Yes I will admit to my stupidity and longing for simple separation between Church and State. The secular should, in my opinion, always be separate from the sacred. My choice to participate or boycott either, or both, is my responsibility and belongs to no one else; not even God.
I will continue to advocate that you take responsibility for yourself; change what you can, accept what you cannot and discover the wisdom in yourself to accept the difference. Be the best You can be, in that choice you will soon discover that change is welcome and that what you give or take in life defines your faith. My prayers are inclusive and include my “enemies.”
--Helen Keller
"One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar."
We are all artist. Our masterpiece is the creation of our Self. To be known and loved for being our self is asking a bit much of life and others. Since it is apparent, the so few of, the many of us, love or ever really know and accept ourselves. We are in process and waste a great deal of our lives in jealousy and admiration of the lives of those who are esteemed historically.
Sadly it is the criminal who steals life, most often remembered, and in a perverse way celebrated. It is too easy to kill instead of love. An artist of death is feared and fear becomes our ideal polarity.
Yesterday I arrived at a nodal point in my life’s process; a place of choice between going forward or simply destroying not only what I write but what I am. But as an old man I’ve learned patience with myself and am willing to suffer pain. Since I know my end is inevitably near and each moment of life dear.
I am tempted to deconstruct the moments of consequence and the agents of my knowing God’s intervention and what now results in this moment celebrated. We sense, think, intuit or feel God as either an idea or real.
--R. Buckminster Fuller
“Faith is much better than belief. Belief is when someone else does the thinking.”
Love is the catalyst of life. As I wander through the museum of all Creation, including pre-history and the future, I am caught by those few who, as artist, annotate their lives that we better understand and appreciate ours. Artifacts can be worshiped but should become instead portals passed through and into what they tell us about ourselves. God is obviously the greatest artist, and my list of life’s artist surrounds God in a constellation of stars ever expanding. We all have a talent and genius but in general avoid responsibility for that. Instead we become addicted to things, activities, drugs or dances of avoidance proclaiming ourselves as Indian Chiefs, Bakers, Candle Stick Makers, Bankers or consumers. In a profound sense longing for the attention of others to affirm our value and right to live and be loved when we love not ourselves.
I have a vision/version of our collective future, either terminal or infinite, depending upon choices made by, or for, ourselves. I am not impressed by what you say you are but what you do. It is not for me to judge you since that is God’s role and you will know it in the end of your days. Since I love Jesus I wonder what I do on a daily basis to make love possible in an impossible world filled with fear, hatred and greed measuring everything in “Good, Better, Best” ways. Worse; I win, you lose.
Keep it simple stupid. Yes I will admit to my stupidity and longing for simple separation between Church and State. The secular should, in my opinion, always be separate from the sacred. My choice to participate or boycott either, or both, is my responsibility and belongs to no one else; not even God.
I will continue to advocate that you take responsibility for yourself; change what you can, accept what you cannot and discover the wisdom in yourself to accept the difference. Be the best You can be, in that choice you will soon discover that change is welcome and that what you give or take in life defines your faith. My prayers are inclusive and include my “enemies.”
--Helen Keller
"One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar."
Seek the Truth in all things especially yourself
100120 05:02
This dawn I will greet with sadness and departure the life and beliefs I will now leave behind. Sincerely I accept and welcome even the most difficult dreams and do not resent being hurled from my sleep by them. I once thought it grand to sail forth from the safe harbor of my childhood to sail the world, mostly water. Now I anticipate sailing the far vaster stars above the ordinary of earthly life.
The peace within me is a conviction derived from my current awareness the dream compelling me from slumber; God is the ultimate servant hidden within all of us. The avoidance of this simple stunning reality has been costly beyond measure to me and I suspect all others.
As I write I am ever more conscious of attitudes of jealousy regarding the power of others to pursue and persecute me as well as all others they would make victims of . . . at the moment I am thinking of the Black population abandoned after Katrina and now Haiti . . . and I have a special empathy for the AIDS orphans of Africa . . . which in turn reminds me of the widows and orphans on both sides of the conflicts bleeding America dry financially, morally and ethically.
I mean no disrespect for the choices made by either side. And am happily no longer identified by face in association with what I now write. Since to be so is to invite assassination by self-righteous bigotry, punditry and bigotry--merely what has become our National sport of choice.
I am a journalist, not simply in the sense of annotating my feelings and thoughts here and on the Internet. But professionally. I mourn the passing of “Freedom of the Press” and the venues I once enjoyed working for . . . ‘kill the messengers’ is another world-wide sport. Least I digress into a political fulmination, I am reminded that few prophets of the Judeo-Christian tradition died in their sleep and in time all the apostles crucified. A great many have died to defend our national freedoms as have many individuals who also died to keep the dignity of being truly yourself available. That is my ambition and goal, to be your servant, or handmaiden to the birth of your real self, free from fear, self-loathing, tyranny and slavery.
“ 06:10
I will quote you no quotes since it seems I must either use my own words or transliterate into contemporary language something more accessible to our times. We become what we love or nearly so and equally become, essentially what we consume. Seek the truth in all things especially yourself.
This dawn I will greet with sadness and departure the life and beliefs I will now leave behind. Sincerely I accept and welcome even the most difficult dreams and do not resent being hurled from my sleep by them. I once thought it grand to sail forth from the safe harbor of my childhood to sail the world, mostly water. Now I anticipate sailing the far vaster stars above the ordinary of earthly life.
The peace within me is a conviction derived from my current awareness the dream compelling me from slumber; God is the ultimate servant hidden within all of us. The avoidance of this simple stunning reality has been costly beyond measure to me and I suspect all others.
As I write I am ever more conscious of attitudes of jealousy regarding the power of others to pursue and persecute me as well as all others they would make victims of . . . at the moment I am thinking of the Black population abandoned after Katrina and now Haiti . . . and I have a special empathy for the AIDS orphans of Africa . . . which in turn reminds me of the widows and orphans on both sides of the conflicts bleeding America dry financially, morally and ethically.
I mean no disrespect for the choices made by either side. And am happily no longer identified by face in association with what I now write. Since to be so is to invite assassination by self-righteous bigotry, punditry and bigotry--merely what has become our National sport of choice.
I am a journalist, not simply in the sense of annotating my feelings and thoughts here and on the Internet. But professionally. I mourn the passing of “Freedom of the Press” and the venues I once enjoyed working for . . . ‘kill the messengers’ is another world-wide sport. Least I digress into a political fulmination, I am reminded that few prophets of the Judeo-Christian tradition died in their sleep and in time all the apostles crucified. A great many have died to defend our national freedoms as have many individuals who also died to keep the dignity of being truly yourself available. That is my ambition and goal, to be your servant, or handmaiden to the birth of your real self, free from fear, self-loathing, tyranny and slavery.
“ 06:10
I will quote you no quotes since it seems I must either use my own words or transliterate into contemporary language something more accessible to our times. We become what we love or nearly so and equally become, essentially what we consume. Seek the truth in all things especially yourself.
Power is Love
100119 07:18
It is a very wonderful thing that God loves us as we are. I awoke from a dream regarding an important personal failure to achieve a long sought ideal. The recognition of which left me bereft and better described as being humiliated by my choices/behaviors. At issue was salvation. There were three principal characters: myself and two women--described better as two female spirits, souls or entities of importance to me. I am reminded that I am 49% female and have been prone to projecting that reality upon other women to my chagrin; only now recognized.
I remember Dunkirk in reference to my failure. I first read about the event in childhood and imagined God very busy with all the souls who died there. In truth I do so equally now regarding the Middle East and Haiti. And then too are the many genocides within my lifetime.
If I seem overly empathetic regarding others filtered through religious/spiritual contexts, I now accept that I have always been so. Yet in childhood, and until very recently, my preoccupation was impermissible since I gave all authority to others to tell me what God/All Truth/Everything was about. I was ripped, torn, spindled and mutilated by myself in conflict between an innate sense of God’s presence and the need of others to tell me otherwise. I know what it means to be ‘crazy’ and so terrified with anxiety that my life was put into a state of shutdown to survive.
If I have no fear of life, death or dying it is because in a virtual sense I have died so often to myself that death is no stranger--but then neither is the resurrection--now.
Regarding the failure experienced in my dream I have become conscious of several Biblical ‘heroes’ Noah chief among them. My failure was to take that final, step the one assuring me of salvation.
No longer paranoid I sense we are a people in flood tide of chaos and the narrow gate will only accept one soul at a time. If our soul is a lamp there is no profit in sharing the fuel with others who fail to recognize their responsibility to enter. I no longer cringe acknowledging the darkness in others being so well acquainted with my own. I know God as kind, loving and all the things St. Paul described in 1 Corinthian’s 13. Yet in my dream I was a failure, fatally so. The Bible as an owners manual for life, and God as the best and greatest teacher/healer, is by-and-large, held in the hands of people who know about, but do not experience, God as actual. I base my discernment upon a simple standard; God is inclusive and we are exclusive to our own desires and intentions.
Jesus is my root in The Tree of Life. Though I do not think myself exclusively Christian, unwittingly and unwillingly, I have been moved by experience from the root to leaf fallen and recycled. No religion is my enemy since we all seek ascension through life and in death. No one asks to be born and the issue is what do we do in life; what values and meanings apply?
Of late I have taken time to reflect, in the ordinary of my daily life, upon what I have written, sometimes in a frenzy of passion regarding a dream or a resolved conflict. I often become bewildered by the vigor of my statements and attempt to see them with the eyes of others who may not be aware of “God” as anything other than someone/something they call when helpless. Heresy and sedition are issues that I am conscious the definitions of but they seldom factor in to the equation of what I publish or simply table for another day.
My sense and experience of God is very participatory and at the same time something I could be judged as being insane for admitting. I would argue in this case that what we acknowledge as “Power” is too often egos gone awry. It is not for me to decide or define your life but you must by your own lights examine and live it. If Jesus died for us, can I die for you? What is the meaning of life or death?
--R. Buckminster Fuller
“Faith is much better than belief. Belief is when someone else does the thinking.”
It is a very wonderful thing that God loves us as we are. I awoke from a dream regarding an important personal failure to achieve a long sought ideal. The recognition of which left me bereft and better described as being humiliated by my choices/behaviors. At issue was salvation. There were three principal characters: myself and two women--described better as two female spirits, souls or entities of importance to me. I am reminded that I am 49% female and have been prone to projecting that reality upon other women to my chagrin; only now recognized.
I remember Dunkirk in reference to my failure. I first read about the event in childhood and imagined God very busy with all the souls who died there. In truth I do so equally now regarding the Middle East and Haiti. And then too are the many genocides within my lifetime.
If I seem overly empathetic regarding others filtered through religious/spiritual contexts, I now accept that I have always been so. Yet in childhood, and until very recently, my preoccupation was impermissible since I gave all authority to others to tell me what God/All Truth/Everything was about. I was ripped, torn, spindled and mutilated by myself in conflict between an innate sense of God’s presence and the need of others to tell me otherwise. I know what it means to be ‘crazy’ and so terrified with anxiety that my life was put into a state of shutdown to survive.
If I have no fear of life, death or dying it is because in a virtual sense I have died so often to myself that death is no stranger--but then neither is the resurrection--now.
Regarding the failure experienced in my dream I have become conscious of several Biblical ‘heroes’ Noah chief among them. My failure was to take that final, step the one assuring me of salvation.
No longer paranoid I sense we are a people in flood tide of chaos and the narrow gate will only accept one soul at a time. If our soul is a lamp there is no profit in sharing the fuel with others who fail to recognize their responsibility to enter. I no longer cringe acknowledging the darkness in others being so well acquainted with my own. I know God as kind, loving and all the things St. Paul described in 1 Corinthian’s 13. Yet in my dream I was a failure, fatally so. The Bible as an owners manual for life, and God as the best and greatest teacher/healer, is by-and-large, held in the hands of people who know about, but do not experience, God as actual. I base my discernment upon a simple standard; God is inclusive and we are exclusive to our own desires and intentions.
Jesus is my root in The Tree of Life. Though I do not think myself exclusively Christian, unwittingly and unwillingly, I have been moved by experience from the root to leaf fallen and recycled. No religion is my enemy since we all seek ascension through life and in death. No one asks to be born and the issue is what do we do in life; what values and meanings apply?
Of late I have taken time to reflect, in the ordinary of my daily life, upon what I have written, sometimes in a frenzy of passion regarding a dream or a resolved conflict. I often become bewildered by the vigor of my statements and attempt to see them with the eyes of others who may not be aware of “God” as anything other than someone/something they call when helpless. Heresy and sedition are issues that I am conscious the definitions of but they seldom factor in to the equation of what I publish or simply table for another day.
My sense and experience of God is very participatory and at the same time something I could be judged as being insane for admitting. I would argue in this case that what we acknowledge as “Power” is too often egos gone awry. It is not for me to decide or define your life but you must by your own lights examine and live it. If Jesus died for us, can I die for you? What is the meaning of life or death?
--R. Buckminster Fuller
“Faith is much better than belief. Belief is when someone else does the thinking.”
Heaven being torn apart.!?
100118 06:09
I have a vision of Heaven being torn apart. Oddly it was the size of an average roadside billboard which had never been cleaned of all the preceding promises torn from it. For me it was as though I had seen the soul of my daughter raped and then rend limb from limb and I helpless to intervene. This is an image that has been forming in my vision/version of life and its value and directions for a very long time.
Slowly I have come to accept that I gave up my ambition to be something better than I was and remain to serve my son in his final years, then days and terminal hour. His sister’s death preceded Randy’s by years and I bore complicity for leaving her to die in custodial care feeling a rage and agony for that, unspeakable choice, especially with their mother.
I divorced her many years ago yet there is no divorce in my heart. I had to divorce from myself the child I was who knew love as dysfunctional--being addicted to that--what I now call co-dependence.
Many of the images, metaphors and omens are being wiped from my consciousness as I write. Justifiably so since they are history and this is now; reality versus ideals.
If we become what we love then I become something like God. Who as Parent is dispassionate and loves with ferocity stunning to behold . . . what some call, and or imply to be, ‘fear’, I call joy.
To me the reality of God is best expressed as a landlord who is unable to tend the flocks and vineyards we inhabit. It is our responsibility to be good stewards of not only the land and lives created but of ourselves as well. If we don’t do it who will and when?
I am fiercely political and theological yet refuse to debate my issues with others knowing I will lose my self in the process of attempting to compete with their perceptions or constructs of long standing traditions expressed as power. Historically everyone, and thing, is destroyed for being inconvenient to the authorities. I am especially conscious of the songs sung by the mountains around me by the natives who lived here long before me. Now desecrated and largely expunged . . . in a sense I long to join them since they knew God better than I. Issues of lineage and DNA are irrelevant to the soul and its vocations and or amusements.
I was once considered to be a ‘good’ photographer with a promising future. These estimates were welcome but pale compared to the joy I knew in my experience of being one at that time. Yet I fell blind to myself at the advent of my son’s demise. And here I am conscious of the indignities he suffered as well as those being suffered by the poor of the world now. We are not expendable feral dogs licking the masters hands who send us a crumb of attention, or off to fight their obscene wars. My point is simply that I never failed as witness and now sense my silence the brew of what writes now.
I seek no celebrity or profit from what I do in expectation of demise now, or tomorrow or later on by any means or measure. Given that, I do celebrate every moment including the normal depredations of age; the pain of an unusually cold winter, the stiffness of arthritis, et cetera, et al, since they remind me that I am alive and fully so.
I think it not odd to conclude leadership best seeks to replace itself with succession despite all the stories used to entertain we the victims of our civilization and culture. If I would serve you it is my intention that you take responsibility for your sense of what is worthy of love and nurture. If we do not then there will be no future and no witness save God.
All life is holy to me.
I have a vision of Heaven being torn apart. Oddly it was the size of an average roadside billboard which had never been cleaned of all the preceding promises torn from it. For me it was as though I had seen the soul of my daughter raped and then rend limb from limb and I helpless to intervene. This is an image that has been forming in my vision/version of life and its value and directions for a very long time.
Slowly I have come to accept that I gave up my ambition to be something better than I was and remain to serve my son in his final years, then days and terminal hour. His sister’s death preceded Randy’s by years and I bore complicity for leaving her to die in custodial care feeling a rage and agony for that, unspeakable choice, especially with their mother.
I divorced her many years ago yet there is no divorce in my heart. I had to divorce from myself the child I was who knew love as dysfunctional--being addicted to that--what I now call co-dependence.
Many of the images, metaphors and omens are being wiped from my consciousness as I write. Justifiably so since they are history and this is now; reality versus ideals.
If we become what we love then I become something like God. Who as Parent is dispassionate and loves with ferocity stunning to behold . . . what some call, and or imply to be, ‘fear’, I call joy.
To me the reality of God is best expressed as a landlord who is unable to tend the flocks and vineyards we inhabit. It is our responsibility to be good stewards of not only the land and lives created but of ourselves as well. If we don’t do it who will and when?
I am fiercely political and theological yet refuse to debate my issues with others knowing I will lose my self in the process of attempting to compete with their perceptions or constructs of long standing traditions expressed as power. Historically everyone, and thing, is destroyed for being inconvenient to the authorities. I am especially conscious of the songs sung by the mountains around me by the natives who lived here long before me. Now desecrated and largely expunged . . . in a sense I long to join them since they knew God better than I. Issues of lineage and DNA are irrelevant to the soul and its vocations and or amusements.
I was once considered to be a ‘good’ photographer with a promising future. These estimates were welcome but pale compared to the joy I knew in my experience of being one at that time. Yet I fell blind to myself at the advent of my son’s demise. And here I am conscious of the indignities he suffered as well as those being suffered by the poor of the world now. We are not expendable feral dogs licking the masters hands who send us a crumb of attention, or off to fight their obscene wars. My point is simply that I never failed as witness and now sense my silence the brew of what writes now.
I seek no celebrity or profit from what I do in expectation of demise now, or tomorrow or later on by any means or measure. Given that, I do celebrate every moment including the normal depredations of age; the pain of an unusually cold winter, the stiffness of arthritis, et cetera, et al, since they remind me that I am alive and fully so.
I think it not odd to conclude leadership best seeks to replace itself with succession despite all the stories used to entertain we the victims of our civilization and culture. If I would serve you it is my intention that you take responsibility for your sense of what is worthy of love and nurture. If we do not then there will be no future and no witness save God.
All life is holy to me.
"There is no way to peace peace is the way" --Thich Nhat Hanh
100117 05:53
Obvious to me is that I do not prize my life, I was taught not to. Yet for you, dear reader, I would go to any length that you love yourself. You, to me, are holy, and never intended to fail life as created unique, precious, specific and explicit in you.
The subtext in this is the question-postulation poised by Jesus: “Love your enemy . . . “ At first hearing I was overwhelmed by their number and I reacted with fear and rage wanting to destroy not only them but myself in violence. I gave to them the privilege of choice, the time, place and ground, the issues and intentions theirs not mine. it appears I’ve backed into a foundation of knowing myself as worthy of love and existence no longer self-loathing or confused by “YOU” messages. I now sense that few would attempt the folly now since I no longer cringe and blink but evaluate their need, greed and intention in telling me what they are fearful of in themselves.
In my estimate fear is the primary dysfunction, and waste the greatest evil of all mankind. Power at its greatest example--God--empowers and destroys nothing.
In a certain sense I see us in the Garden of Eden making a dung heap of it. We are killing ourselves wholesale with numbers increasing daily and soon to be defeated by our own vanity.
Despite the many sorrows and agonies, my life has been good and getting better, yet I recognize that what I leave behind has little to offer the generations to follow and they will bear the sin/waste of my choice in this time.
The “powers” in this world have a poverty of moral and ethical values that would destroy everything in greed to assure continuance of the status quo: we win, you lose.
"There is no way to peace peace is the way" --Thich Nhat Hanh
Between the ideal and real is the difference between making peace with yourself. To love yourself begins with acceptance, the forgiveness of all who for whatever reason mislead you, and then to forgive yourself for accepting it as justice.
. . . after thought 100121: Of the greatest and most wealthy in any field of endeavor I have know extreme poverty in them and myself.
Obvious to me is that I do not prize my life, I was taught not to. Yet for you, dear reader, I would go to any length that you love yourself. You, to me, are holy, and never intended to fail life as created unique, precious, specific and explicit in you.
The subtext in this is the question-postulation poised by Jesus: “Love your enemy . . . “ At first hearing I was overwhelmed by their number and I reacted with fear and rage wanting to destroy not only them but myself in violence. I gave to them the privilege of choice, the time, place and ground, the issues and intentions theirs not mine. it appears I’ve backed into a foundation of knowing myself as worthy of love and existence no longer self-loathing or confused by “YOU” messages. I now sense that few would attempt the folly now since I no longer cringe and blink but evaluate their need, greed and intention in telling me what they are fearful of in themselves.
In my estimate fear is the primary dysfunction, and waste the greatest evil of all mankind. Power at its greatest example--God--empowers and destroys nothing.
In a certain sense I see us in the Garden of Eden making a dung heap of it. We are killing ourselves wholesale with numbers increasing daily and soon to be defeated by our own vanity.
Despite the many sorrows and agonies, my life has been good and getting better, yet I recognize that what I leave behind has little to offer the generations to follow and they will bear the sin/waste of my choice in this time.
The “powers” in this world have a poverty of moral and ethical values that would destroy everything in greed to assure continuance of the status quo: we win, you lose.
"There is no way to peace peace is the way" --Thich Nhat Hanh
Between the ideal and real is the difference between making peace with yourself. To love yourself begins with acceptance, the forgiveness of all who for whatever reason mislead you, and then to forgive yourself for accepting it as justice.
. . . after thought 100121: Of the greatest and most wealthy in any field of endeavor I have know extreme poverty in them and myself.
Omnivorous consciousness . . .
100116 07:39
Our consciousness is omnivorous, and once unfettered from the clutter of noise, it is able to parse and triage importance from irrelevance. Dreams, and other resources, suggest elements of our lives significant requesting attention.
This morning the events in Haiti crossed the screen of my attention. Immediately I recalled my sense that my son’s behavior demanded attention. He had previously simply sat down on the floor and then arose at the age of four years-of-age. This event happened at least once in my experience and the second time he looked at me and said, “Daddy I can’t get up.”
The sequence of events from that moment on remain sharply etched in my memory, and my intuition that he would die became apparent and tragically correct. Having had a lifetime of rationalizations attempting to process the events of peril preemptively incorrectly presuming myself the cause I now know the difference between what I can heal and what I cannot. My thinking at the moment leads me to the “Serenity Prayer”, my theme song.
Among the many furnishings of my mind lost, abandoned, or destroyed is St. Francis’s “Make me an instrument of thy peace . . . “ I used to have it framed and now remember it left behind during my flight from Illinois and presumed lost. Yet I remember the spirit and gist of it, in some sense, now using my own words inspired to ‘modernize’ it for this time, culture and failing civilization.
Isolation from others is impossible and ignorance of one’s self is inexcusable.
I am a solitary who failed at all my attempts to be “normal”; married, with family and a future. Each loss defined what I now sense as being self-derived and centered. Retroactively I consider the meaning, value and implications of many different constructs generally defined as political or theological and none seem adequate to the task of living these days in sanity. To me they now seems a rehearsal of “should’s and ought's” costumed as ‘wisdom’ derived from another time, addressed to other persons in tribes isolated from one another.
Intrinsically we have the power to heal ourselves of many tragedies, diseases and difficulties so long as we no longer presume that someone, or God, will do it for us. For me it is definition of what is mine and what belongs to creation and make choices based upon responsibility instead of reaction. I think of tithes in reverse; ten percent is physics and ninety percent is choice. Regarding economics and ecology there is an apparent imbalance, an injustice justified by lies promulgated by the power to take lives and use them to selfish ends. I do not believe, or experience, God as being anything like that. Absolute power is given to no one else yet our power, if directed to giving instead of taking, is an ability to heal turning others from fear and waste to peace and productivity.
Our consciousness is omnivorous, and once unfettered from the clutter of noise, it is able to parse and triage importance from irrelevance. Dreams, and other resources, suggest elements of our lives significant requesting attention.
This morning the events in Haiti crossed the screen of my attention. Immediately I recalled my sense that my son’s behavior demanded attention. He had previously simply sat down on the floor and then arose at the age of four years-of-age. This event happened at least once in my experience and the second time he looked at me and said, “Daddy I can’t get up.”
The sequence of events from that moment on remain sharply etched in my memory, and my intuition that he would die became apparent and tragically correct. Having had a lifetime of rationalizations attempting to process the events of peril preemptively incorrectly presuming myself the cause I now know the difference between what I can heal and what I cannot. My thinking at the moment leads me to the “Serenity Prayer”, my theme song.
Among the many furnishings of my mind lost, abandoned, or destroyed is St. Francis’s “Make me an instrument of thy peace . . . “ I used to have it framed and now remember it left behind during my flight from Illinois and presumed lost. Yet I remember the spirit and gist of it, in some sense, now using my own words inspired to ‘modernize’ it for this time, culture and failing civilization.
Isolation from others is impossible and ignorance of one’s self is inexcusable.
I am a solitary who failed at all my attempts to be “normal”; married, with family and a future. Each loss defined what I now sense as being self-derived and centered. Retroactively I consider the meaning, value and implications of many different constructs generally defined as political or theological and none seem adequate to the task of living these days in sanity. To me they now seems a rehearsal of “should’s and ought's” costumed as ‘wisdom’ derived from another time, addressed to other persons in tribes isolated from one another.
Intrinsically we have the power to heal ourselves of many tragedies, diseases and difficulties so long as we no longer presume that someone, or God, will do it for us. For me it is definition of what is mine and what belongs to creation and make choices based upon responsibility instead of reaction. I think of tithes in reverse; ten percent is physics and ninety percent is choice. Regarding economics and ecology there is an apparent imbalance, an injustice justified by lies promulgated by the power to take lives and use them to selfish ends. I do not believe, or experience, God as being anything like that. Absolute power is given to no one else yet our power, if directed to giving instead of taking, is an ability to heal turning others from fear and waste to peace and productivity.
Friday, January 15, 2010
Source, origin, destination . . .
100115 03:33
Source, origin, destination . . .
it is something like falling in love or ?seeing God? for the first time, abashed to be so fortunate and ecstatic. Better yet, knowing in the marrow of your soul you are not insane.
City of the Sun, Port-au-Prince, Haiti 1984
I had broken away from the agenda of others and was standing in the in-between walls of shacks in an open sewer photographing a child in full flight towards . . . what? Home, food, school, God? I?ll never really know but know only the ecstasy of recording his head-long-flight with a camera. Later, I was told, that the images, from that oft recalled child?s enthusiasm, had been used to glean food sufficient to feed 35,000 of them for three months. And should I die at this moment I will know that I lived for something and someone other than myself.
I am a ravening beast with a camera in my hands, knowing no fear of anything, and for that I am filled with gratitude even now in retirement. And it keeps happening when I wander the desert of city streets behind buildings. And continue to be surprised and fearless the slings and arrows of those without who become my friends continuing into the ordinary of my life luminescent with grace. And now such grace as I?ve seen and been touched by is all I have left to give to you that you awaken to yourself headlong in pursuit of Love.
?To be born again? is an ongoing process, as in ?My Father?s House has many mansions . . . ? The vision, version and experience is that of residing in one of them for a time and then moving on to ever expanding horizons. It is being what I feel I was created to be. If that seems egotistical and foolish then perhaps I am to you. But to myself and God it is part of the journey towards all Truth & Love.
I destroyed and or abandoned all my life, the evidence of my wonder, wandering and evidence save for this what I now write. In each and every incidence just a hairs breath away from doing it to myself for the shame of never being that which I so admired, revered and longed to be in the lives and works of others.
There is no shame in being a great audience for the works and lives of others. Nor is it a shame to have audience with God and see the Works of Creation in process manifest in so many things; the flight of birds, the rise and set of sun, the state of another?s being in transition ignored. In this I know the Resurrection true and seek it for myself everyday. All days are holy to me. Precious without measure the treasure of them.
I am 69 miles of hard road traversed and still walking towards the ?Good night? I?ve seen in others dying in my witness, helpless was I to do otherwise. Yet their lives were never in vain since they are with the Parents of Us blest and at rest in eternity. I left parts of myself I never knew I had in Haiti and good friends too. It seems silly to make love with a camera and words now while holding that final fateful cup to the lips of Jesus dying there. Again and again we crucify our beloved God in all God?s manifestations. Incarnated in the poor. ?The poor will always be with you . . . ? I thought He meant those whose lives I witnessed until I inhabited my own poverty and embraced the leper found within.
God is a gentle lover and friend who remains patiently within all of us to be welcomed as our twin ignored. I know this now and death has no fear. No waste has been my many trashing's of self, or works, but of those I?ve left behind standing, I apologize for my leave taking, no offense was intended. Nor response required.
God?s blessing upon all of us in this our time of trials. Amen.
Source, origin, destination . . .
it is something like falling in love or ?seeing God? for the first time, abashed to be so fortunate and ecstatic. Better yet, knowing in the marrow of your soul you are not insane.
City of the Sun, Port-au-Prince, Haiti 1984
I had broken away from the agenda of others and was standing in the in-between walls of shacks in an open sewer photographing a child in full flight towards . . . what? Home, food, school, God? I?ll never really know but know only the ecstasy of recording his head-long-flight with a camera. Later, I was told, that the images, from that oft recalled child?s enthusiasm, had been used to glean food sufficient to feed 35,000 of them for three months. And should I die at this moment I will know that I lived for something and someone other than myself.
I am a ravening beast with a camera in my hands, knowing no fear of anything, and for that I am filled with gratitude even now in retirement. And it keeps happening when I wander the desert of city streets behind buildings. And continue to be surprised and fearless the slings and arrows of those without who become my friends continuing into the ordinary of my life luminescent with grace. And now such grace as I?ve seen and been touched by is all I have left to give to you that you awaken to yourself headlong in pursuit of Love.
?To be born again? is an ongoing process, as in ?My Father?s House has many mansions . . . ? The vision, version and experience is that of residing in one of them for a time and then moving on to ever expanding horizons. It is being what I feel I was created to be. If that seems egotistical and foolish then perhaps I am to you. But to myself and God it is part of the journey towards all Truth & Love.
I destroyed and or abandoned all my life, the evidence of my wonder, wandering and evidence save for this what I now write. In each and every incidence just a hairs breath away from doing it to myself for the shame of never being that which I so admired, revered and longed to be in the lives and works of others.
There is no shame in being a great audience for the works and lives of others. Nor is it a shame to have audience with God and see the Works of Creation in process manifest in so many things; the flight of birds, the rise and set of sun, the state of another?s being in transition ignored. In this I know the Resurrection true and seek it for myself everyday. All days are holy to me. Precious without measure the treasure of them.
I am 69 miles of hard road traversed and still walking towards the ?Good night? I?ve seen in others dying in my witness, helpless was I to do otherwise. Yet their lives were never in vain since they are with the Parents of Us blest and at rest in eternity. I left parts of myself I never knew I had in Haiti and good friends too. It seems silly to make love with a camera and words now while holding that final fateful cup to the lips of Jesus dying there. Again and again we crucify our beloved God in all God?s manifestations. Incarnated in the poor. ?The poor will always be with you . . . ? I thought He meant those whose lives I witnessed until I inhabited my own poverty and embraced the leper found within.
God is a gentle lover and friend who remains patiently within all of us to be welcomed as our twin ignored. I know this now and death has no fear. No waste has been my many trashing's of self, or works, but of those I?ve left behind standing, I apologize for my leave taking, no offense was intended. Nor response required.
God?s blessing upon all of us in this our time of trials. Amen.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Memorial for Haiti
100114 09:50
I have been unfaithful to myself, wallowing in the pain of arthritis, ignoring the ongoing process/progress of ordinary life.
In all things we can celebrate sorrow and joy, each a part of ourselves becoming whole revealed as we are becoming complete.
In silence I approach the ideal-idea of what I want to write, the page a blank page describing eternity, vastly different from the frame of a photographic lens through which I first discovered the nearness of God in Haiti; so long ago and never forgotten.
I ask your prayers for them--and yourselves--since their poverty, long standing, is so like mine when last there and even now embraced; and ours without work, our world in flux. How else could Jesus enter in and be for me a friend walking the streets of Haiti then and now that so many are lifeless and hopeless--helpless?
The interval between the ideal and real is actually very small, more nearly a membrane, a sort of blindness--an illusion.
Live, love, dance and sing as though life is eternal while holding the truth of death in each day potential.
Well do I remember my helpless rage against the deaths of both children. Now reprised in the silence of the child of my heart adopted, now become an adult and a parent herself.
I feared, eventually, that my rage against God would be like that against all else, everything that I would destroy in revenge until I became fully aware that the reason could have been exclusively attributed to myself; the source of their disease and death. Humiliated with my rage, I could then no longer exorcise it against anyone or anything and in that helplessness were the seeds of what I am now sown.
In crisis, as inevitable change, I am at peace. But also filled with empathy for those who suffer so obviously in their experience of pain, death, disability and hopelessness. I give such as I can--and more so--but most of all I listen for clues given me, what they want and need.
We can be for them a small part the heart, eyes, sense and will of God for them and with grace for ourselves in this day--now where eternity begins anew. The gift of our prayers is this; we learn the wisdom of knowing what we can change, that which we cannot. And the serenity of knowing what is physics indwelling from the beginning of creation. What we can generously be, do and give towards healing the world and ourselves.
We learn to respond to reality and no longer be victims of fate or life; reactionary. Faith, hope and charity as love given defines our sense of being real.
Note--Please continue . . .
. . . I have been derelict during the past few days. Add to which I tend to post “from top down.” There is more below in chronological sequence, if you are interested, starting at the 8th of January this year.
I have been unfaithful to myself, wallowing in the pain of arthritis, ignoring the ongoing process/progress of ordinary life.
In all things we can celebrate sorrow and joy, each a part of ourselves becoming whole revealed as we are becoming complete.
In silence I approach the ideal-idea of what I want to write, the page a blank page describing eternity, vastly different from the frame of a photographic lens through which I first discovered the nearness of God in Haiti; so long ago and never forgotten.
I ask your prayers for them--and yourselves--since their poverty, long standing, is so like mine when last there and even now embraced; and ours without work, our world in flux. How else could Jesus enter in and be for me a friend walking the streets of Haiti then and now that so many are lifeless and hopeless--helpless?
The interval between the ideal and real is actually very small, more nearly a membrane, a sort of blindness--an illusion.
Live, love, dance and sing as though life is eternal while holding the truth of death in each day potential.
Well do I remember my helpless rage against the deaths of both children. Now reprised in the silence of the child of my heart adopted, now become an adult and a parent herself.
I feared, eventually, that my rage against God would be like that against all else, everything that I would destroy in revenge until I became fully aware that the reason could have been exclusively attributed to myself; the source of their disease and death. Humiliated with my rage, I could then no longer exorcise it against anyone or anything and in that helplessness were the seeds of what I am now sown.
In crisis, as inevitable change, I am at peace. But also filled with empathy for those who suffer so obviously in their experience of pain, death, disability and hopelessness. I give such as I can--and more so--but most of all I listen for clues given me, what they want and need.
We can be for them a small part the heart, eyes, sense and will of God for them and with grace for ourselves in this day--now where eternity begins anew. The gift of our prayers is this; we learn the wisdom of knowing what we can change, that which we cannot. And the serenity of knowing what is physics indwelling from the beginning of creation. What we can generously be, do and give towards healing the world and ourselves.
We learn to respond to reality and no longer be victims of fate or life; reactionary. Faith, hope and charity as love given defines our sense of being real.
Note--Please continue . . .
. . . I have been derelict during the past few days. Add to which I tend to post “from top down.” There is more below in chronological sequence, if you are interested, starting at the 8th of January this year.
Self-Knowledge for everyone incuding the dummy writing this
100112 05:14
Journal keeping has been a primary healing commitment for many. A few have become famous for the effort but the purpose is to become whole and in process towards the full potential of your self--whatever that self wants to be.
It is now obvious that I personally need to go-as-far-as-it(I)-goes. Furthermore that my motives, once thought insanely excessive, was considered personally important for C. G. Jung as well.
Recent activities have lead me to realize that I not only edit whatever I read but additionally analyze everything in process; experiencing difficulty staying “on message” and usually writing my own novel in process, if in fact I am reading one at the time. My analogy is witnessing the process of making movies thus I am generally unable to enter the flow without deconstructing the process technically. That said I now realize a new dimension; being hyper-vigilant, I tend to give all weight to the author of any experience; intent, message, body language et cetera. In a sense I am deconstructing my psyche both in this journal-ling process and in the ordinary of my life experience.
It is now much easier for me to see a feasible transition/departure point between fact and fiction or poetry.
My ‘problem’ is common to all people, yet what is uncommon in me is my growing self-respect and that to whatever end is implied or suggested--in addition to a longing to help/heal others like myself who are/were taught they had no brains and no life worthy of love or attention.
“17:28
Gravid with light the days grow distended with organic promise, the longest tumid night of depression fled. My spirit soars towards the next longest day another annual to live. My soul doth magnify life lifting all with me towards the future confident the sun burning away the tears of mankind; the indwelling spirit magnificent.
Journal keeping has been a primary healing commitment for many. A few have become famous for the effort but the purpose is to become whole and in process towards the full potential of your self--whatever that self wants to be.
It is now obvious that I personally need to go-as-far-as-it(I)-goes. Furthermore that my motives, once thought insanely excessive, was considered personally important for C. G. Jung as well.
Recent activities have lead me to realize that I not only edit whatever I read but additionally analyze everything in process; experiencing difficulty staying “on message” and usually writing my own novel in process, if in fact I am reading one at the time. My analogy is witnessing the process of making movies thus I am generally unable to enter the flow without deconstructing the process technically. That said I now realize a new dimension; being hyper-vigilant, I tend to give all weight to the author of any experience; intent, message, body language et cetera. In a sense I am deconstructing my psyche both in this journal-ling process and in the ordinary of my life experience.
It is now much easier for me to see a feasible transition/departure point between fact and fiction or poetry.
My ‘problem’ is common to all people, yet what is uncommon in me is my growing self-respect and that to whatever end is implied or suggested--in addition to a longing to help/heal others like myself who are/were taught they had no brains and no life worthy of love or attention.
“17:28
Gravid with light the days grow distended with organic promise, the longest tumid night of depression fled. My spirit soars towards the next longest day another annual to live. My soul doth magnify life lifting all with me towards the future confident the sun burning away the tears of mankind; the indwelling spirit magnificent.
recommended for your consumption
100110 05:08
When a friend recommends a book or film unequivocally, which in turn had been recommended to them with equal, if not greater vigorous praise, I feel compelled to attend. So my friend Dave, a fellow run-a-way form the middle-class environs of Connecticut, found ourselves with last available seats, front row, in a 3D version viewing of “AVATAR.”
I have no regrets, forced to lay upon my back, sans 3D glasses, too narrow to view the wide screen so close to our noses.
I found myself in tears of praise and joy. Indifferent the choices of others viewing in silence, while I laughed, solo, at the plot progress of another run-a-way becoming a real person.
Hope is difficult to find, then cling to in times of crisis. There will be a future after all. And it will exist despite the depredations of greed manifest in this iconic and mythological film.
Least I fall further in love with the film and my ‘deathless-prose’ regarding it, I hasten to add that it appeals to all generations reaching from our time forward and backward to the voiceless, will to adapt, improvise and prevail in the human spirit. Rather I should emphasize the spirit of Life it self to see truth and light in spite of those who would otherwise enslave and or kill it.
Of particular interest is the joining of male and female principal’s courage to move into and engage the right to exist on one’s own terms. Though heroic and epic in nature I sense that every individual witnessing the process will long remember it as applicable to their individual lives in the here and eternal now.
For a few moments I wandered the splendor of Wikipedia seeking reference points to develop my celebration of this singular film further. The issue of ‘sin’ became my departure point since I believe it better referenced in the film than I can forge in this limited space. There are many references critical to current choices to deal with issues dangerous to our collective future within the film that are more than adequate to the task laying in our laps.
“Only the dead know the end of war” --Plato
1001114 --afterthoughts
Dave also recommended to my attention: “NOTHING BUT A SMILE” by Steve Amick. It is a novel of impressive iconic dimensions worthy of reading again and again. I was moved to realize within its pages a penchant for analysis that had previously fractured my attention in reading anything including the Bible. I make reference this since unlike most mediums, which I have professionally viewed the making of, I was drawn ineluctably into the novels flow. This novel drew me into a conspiracy with all former concerns, and or conceits/conclusions, regarding my parent’s generation and ours. I often found myself in tears of joy over the love affair described within and will for ever more rejoice the sincerity of lovers become friends more profound than most “Chick Flicks”, a genre that this obviously is not. I have no defense for my ignorance all the wonderful new communications of hope. It seems I am impelled to make up works and constructs of my own to describe what I hope the future will be. I will confess that I was, from beginning to end, tempted to simply abandon all attempts at communication from then forward. Feeling totally eclipsed by the mastery of both recommendations.
When a friend recommends a book or film unequivocally, which in turn had been recommended to them with equal, if not greater vigorous praise, I feel compelled to attend. So my friend Dave, a fellow run-a-way form the middle-class environs of Connecticut, found ourselves with last available seats, front row, in a 3D version viewing of “AVATAR.”
I have no regrets, forced to lay upon my back, sans 3D glasses, too narrow to view the wide screen so close to our noses.
I found myself in tears of praise and joy. Indifferent the choices of others viewing in silence, while I laughed, solo, at the plot progress of another run-a-way becoming a real person.
Hope is difficult to find, then cling to in times of crisis. There will be a future after all. And it will exist despite the depredations of greed manifest in this iconic and mythological film.
Least I fall further in love with the film and my ‘deathless-prose’ regarding it, I hasten to add that it appeals to all generations reaching from our time forward and backward to the voiceless, will to adapt, improvise and prevail in the human spirit. Rather I should emphasize the spirit of Life it self to see truth and light in spite of those who would otherwise enslave and or kill it.
Of particular interest is the joining of male and female principal’s courage to move into and engage the right to exist on one’s own terms. Though heroic and epic in nature I sense that every individual witnessing the process will long remember it as applicable to their individual lives in the here and eternal now.
For a few moments I wandered the splendor of Wikipedia seeking reference points to develop my celebration of this singular film further. The issue of ‘sin’ became my departure point since I believe it better referenced in the film than I can forge in this limited space. There are many references critical to current choices to deal with issues dangerous to our collective future within the film that are more than adequate to the task laying in our laps.
“Only the dead know the end of war” --Plato
1001114 --afterthoughts
Dave also recommended to my attention: “NOTHING BUT A SMILE” by Steve Amick. It is a novel of impressive iconic dimensions worthy of reading again and again. I was moved to realize within its pages a penchant for analysis that had previously fractured my attention in reading anything including the Bible. I make reference this since unlike most mediums, which I have professionally viewed the making of, I was drawn ineluctably into the novels flow. This novel drew me into a conspiracy with all former concerns, and or conceits/conclusions, regarding my parent’s generation and ours. I often found myself in tears of joy over the love affair described within and will for ever more rejoice the sincerity of lovers become friends more profound than most “Chick Flicks”, a genre that this obviously is not. I have no defense for my ignorance all the wonderful new communications of hope. It seems I am impelled to make up works and constructs of my own to describe what I hope the future will be. I will confess that I was, from beginning to end, tempted to simply abandon all attempts at communication from then forward. Feeling totally eclipsed by the mastery of both recommendations.
A lifetime lost outgrowing being white, middle-class and from Greenwich Connecticut.
100108 01:34
Life is defined by elementary factors: race, creed, gender, education, age, and so on. These identifying elements are accepted, taken for granted, seem fixed, immutable and life a seamless continuity. Yet as life is consumed these roles become blurred, worn, with experience, and birthdays no longer celebrated. We move past our vocational definition either accepting or rejecting retirement. Our enhanced or diminished capacities integrated into the ordinary of daily life.
I think myself increasingly odd growing younger, and more vital, daily. Eccentric perhaps but I find joy merging into the flow of other generations to follow and those that preceded mine. It helps to ignore the bruises and contusions normal to we fortunate enough to live long aspiring to become wise, sages, to ourselves and others?
Questions from youth are answered, dreams realized and lost, expectations become more modest; simple. Food, shelter and clothing no longer sought as remarkable status symbols--whatever/whichever--is adequate the long cold night to come at winter's advent.
Decades it has taken me to outlive the curse cast in adolescence. A lifetime lost outgrowing being white, middle-class and from Greenwich Connecticut.
Depending upon which side of the railroad tracks you are from, it is one of the three wealthiest communities in the world. Rich, wealth sought for its own sake, means many things.
And to my family it was, I believe, never fully acquired. Remembered best was the quest, the longing hunger and thirst for wealth as safety. The pretense and delusions of grandeur, choices made at savage cost, loss of moral and ethical norms, now lost as the democracy of death closes/closed upon the past generation, a culture ruptured and civilization in collapse.
Now poor I merge into my neighbors, a community of the elderly, without hope of reprise. Yet I celebrate my estate reflected through their infrequently visiting children, grandchildren, younger siblings, a reason to praise the advent of each new day with thanksgiving the gift of life now. Each day become a season and generation of wealth precious, unique and explicit the value sought and prized.
It has been unusually cold here, where I live fled to escape the dreary winter of my youth, lately past. Passing into a new dawn surprised in the peasant dead celebrated by succeeding generations of their kith and kin in New & Old Mexico. I am now one of, and with, them gladly so. Since now I know the meaning of three steps forward and two backward in my skipping journey into whatever lays ahead knowing life and love will go on if only in prayer.
Life is defined by elementary factors: race, creed, gender, education, age, and so on. These identifying elements are accepted, taken for granted, seem fixed, immutable and life a seamless continuity. Yet as life is consumed these roles become blurred, worn, with experience, and birthdays no longer celebrated. We move past our vocational definition either accepting or rejecting retirement. Our enhanced or diminished capacities integrated into the ordinary of daily life.
I think myself increasingly odd growing younger, and more vital, daily. Eccentric perhaps but I find joy merging into the flow of other generations to follow and those that preceded mine. It helps to ignore the bruises and contusions normal to we fortunate enough to live long aspiring to become wise, sages, to ourselves and others?
Questions from youth are answered, dreams realized and lost, expectations become more modest; simple. Food, shelter and clothing no longer sought as remarkable status symbols--whatever/whichever--is adequate the long cold night to come at winter's advent.
Decades it has taken me to outlive the curse cast in adolescence. A lifetime lost outgrowing being white, middle-class and from Greenwich Connecticut.
Depending upon which side of the railroad tracks you are from, it is one of the three wealthiest communities in the world. Rich, wealth sought for its own sake, means many things.
And to my family it was, I believe, never fully acquired. Remembered best was the quest, the longing hunger and thirst for wealth as safety. The pretense and delusions of grandeur, choices made at savage cost, loss of moral and ethical norms, now lost as the democracy of death closes/closed upon the past generation, a culture ruptured and civilization in collapse.
Now poor I merge into my neighbors, a community of the elderly, without hope of reprise. Yet I celebrate my estate reflected through their infrequently visiting children, grandchildren, younger siblings, a reason to praise the advent of each new day with thanksgiving the gift of life now. Each day become a season and generation of wealth precious, unique and explicit the value sought and prized.
It has been unusually cold here, where I live fled to escape the dreary winter of my youth, lately past. Passing into a new dawn surprised in the peasant dead celebrated by succeeding generations of their kith and kin in New & Old Mexico. I am now one of, and with, them gladly so. Since now I know the meaning of three steps forward and two backward in my skipping journey into whatever lays ahead knowing life and love will go on if only in prayer.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
“never impose on others what you would not choose for yourself” --Confucius
100106 10:31
‘Power -- Meditations & Random thoughts’
I no longer wonder why Epiphany signaled the end of my desolation. Or the labor required to crawl beneath the monolith of Christmas. What I have now I would not trade for any amount, or places with anyone, including God. Impossible as that is, actually inconceivable, yet the thought demonstrates power best.
As real as God is to me, I have become real to myself, and that is not an exercise of ego but reaching above my terror and finding the ceiling of life and love manifest and total.
Of political process, and that of religion, I am sad to say that I find no power above pretence. Do No Harm Period.
Power is for you alone to give empowering others their opportunity to amplify--like the Sun--growth and the will to live life at all.
I am right for me, and need not be right for you. I only suggest that you look within yourself and accept the grace and power inherent in the brief or long moments allotted your consciousness. The perfect teacher and school is within you and no one can gainsay that.
I am a rebel with a cause. Aware that there are those of us who have fallen into the darkness of our terror manifest in ways that possess us. Expressed and published in the destruction of specific victims, victimizing ourselves, to slake our thirst for truth. Apparent to me is Jesus and all else falls away.
The finger I pointed, shouting “YOU” messages, is no longer outward, but equally inward. I conclude myself disabled to judge or destroy anyone or thing.
I am not attempting to publish a “mail-order-course,” for profit, on how to heal yourself. I am merely using “I” messages to communicate the potential of magnificence in you. There is no “good, better, best” but in the final measure, in each second, there is an I/Thou involved. Rigid attitudes and conclusions are easily destroyed by those who hold them dear as ideals fixed and immutable. The energy required downs out all the potentials of seeing “normal” differently.
After 69 miles of hard road, I am unwilling to rest, pensioned off, basking in the sunset of my life. Should the system of my subsistence fail I will learn to live in and upon the land, or gladly expire the effort.
It is wise, or so I believe, to remember Jesus was not a Christian. And that God is not either. Confucius expressed the Golden Rule best, or so I think: “never impose on others what you would not choose for yourself”
. . . please continue
‘Power -- Meditations & Random thoughts’
I no longer wonder why Epiphany signaled the end of my desolation. Or the labor required to crawl beneath the monolith of Christmas. What I have now I would not trade for any amount, or places with anyone, including God. Impossible as that is, actually inconceivable, yet the thought demonstrates power best.
As real as God is to me, I have become real to myself, and that is not an exercise of ego but reaching above my terror and finding the ceiling of life and love manifest and total.
Of political process, and that of religion, I am sad to say that I find no power above pretence. Do No Harm Period.
Power is for you alone to give empowering others their opportunity to amplify--like the Sun--growth and the will to live life at all.
I am right for me, and need not be right for you. I only suggest that you look within yourself and accept the grace and power inherent in the brief or long moments allotted your consciousness. The perfect teacher and school is within you and no one can gainsay that.
I am a rebel with a cause. Aware that there are those of us who have fallen into the darkness of our terror manifest in ways that possess us. Expressed and published in the destruction of specific victims, victimizing ourselves, to slake our thirst for truth. Apparent to me is Jesus and all else falls away.
The finger I pointed, shouting “YOU” messages, is no longer outward, but equally inward. I conclude myself disabled to judge or destroy anyone or thing.
I am not attempting to publish a “mail-order-course,” for profit, on how to heal yourself. I am merely using “I” messages to communicate the potential of magnificence in you. There is no “good, better, best” but in the final measure, in each second, there is an I/Thou involved. Rigid attitudes and conclusions are easily destroyed by those who hold them dear as ideals fixed and immutable. The energy required downs out all the potentials of seeing “normal” differently.
After 69 miles of hard road, I am unwilling to rest, pensioned off, basking in the sunset of my life. Should the system of my subsistence fail I will learn to live in and upon the land, or gladly expire the effort.
It is wise, or so I believe, to remember Jesus was not a Christian. And that God is not either. Confucius expressed the Golden Rule best, or so I think: “never impose on others what you would not choose for yourself”
. . . please continue
"I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand." --Confucius
100106 11:37
‘Power -- Meditations & Random thoughts -- continued. . . .’
I experience my time as beginning in chaos and desolation ending in peace and balance. Despite the reek and premature death of paranoia enveloping the earth, then for me, now for everyone else.
Well aquatinted with my bigotry and hypocrisy I question everything; all motives and intentions, conclusive or otherwise. Metaphorically I am an intellectual trapeze artist moving from one secure ideal to a more mobile support that might serve others as well as myself. Sans safety net or nuclear bombs.
It there is a future, obviously it is in doubt to me.
Perhaps even a foolish consideration given my age and self-published desire to get off the Merry-go-Round; riotous in erratic elliptical gyrations. Nevertheless there is the issue of what might I leave behind? An apple seed growing into a fruit bearing tree, giving nurture long after I have left the stage. Ignore the mythology of an apple &/or a serpent giving it as evil. Actually I am far fonder of Kokopelli, then Johnny Apple Seed or Jack The Giant Killer. Consciousness implies no evil in and of itself. Death measures the value of life.
Choice is everything and a responsibility for those aware of it as an issue. Everything else seems to be “kill or be killed” . . . who assassinated Jesus and why? Least you get on your high horse and say, “obviously the Jews!” Beware your/our ability to project upon others issues we refuse to question, or the potential of acting upon, without serious consideration the consequence of. . . . I’ve made a fool of myself too often before. Apparently the potential has never left me. But then laughter and music calms the most savage beasts--myself included.
I too act on partial information with the caveat that I do not want to lead anyone astray from the book written upon their soul and life.
We have an instrument of education for everyone on the World Wide Web. Efforts to censure it for various reasons seem to abound along with the eclectic nature of our curiosity about everything; burgeoning, given the paucity of interest in all other mediums commercially governed or property at issue.
On Wikipedia---for whose continuance I donated an obscene--for me amount--never to be replaced except by eating pet food in perpetuity---we can find threads leading us, if not into TRUTH at the very least contemplation of what truth means to us individually--then collectively.
God does not speak any one language exclusively.
Before I close, as close I must given, your fruit fly attention span--not merely to me but yourself equally avoided: I am aware that my identity is compromised every time I log on. Further that my choice of donation is an indication read by people, at least some, as subversive to their choices.
Whenever I call for assistance regarding issues, I hear, “This dialog will be recorded for training purposes.” Depending upon my patience, or impatience, I sometimes see myself being beaten to death with telephone books and/or rubber hoses by those who think me a dissident threat to the status quo. And at that it is I who is being trained/constrained into obedience to their agenda/intentions: They win, I lose.
Politics was never intended to become a professional vocation. Instead, or so I believe, it was to be a civic obligation temporarily exercised. Frankly I am not impressed by the current state of civil war manifest in Congress and know of no politician I would entrust to carry my shoes to the cobbler for renewal. Instead I do trust in God and all of you to find a way for the world and life to have a future. Need I mention supervisory professional clergy?
Nothing is hidden from God and all are accountable.
. . . my ideal economy/ecology is win/win.
"I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand." --Confucius
‘Power -- Meditations & Random thoughts -- continued. . . .’
I experience my time as beginning in chaos and desolation ending in peace and balance. Despite the reek and premature death of paranoia enveloping the earth, then for me, now for everyone else.
Well aquatinted with my bigotry and hypocrisy I question everything; all motives and intentions, conclusive or otherwise. Metaphorically I am an intellectual trapeze artist moving from one secure ideal to a more mobile support that might serve others as well as myself. Sans safety net or nuclear bombs.
It there is a future, obviously it is in doubt to me.
Perhaps even a foolish consideration given my age and self-published desire to get off the Merry-go-Round; riotous in erratic elliptical gyrations. Nevertheless there is the issue of what might I leave behind? An apple seed growing into a fruit bearing tree, giving nurture long after I have left the stage. Ignore the mythology of an apple &/or a serpent giving it as evil. Actually I am far fonder of Kokopelli, then Johnny Apple Seed or Jack The Giant Killer. Consciousness implies no evil in and of itself. Death measures the value of life.
Choice is everything and a responsibility for those aware of it as an issue. Everything else seems to be “kill or be killed” . . . who assassinated Jesus and why? Least you get on your high horse and say, “obviously the Jews!” Beware your/our ability to project upon others issues we refuse to question, or the potential of acting upon, without serious consideration the consequence of. . . . I’ve made a fool of myself too often before. Apparently the potential has never left me. But then laughter and music calms the most savage beasts--myself included.
I too act on partial information with the caveat that I do not want to lead anyone astray from the book written upon their soul and life.
We have an instrument of education for everyone on the World Wide Web. Efforts to censure it for various reasons seem to abound along with the eclectic nature of our curiosity about everything; burgeoning, given the paucity of interest in all other mediums commercially governed or property at issue.
On Wikipedia---for whose continuance I donated an obscene--for me amount--never to be replaced except by eating pet food in perpetuity---we can find threads leading us, if not into TRUTH at the very least contemplation of what truth means to us individually--then collectively.
God does not speak any one language exclusively.
Before I close, as close I must given, your fruit fly attention span--not merely to me but yourself equally avoided: I am aware that my identity is compromised every time I log on. Further that my choice of donation is an indication read by people, at least some, as subversive to their choices.
Whenever I call for assistance regarding issues, I hear, “This dialog will be recorded for training purposes.” Depending upon my patience, or impatience, I sometimes see myself being beaten to death with telephone books and/or rubber hoses by those who think me a dissident threat to the status quo. And at that it is I who is being trained/constrained into obedience to their agenda/intentions: They win, I lose.
Politics was never intended to become a professional vocation. Instead, or so I believe, it was to be a civic obligation temporarily exercised. Frankly I am not impressed by the current state of civil war manifest in Congress and know of no politician I would entrust to carry my shoes to the cobbler for renewal. Instead I do trust in God and all of you to find a way for the world and life to have a future. Need I mention supervisory professional clergy?
Nothing is hidden from God and all are accountable.
. . . my ideal economy/ecology is win/win.
"I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand." --Confucius
Few of us realize that we have a God given right to be ourselves
100106 12:06
The Hurdy Gurdy is being played faster these days. Solo, it calls the dance for life and liberty at a frenzied pace. I know few as blessed as myself born, raised and sooner-or-later to die suffused in music: frantic and slow, laconic sighs, blues to minuets. Never forget Stravinsky!
If you want to live--dancing--you must pay the ‘fiddler’ or hurdy gurdy musician.
Few are allowed to stand aside as audience since all are required to leap and shout about everything under the sun. The riotous din is, staggering, drunk with chaos.
Sadly I must invoke memories of my father’s intentions for me. It is merely that our parents are our first and primary teachers; by word and demonstration. A poor, gimp and lame imitation of our real Mother/Father/God.
In recognition that I could have been burned at the stake, then--and perhaps now, I stand and deliver my experience for whatever it is worth should anyone attend me.
Life is a participatory event and it may well be that I am both pagan and heretical; I’ll take the change. In empathy and with, or so I now believe, kindness--believe me it wasn’t my fault--I never asked to be born. He gave up his quest for fame and fortune and burdened me with a musical vocation; selling the instruments, and ink defaced flesh of dead trees.
Vaulting the walls surrounding culture and civilization, I am impaled upon my pike/petard. Knowing that trees sing, in fall, winter, spring and summer, I am stunned, actually knocked unconscious by my metaphor and simile, remembering the ‘forbidden fruit’ and the tree upon which Jesus was hung sighing His last breath. Trees actually sing in birth, life and death. Perhaps I am a Druid?
Think the Amazon River basin denuded.
. . . for the lowing of cows.
Oh well.
Few of us realize that we have a God given right to be ourselves; as painful as that may be to the administrators of the kindling and match to immolate me before I finish this sentence. Peace is not seditious. Now doesn’t that sentiment open doors of iron, steel or stone?
Wisdom is a woman I court daily and constantly fail her embrace. However amongst us she remains a scullery maid in the basement of our institutions. At the loss of a shy brief half smile she awaits our attention flirting with her role as mother, wife, sister, cousin, lover. Or whatever role we assign her in our oblivion. At what cost? The loss of everything we cherish: peace, love and the meaning of life.
The Shepard’s Crook will soon drag me from this brief stage, into the night preceding & following my dance--in no lime light, lurching--into the endless night again.
I hear no applause, one-handed, or otherwise, I tap-dance for myself pleasure.
In closing my ‘act’ I can only say that I celebrate both sets of parents tossing roses to them off stage.
The Hurdy Gurdy is being played faster these days. Solo, it calls the dance for life and liberty at a frenzied pace. I know few as blessed as myself born, raised and sooner-or-later to die suffused in music: frantic and slow, laconic sighs, blues to minuets. Never forget Stravinsky!
If you want to live--dancing--you must pay the ‘fiddler’ or hurdy gurdy musician.
Few are allowed to stand aside as audience since all are required to leap and shout about everything under the sun. The riotous din is, staggering, drunk with chaos.
Sadly I must invoke memories of my father’s intentions for me. It is merely that our parents are our first and primary teachers; by word and demonstration. A poor, gimp and lame imitation of our real Mother/Father/God.
In recognition that I could have been burned at the stake, then--and perhaps now, I stand and deliver my experience for whatever it is worth should anyone attend me.
Life is a participatory event and it may well be that I am both pagan and heretical; I’ll take the change. In empathy and with, or so I now believe, kindness--believe me it wasn’t my fault--I never asked to be born. He gave up his quest for fame and fortune and burdened me with a musical vocation; selling the instruments, and ink defaced flesh of dead trees.
Vaulting the walls surrounding culture and civilization, I am impaled upon my pike/petard. Knowing that trees sing, in fall, winter, spring and summer, I am stunned, actually knocked unconscious by my metaphor and simile, remembering the ‘forbidden fruit’ and the tree upon which Jesus was hung sighing His last breath. Trees actually sing in birth, life and death. Perhaps I am a Druid?
Think the Amazon River basin denuded.
. . . for the lowing of cows.
Oh well.
Few of us realize that we have a God given right to be ourselves; as painful as that may be to the administrators of the kindling and match to immolate me before I finish this sentence. Peace is not seditious. Now doesn’t that sentiment open doors of iron, steel or stone?
Wisdom is a woman I court daily and constantly fail her embrace. However amongst us she remains a scullery maid in the basement of our institutions. At the loss of a shy brief half smile she awaits our attention flirting with her role as mother, wife, sister, cousin, lover. Or whatever role we assign her in our oblivion. At what cost? The loss of everything we cherish: peace, love and the meaning of life.
The Shepard’s Crook will soon drag me from this brief stage, into the night preceding & following my dance--in no lime light, lurching--into the endless night again.
I hear no applause, one-handed, or otherwise, I tap-dance for myself pleasure.
In closing my ‘act’ I can only say that I celebrate both sets of parents tossing roses to them off stage.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
A triptych on beginnings and endings . . . I believe in Love
100105 07:19 {unknown at the time - this is the first meditation of three}
I believe in love.
I awoke after 4 hours of sleep, rested yet in turmoil over a dream in which I experienced apocalyptic rage wrath astonishing in that it went both ways; a dialog. Typically when I have dreams of such severity I arise like a . . . well there is a speed, we are capable of, that surpasses all analogies, similes, metaphors, similitude. The speed of sound, or light, is nothing compared to the speed with which we address/assess threat and respond to it.
The speed of thought?
I have an experiential method of assessing the truth of my dreams, carefully constructed from infancy. But I am not concerned with dreams now, since I was lead through the past 7.5 hours to this moment of writing up a postmortem/after action report.
We are about to be divorced from our Parent, God.
Our relationship is being abandoned as a hopeless failure. I know God will be fine but we will suffer tragically, as do all the children of divorce.
I know this from my childhood being abandoned for the agenda of my parents. I know myself, not alone in this, for the Second World War made many of us orphans and thus we are in the majority seeking safety where none is available. The world made safe from holocaust became unsafe for all children afterwards.
Written within us is certainty of love and terror of never finding it.
I advocate that we can find safety together. Considering myself a steward attempting to make passengers comfortable in the final moments before the crash and our mutual, meaningless, death--inevitable. I have no authority, long to be wrong, yet having been trained by everything in my life, up to this moment, am certain that this is what I have life for.
Understanding one’s self--“An unexamined life is not worth living”--is a primary task for we who want a life and love--of value. In, of and for itself.
I know, and can argue, the defense of life’s right to exist and thrive through the agency of many belief systems and philosophies. The best defense is within you yet it has no meaning definable in our communal life about to be extinguished.
“ 21:52
I have looked for signs, omens and portents that I was in error in what I previously wrote. I have been gently reproved through the agency of friends, further study and a decision to use my “school of hard knocks” education to minister to the dying in our local Hospice, where they may only need me to be a door person.
Continued . . .
I believe in love.
I awoke after 4 hours of sleep, rested yet in turmoil over a dream in which I experienced apocalyptic rage wrath astonishing in that it went both ways; a dialog. Typically when I have dreams of such severity I arise like a . . . well there is a speed, we are capable of, that surpasses all analogies, similes, metaphors, similitude. The speed of sound, or light, is nothing compared to the speed with which we address/assess threat and respond to it.
The speed of thought?
I have an experiential method of assessing the truth of my dreams, carefully constructed from infancy. But I am not concerned with dreams now, since I was lead through the past 7.5 hours to this moment of writing up a postmortem/after action report.
We are about to be divorced from our Parent, God.
Our relationship is being abandoned as a hopeless failure. I know God will be fine but we will suffer tragically, as do all the children of divorce.
I know this from my childhood being abandoned for the agenda of my parents. I know myself, not alone in this, for the Second World War made many of us orphans and thus we are in the majority seeking safety where none is available. The world made safe from holocaust became unsafe for all children afterwards.
Written within us is certainty of love and terror of never finding it.
I advocate that we can find safety together. Considering myself a steward attempting to make passengers comfortable in the final moments before the crash and our mutual, meaningless, death--inevitable. I have no authority, long to be wrong, yet having been trained by everything in my life, up to this moment, am certain that this is what I have life for.
Understanding one’s self--“An unexamined life is not worth living”--is a primary task for we who want a life and love--of value. In, of and for itself.
I know, and can argue, the defense of life’s right to exist and thrive through the agency of many belief systems and philosophies. The best defense is within you yet it has no meaning definable in our communal life about to be extinguished.
“ 21:52
I have looked for signs, omens and portents that I was in error in what I previously wrote. I have been gently reproved through the agency of friends, further study and a decision to use my “school of hard knocks” education to minister to the dying in our local Hospice, where they may only need me to be a door person.
Continued . . .
Let the shadowless light bathe and immolate us in love for one another incandescent.
100105 21:55
When Randy died I experienced relief, not for me, or him, but us both.
I continue in my awareness and gratitude the gifts of The Cranston Funeral Home. Dave carrying Randy down, cruciform--arms outstretched--down a narrow, corkscrew stair--the last time I saw Randy’s face. He was finally in peace.
We requested no embalming his body since he’d been, in life, a human pincushion.
Patty Cranston called, later on, to say that he was dressed and she’d set candles around him. We didn’t go. They, the Cranston family, donated a burial plot, and head stone, in their family grave site. Gave a Styrofoam coffin, and buried him for free; we were that poor then. I have always found peace in cemeteries, I still do. Yet the next day when he was buried I fell to the ground in uncontrollable grief. I remained in grief for 33 years until, at or around, his 43rd birthday, had he lived.
I will spare you the farther details of my life and instead dwell upon ours about to expire.
It may merely be my death song, this concern the world’s end, mine alone.
An event un-remarked since there will be none left to sing the eulogy.
As for my last request I will be cremated and my ashes spread upon the desert--no words requested or required--no marker unless my beloved friend is otherwise occupied and places the plain brown box with my ashes in a plastic bag in the nearest dumpster.
We are born alone and die alone in the final equality of death, and no marker significant will withstand the sands of time grinding it back into dust along with us.
Death slow, swift, meaningful or meaningless, does not diminishes the nobility I experience in all of you and all our life here and now.
The Gifts of God are magnificent as you are, or allow yourself to be; generous or penurious. I curse no one now yet know the wrath of myself too well to forget it. Forgiveness is a wealth that few give and fewer receive and acknowledging the author.
Let the shadowless light bathe and immolate us in love for one another incandescent.
In closing I can only record, this date, this hour, that I was lead to read John Donne’s “Meditation XVII”
‘for whom the bell tolls’ it tolls for us. Now. Tomorrow. This year or next, inevitably, life has no meaning without death.
Continued . . .
When Randy died I experienced relief, not for me, or him, but us both.
I continue in my awareness and gratitude the gifts of The Cranston Funeral Home. Dave carrying Randy down, cruciform--arms outstretched--down a narrow, corkscrew stair--the last time I saw Randy’s face. He was finally in peace.
We requested no embalming his body since he’d been, in life, a human pincushion.
Patty Cranston called, later on, to say that he was dressed and she’d set candles around him. We didn’t go. They, the Cranston family, donated a burial plot, and head stone, in their family grave site. Gave a Styrofoam coffin, and buried him for free; we were that poor then. I have always found peace in cemeteries, I still do. Yet the next day when he was buried I fell to the ground in uncontrollable grief. I remained in grief for 33 years until, at or around, his 43rd birthday, had he lived.
I will spare you the farther details of my life and instead dwell upon ours about to expire.
It may merely be my death song, this concern the world’s end, mine alone.
An event un-remarked since there will be none left to sing the eulogy.
As for my last request I will be cremated and my ashes spread upon the desert--no words requested or required--no marker unless my beloved friend is otherwise occupied and places the plain brown box with my ashes in a plastic bag in the nearest dumpster.
We are born alone and die alone in the final equality of death, and no marker significant will withstand the sands of time grinding it back into dust along with us.
Death slow, swift, meaningful or meaningless, does not diminishes the nobility I experience in all of you and all our life here and now.
The Gifts of God are magnificent as you are, or allow yourself to be; generous or penurious. I curse no one now yet know the wrath of myself too well to forget it. Forgiveness is a wealth that few give and fewer receive and acknowledging the author.
Let the shadowless light bathe and immolate us in love for one another incandescent.
In closing I can only record, this date, this hour, that I was lead to read John Donne’s “Meditation XVII”
‘for whom the bell tolls’ it tolls for us. Now. Tomorrow. This year or next, inevitably, life has no meaning without death.
Continued . . .
. . . for whom the bell tolls . . . John Donne
Meditation XVII
XVII. MEDITATION.
PERCHANCE he for whom this bell tolls may be so ill, as that he knows not it tolls for him; and perchance I may think myself so much better than I am, as that they who are about me, and see my state, may have caused it to toll for me, and I know not that. The church is Catholic, universal, so are all her actions; all that she does belongs to all. When she baptizes a child, that action concerns me; for that child is thereby connected to that body which is my head too, and ingrafted into that body whereof I am a member. And when she buries a man, that action concerns me: all mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated; God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God's hand is in every translation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where every book shall lie open to one another. As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come, so this bell calls us all; but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness. There was a contention as far as a suit (in which both piety and dignity, religion and estimation, were mingled), which of the religious orders should ring to prayers first in the morning; and it was determined, that they should ring first that rose earliest. If we understand aright the dignity of this bell that tolls for our evening prayer, we would be glad to make it ours by rising early, in that application, that it might be ours as well as his, whose indeed it is. The bell doth toll for him that thinks it doth; and though it intermit again, yet from that minute that that occasion wrought upon him, he is united to God. Who casts not up his eye to the sun when it rises? but who takes off his eye from a comet when that breaks out? Who bends not his ear to any bell which upon any occasion rings? but who can remove it from that bell which is passing a piece of himself out of this world?
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee. Neither can we call this a begging of misery, or a borrowing of misery, as though we were not miserable enough of ourselves, but must fetch in more from the next house, in taking upon us the misery of our neighbours. Truly it were an excusable covetousness if we did, for affliction is a treasure, and scarce any man hath enough of it. No man hath affliction enough that is not matured and ripened by and made fit for God by that affliction. If a man carry treasure in bullion, or in a wedge of gold, and have none coined into current money, his treasure will not defray him as he travels. Tribulation is treasure in the nature of it, but it is not current money in the use of it, except we get nearer and nearer our home, heaven, by it. Another man may be sick too, and sick to death, and this affliction may lie in his bowels, as gold in a mine, and be of no use to him; but this bell, that tells me of his affliction, digs out and applies that gold to me: if by this consideration of another's danger I take mine own into contemplation, and so secure myself, by making my recourse to my God, who is our only security.
XVII. MEDITATION.
PERCHANCE he for whom this bell tolls may be so ill, as that he knows not it tolls for him; and perchance I may think myself so much better than I am, as that they who are about me, and see my state, may have caused it to toll for me, and I know not that. The church is Catholic, universal, so are all her actions; all that she does belongs to all. When she baptizes a child, that action concerns me; for that child is thereby connected to that body which is my head too, and ingrafted into that body whereof I am a member. And when she buries a man, that action concerns me: all mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated; God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God's hand is in every translation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where every book shall lie open to one another. As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come, so this bell calls us all; but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness. There was a contention as far as a suit (in which both piety and dignity, religion and estimation, were mingled), which of the religious orders should ring to prayers first in the morning; and it was determined, that they should ring first that rose earliest. If we understand aright the dignity of this bell that tolls for our evening prayer, we would be glad to make it ours by rising early, in that application, that it might be ours as well as his, whose indeed it is. The bell doth toll for him that thinks it doth; and though it intermit again, yet from that minute that that occasion wrought upon him, he is united to God. Who casts not up his eye to the sun when it rises? but who takes off his eye from a comet when that breaks out? Who bends not his ear to any bell which upon any occasion rings? but who can remove it from that bell which is passing a piece of himself out of this world?
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee. Neither can we call this a begging of misery, or a borrowing of misery, as though we were not miserable enough of ourselves, but must fetch in more from the next house, in taking upon us the misery of our neighbours. Truly it were an excusable covetousness if we did, for affliction is a treasure, and scarce any man hath enough of it. No man hath affliction enough that is not matured and ripened by and made fit for God by that affliction. If a man carry treasure in bullion, or in a wedge of gold, and have none coined into current money, his treasure will not defray him as he travels. Tribulation is treasure in the nature of it, but it is not current money in the use of it, except we get nearer and nearer our home, heaven, by it. Another man may be sick too, and sick to death, and this affliction may lie in his bowels, as gold in a mine, and be of no use to him; but this bell, that tells me of his affliction, digs out and applies that gold to me: if by this consideration of another's danger I take mine own into contemplation, and so secure myself, by making my recourse to my God, who is our only security.
Be that now . . . having something of love’s energy now
100105 22:51
We are made of such stuff as the stars are made and have significance in the Universe.
This is my truth and for that I celebrate all my life knowing now that the suffering seasoned my tranquility the end of us all, now or in the latter future.
I have gratitude for publishing records of my surprise and delight in words and images. Yet I am now lead to fully immerse my life in the flowing torrent around me through community. To walk the walk instead of talking about it is a greater wealth, and I am now hungry for that. Where I once thought myself terrible, bizarre, gimp, unacceptable for a host of things. I am reminded of the daughter whose death I sailed through, overtly, with ease.
In my imagining, then and now, I see myself naked carrying her into the elements for her peace and death without indignity. To die with her would have been better than the choice not to. Perhaps better yet would have been to attend her life, such as it was, given Spina Bifida and a brain tissue paper thin. To allow her the grace of my attention and touch. For that choice I linger in grief unassailable. It is nearly impossible for me to give or receive forgiveness. Yet I remain alive and do not know why?
I am especially conscious of my adopted daughter and her daughter, my granddaughter. Their silence is at times crushing. Squashed I arise time and again knowing my love is unconquerable.
Turn and turn about, chasing my tail in confusion, at times enraged, enslaved and deaf, dumb, silent, a victim . . . churning myself into butter melted and disappeared. Yet I remain advocate that there is safety, sanity and tranquility available for all.
We can do that together.
I will soon be the dust I have, for a lifetime, longed to be.
The language will change, possibly disappear, along with our species to witness anything in bodily form. Yet the truth of God will remain and all is well in that.
For me?
Yes!
For you I am uncertain, and at times, in anguish, cry out against injustice masquerading Truth.
There is no fear or waste in the effort to seek yourself as created. Once revealed, or discovered, there is no reason to hoard that since to give is to receive more.
The math is simple. We use and live by 10% the other 90% is idle . . . of course I refer to our individual internal wealth. Jesus said, “The Kingdom of God is within you” I believe, have faith in, and love through that truth and experience. I have heard, but make no reference to, other than to report, you can be blessed either way.
Why wait? Be that now in life, having something of love’s energy now.
We are made of such stuff as the stars are made and have significance in the Universe.
This is my truth and for that I celebrate all my life knowing now that the suffering seasoned my tranquility the end of us all, now or in the latter future.
I have gratitude for publishing records of my surprise and delight in words and images. Yet I am now lead to fully immerse my life in the flowing torrent around me through community. To walk the walk instead of talking about it is a greater wealth, and I am now hungry for that. Where I once thought myself terrible, bizarre, gimp, unacceptable for a host of things. I am reminded of the daughter whose death I sailed through, overtly, with ease.
In my imagining, then and now, I see myself naked carrying her into the elements for her peace and death without indignity. To die with her would have been better than the choice not to. Perhaps better yet would have been to attend her life, such as it was, given Spina Bifida and a brain tissue paper thin. To allow her the grace of my attention and touch. For that choice I linger in grief unassailable. It is nearly impossible for me to give or receive forgiveness. Yet I remain alive and do not know why?
I am especially conscious of my adopted daughter and her daughter, my granddaughter. Their silence is at times crushing. Squashed I arise time and again knowing my love is unconquerable.
Turn and turn about, chasing my tail in confusion, at times enraged, enslaved and deaf, dumb, silent, a victim . . . churning myself into butter melted and disappeared. Yet I remain advocate that there is safety, sanity and tranquility available for all.
We can do that together.
I will soon be the dust I have, for a lifetime, longed to be.
The language will change, possibly disappear, along with our species to witness anything in bodily form. Yet the truth of God will remain and all is well in that.
For me?
Yes!
For you I am uncertain, and at times, in anguish, cry out against injustice masquerading Truth.
There is no fear or waste in the effort to seek yourself as created. Once revealed, or discovered, there is no reason to hoard that since to give is to receive more.
The math is simple. We use and live by 10% the other 90% is idle . . . of course I refer to our individual internal wealth. Jesus said, “The Kingdom of God is within you” I believe, have faith in, and love through that truth and experience. I have heard, but make no reference to, other than to report, you can be blessed either way.
Why wait? Be that now in life, having something of love’s energy now.
Monday, January 4, 2010
constellated stars singing in their courses . . . love bestowed by the beloved.
100103 03:13
As constellated stars singing in their courses
we are similitude suffering the events of our lives as
pearls strung together necklaces significant the polarity
towards our true purpose in the sands of time hours treasured
souls bourne conscious precious discovered six sided snow flakes unique
received immortal love bestowed by the beloved.
<“ 05:11>
What I wrote above, if it be a poem, it is not my authorship, but an attempt to translate a dream into comprehensible symbol.
Visual representations of the numinous mark the earth from the beginning of time, before time was accountable.
We, collectively, have passed the point of no return in our efforts to deface the earth from existence and ourselves along in consequence. I write for neither myself, or God, but for you to know that there is a future beyond death. In that future gender, age, race and creed are meaningless since there is only Truth and God and God is Love.
For the gift of consciousness there is no purpose save to save yourself from adoration of things instead of life.
There are many avenues of approach, all lead to the end in God’s intention of life given freely to us. God’s absolute genius is in giving us free will. Those who I saw as enemies of myself and all life, remain mirrors of myself at various ages, stages, fears and thirst for safety. I give all discernment to God’s decision for me and all life. In that, I am tranquil with the inevitable. Fully conscious that death is not the issue, yet the time and manor of dying slowly is for some a terror, but for me, I am now aware that I began to die at birth.
I longed to escape the trials, sorrows, agony of life lived in the tyranny of those with authority over me, my day, hour, minute never known in safety, security or sanity.
God neither kills, nor enslaves anyone, or anything--we do.
I do not consider myself wise, nor do I consider myself, at any point, worthy of the Love of God freely given us. But of you, dear reader, I love your life and suggest that you love it as well, and as of greater value than all the money in the world. Chose wisely since you have nothing more valuable than your love freely spent.
As constellated stars singing in their courses
we are similitude suffering the events of our lives as
pearls strung together necklaces significant the polarity
towards our true purpose in the sands of time hours treasured
souls bourne conscious precious discovered six sided snow flakes unique
received immortal love bestowed by the beloved.
<“ 05:11>
What I wrote above, if it be a poem, it is not my authorship, but an attempt to translate a dream into comprehensible symbol.
Visual representations of the numinous mark the earth from the beginning of time, before time was accountable.
We, collectively, have passed the point of no return in our efforts to deface the earth from existence and ourselves along in consequence. I write for neither myself, or God, but for you to know that there is a future beyond death. In that future gender, age, race and creed are meaningless since there is only Truth and God and God is Love.
For the gift of consciousness there is no purpose save to save yourself from adoration of things instead of life.
There are many avenues of approach, all lead to the end in God’s intention of life given freely to us. God’s absolute genius is in giving us free will. Those who I saw as enemies of myself and all life, remain mirrors of myself at various ages, stages, fears and thirst for safety. I give all discernment to God’s decision for me and all life. In that, I am tranquil with the inevitable. Fully conscious that death is not the issue, yet the time and manor of dying slowly is for some a terror, but for me, I am now aware that I began to die at birth.
I longed to escape the trials, sorrows, agony of life lived in the tyranny of those with authority over me, my day, hour, minute never known in safety, security or sanity.
God neither kills, nor enslaves anyone, or anything--we do.
I do not consider myself wise, nor do I consider myself, at any point, worthy of the Love of God freely given us. But of you, dear reader, I love your life and suggest that you love it as well, and as of greater value than all the money in the world. Chose wisely since you have nothing more valuable than your love freely spent.
. . . love affair with light called photography
100103 08:53
Regarding my continuing love affair with light called photography. The technical aspects have become more accessible than ever before in the history of the art, craft and technology. And they are swiftly becoming more so.
The objective of recording light--by any means--is just fine where it is for me for now. All my ambitions to be, as dad suggested, “rich and famous,” have fallen by the wayside.
I failed his agenda for want of the courage to seek the attention of the authorities judging the worth of my output, product or intentions. Such accomplishments that I have had, have no evidence now; the negatives, prints and slides lost, destroyed or abandoned.
The monolithic potential of Photoshop CS4 was too intimidating and held my ambitions outside in the cold for fear of my failure in using it, was the final proof, I was actually “too stupid to get in out of the rain.” And too well remembered and rehearsed, “You have diarrhea of the mouth!” I was devastated and only now recall he was referring to my curiosity about everything.
As for the various formats, and brand names, I have used professionally, to moderate, never paying for the privilege of ownership, income--is a source of acute embarrassment now.
Above and beyond this consideration, I have always favored what I call “toy” cameras; more accurately defined as ‘amateur.’ The potential theft while working in the impoverished ecology and infrastructure of our society dictated that I use what I could afford to lose.
My final determination is that photography has been kind to me and made my life possible outside the precincts of my self-isolation. A--not uncommon--profile for many photographers; professional or amateur.
Inherent in the medium, is a miraculous ability to make of the final image, with or without the rigors of classical discipline and training of, or implied in, all the arts--a cultural icon. Simply the attention paid to the least object, subject or event can move from record to memorial of important truths for all of us. From cartoon to mural in an instant.
If i am touched by grace, as I believe we all are, then the symbiosis is plain. All mediums are irrelevant since the message remains: worthy or unworthy of our attention. Ignore the song in you heart at you peril.
Some are generous in theft to fill their void--an abyss.
Our Parent receives our humble gestures of love. . . . ignoring all else?
Regarding my continuing love affair with light called photography. The technical aspects have become more accessible than ever before in the history of the art, craft and technology. And they are swiftly becoming more so.
The objective of recording light--by any means--is just fine where it is for me for now. All my ambitions to be, as dad suggested, “rich and famous,” have fallen by the wayside.
I failed his agenda for want of the courage to seek the attention of the authorities judging the worth of my output, product or intentions. Such accomplishments that I have had, have no evidence now; the negatives, prints and slides lost, destroyed or abandoned.
The monolithic potential of Photoshop CS4 was too intimidating and held my ambitions outside in the cold for fear of my failure in using it, was the final proof, I was actually “too stupid to get in out of the rain.” And too well remembered and rehearsed, “You have diarrhea of the mouth!” I was devastated and only now recall he was referring to my curiosity about everything.
As for the various formats, and brand names, I have used professionally, to moderate, never paying for the privilege of ownership, income--is a source of acute embarrassment now.
Above and beyond this consideration, I have always favored what I call “toy” cameras; more accurately defined as ‘amateur.’ The potential theft while working in the impoverished ecology and infrastructure of our society dictated that I use what I could afford to lose.
My final determination is that photography has been kind to me and made my life possible outside the precincts of my self-isolation. A--not uncommon--profile for many photographers; professional or amateur.
Inherent in the medium, is a miraculous ability to make of the final image, with or without the rigors of classical discipline and training of, or implied in, all the arts--a cultural icon. Simply the attention paid to the least object, subject or event can move from record to memorial of important truths for all of us. From cartoon to mural in an instant.
If i am touched by grace, as I believe we all are, then the symbiosis is plain. All mediums are irrelevant since the message remains: worthy or unworthy of our attention. Ignore the song in you heart at you peril.
Some are generous in theft to fill their void--an abyss.
Our Parent receives our humble gestures of love. . . . ignoring all else?
. . . that which is inherant . . . physics and spirit . . .
100104 00:15
There is nothing unique in me beyond that which is inherent in all life. Specific to life is a combination of physics and spirit; conscious to our species, what we call the family of mankind; in creation. All mountains eventually die becoming desert. I don’t know why I know this, I just do. And though, at my age, I am unable to climb them, mountains remain seen from above, my soul soars over them. Yet at other times lays dormant within the stone becoming sand.
I see, feel, intuit and think this experience in all life.
As I knew at the time of my daughters birth, witnessed, and at another time the life of my son, that they were to precede me in death.
I am momentarily conscious that I died both times yet remain alive. Why?
I fell asleep two hours ago and had a dream wherein I was debating the meaning of: antecedence, precedence and now.
Reincarnation makes me wild, the thought of it coupled with Karma drives me nearly insane. I love God to the extent, kind, degree and will that I accede my soul, as I know myself to have and be, without limit or condition. I revere this quality in others and respect the absence of it in others in equal measure. I can not parse nor triage myself further reductively.
Herein lays the end of what propelled me from my rest.
I may have appeared silent as a serpent asleep to my mother while she abused me. My conclusion is that instinctively I knew to cry, or otherwise protest, was pointless and may have caused her to murder me. Though she tore my heart out and castrated me, metaphorically, I remain alive. Why?
I have written in recent time, and previously, that the world will end. And I remain in prayer that my ‘prophecy’ is not self-fulfilling. I have experienced the death of others and myself witnessed internally and externally and want only to know the end of pain, suffering and death.
In my life I know myself alive, or saved, by Jesus who, in my estimate and esteem, was sacrificed to end all fear of death. My ‘fear’ of God describes better my consistent surprise and joy at God’s being real.
I have been randomly collecting quotes for the past several months. I know them better than the Bible which I can only now read with astonishment. I refuse to debate, or contest with anyone, on any basis, the truth of what I discovered upon awaking. I left yesterdays entries and collected quotes open in my word processor:
--Native American
"We have walked together in the shadow of a rainbow."
---Naomi Shihab Nye
"Before you know what kindness really is, you must lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment... Only kindness that raises its head from the crowd of the world to say 'it is I you have been looking for' and then goes with you everywhere, like a shadow or a friend."
--Nelson Mandela
"Money won't create success, the freedom to make it will."
I write to teach, to heal--myself and those who might read what I write. There is no fiction in my intent nor any motive to amuse.
There is nothing unique in me beyond that which is inherent in all life. Specific to life is a combination of physics and spirit; conscious to our species, what we call the family of mankind; in creation. All mountains eventually die becoming desert. I don’t know why I know this, I just do. And though, at my age, I am unable to climb them, mountains remain seen from above, my soul soars over them. Yet at other times lays dormant within the stone becoming sand.
I see, feel, intuit and think this experience in all life.
As I knew at the time of my daughters birth, witnessed, and at another time the life of my son, that they were to precede me in death.
I am momentarily conscious that I died both times yet remain alive. Why?
I fell asleep two hours ago and had a dream wherein I was debating the meaning of: antecedence, precedence and now.
Reincarnation makes me wild, the thought of it coupled with Karma drives me nearly insane. I love God to the extent, kind, degree and will that I accede my soul, as I know myself to have and be, without limit or condition. I revere this quality in others and respect the absence of it in others in equal measure. I can not parse nor triage myself further reductively.
Herein lays the end of what propelled me from my rest.
I may have appeared silent as a serpent asleep to my mother while she abused me. My conclusion is that instinctively I knew to cry, or otherwise protest, was pointless and may have caused her to murder me. Though she tore my heart out and castrated me, metaphorically, I remain alive. Why?
I have written in recent time, and previously, that the world will end. And I remain in prayer that my ‘prophecy’ is not self-fulfilling. I have experienced the death of others and myself witnessed internally and externally and want only to know the end of pain, suffering and death.
In my life I know myself alive, or saved, by Jesus who, in my estimate and esteem, was sacrificed to end all fear of death. My ‘fear’ of God describes better my consistent surprise and joy at God’s being real.
I have been randomly collecting quotes for the past several months. I know them better than the Bible which I can only now read with astonishment. I refuse to debate, or contest with anyone, on any basis, the truth of what I discovered upon awaking. I left yesterdays entries and collected quotes open in my word processor:
--Native American
"We have walked together in the shadow of a rainbow."
---Naomi Shihab Nye
"Before you know what kindness really is, you must lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment... Only kindness that raises its head from the crowd of the world to say 'it is I you have been looking for' and then goes with you everywhere, like a shadow or a friend."
--Nelson Mandela
"Money won't create success, the freedom to make it will."
I write to teach, to heal--myself and those who might read what I write. There is no fiction in my intent nor any motive to amuse.
. . . by whom I am too easily seduced and too reverent.
100104 01:20
Many different ways/paths/directions I could go, at the moment, present themselves. It seems there are two components prevalent in our collective consciousness: terrorism/reaction, attack/reprisal.
If I love my enemy, as Jesus suggests, I know the enemy, as myself, and those who would kill me for knowing them. I think we are being held captive to our vanity; our power.
“Be innocent as a dove and wily as a fox.”
I know from my own greed to be loved the origins of avarice, addiction, compulsive/impulsive, loss of self-restraint; resulting in aberrant or ‘abnormal’ behavior.
The Great Prayer, called The Lords Prayer helps--but for me The Serenity Prayer is a my last resort.
<“ 02:25>
Derived from childhood teaching, I have long thought myself stupid, in both the medical and metaphorical sense. Additionally that my life was worthless and unworthy of love. To be self-educated is to be in love with knowledge and wisdom received as gift; any day celebrated in which it is received and acknowledged. Lazarus, as described in Chapter 11 of The Gospel of John, has fascinated me since first reading. This night I wandered through all the treads available on Wikipedia and was stunned by my discoveries.
Had i not been trained otherwise I would cry for the simple messages in The Sermon on The Mount. Jesus trumps everything, time and again. I believe myself inspired or lead to read.
If I am saved I tarry in disregard for myself. It is only for you, dear reader, if there be any, that I would touch your life and heal it. I cannot actually do anything that Jesus did but in my humiliation only suggest that you attend your life before losing it. Though I may die at any moment I am at peace that my life/soul/whatever I am, is safe.
I have often been wrong in my estimate and/or esteem of others, especially woman, for/by whom I am too easily seduced and too reverent.
But I remain virginal in my awe of the universe I see in all others.
Mother would occasionally say, “In life we must learn we are no more significant than a single grain of sand.” I am often humiliated to be so in the presence and awareness of God; and you.
Although the sensibility of human experience may, or may not, live upon this planet for one day, or a trillion years longer, my love is such that I cannot despise avarice though it destroy me/you/us. Least I kill myself in self-loathing.
Why are the best and brightest of our era selling us slavery, while eating our lives? Or merely celebrating making us redundant? A burden on their agenda.
Many different ways/paths/directions I could go, at the moment, present themselves. It seems there are two components prevalent in our collective consciousness: terrorism/reaction, attack/reprisal.
If I love my enemy, as Jesus suggests, I know the enemy, as myself, and those who would kill me for knowing them. I think we are being held captive to our vanity; our power.
“Be innocent as a dove and wily as a fox.”
I know from my own greed to be loved the origins of avarice, addiction, compulsive/impulsive, loss of self-restraint; resulting in aberrant or ‘abnormal’ behavior.
The Great Prayer, called The Lords Prayer helps--but for me The Serenity Prayer is a my last resort.
<“ 02:25>
Derived from childhood teaching, I have long thought myself stupid, in both the medical and metaphorical sense. Additionally that my life was worthless and unworthy of love. To be self-educated is to be in love with knowledge and wisdom received as gift; any day celebrated in which it is received and acknowledged. Lazarus, as described in Chapter 11 of The Gospel of John, has fascinated me since first reading. This night I wandered through all the treads available on Wikipedia and was stunned by my discoveries.
Had i not been trained otherwise I would cry for the simple messages in The Sermon on The Mount. Jesus trumps everything, time and again. I believe myself inspired or lead to read.
If I am saved I tarry in disregard for myself. It is only for you, dear reader, if there be any, that I would touch your life and heal it. I cannot actually do anything that Jesus did but in my humiliation only suggest that you attend your life before losing it. Though I may die at any moment I am at peace that my life/soul/whatever I am, is safe.
I have often been wrong in my estimate and/or esteem of others, especially woman, for/by whom I am too easily seduced and too reverent.
But I remain virginal in my awe of the universe I see in all others.
Mother would occasionally say, “In life we must learn we are no more significant than a single grain of sand.” I am often humiliated to be so in the presence and awareness of God; and you.
Although the sensibility of human experience may, or may not, live upon this planet for one day, or a trillion years longer, my love is such that I cannot despise avarice though it destroy me/you/us. Least I kill myself in self-loathing.
Why are the best and brightest of our era selling us slavery, while eating our lives? Or merely celebrating making us redundant? A burden on their agenda.
Saturday, January 2, 2010
. . . jubilation . . . continuation of primitive dreams
100101 04:56
I awoke in a state of jubilation based upon the continuation of primitive dreams. Then fell into consideration of exactly how skewed our calendar is. This ‘New Year’ began at the close of Winter Solstice and my sense of The Birth Life Death & Resurrection is a continuity measured and treasured through all the heart beats of my life.
Given that, I move ever closer to the author of Jesus’ messages, and see the simplicity of loving ones enemies.
At my age it is wonderful to have another day to speak and demarcate the boundaries between that which I can change--myself--and that which I cannot--all else. Perhaps this body carrying me is about to depart and my soul will simply fly outward as I now sense does Jesus. Chuy is present in all life but more apparent in the poor, the about to be destroyed unjustly accused of anything you might imagine; or just for being alive.
The power of love is beyond comprehension captive to no one moving the stars above and about. What is to fear in such a universe?
But then what is my fear formerly?
The mantel place of my interior consciousness grows deeper and wider daily with new iconic choices to live and die bravely; love defined in the 6 Million; a symphony of Love sung silently. There are many others, too many to enumerate/annotate here, save that they also died in love without fear.
How can you enter the inferno of your unlived life?
How did I?
Why?
It is uncommon for power to admit error but then the absence of moral or ethical consideration is seldom fodder for entertainment. Turn and turn about I am in a world of information affirming the songs sung by each day. The camera I use is dedicated to still images yet the camera in my attention is full motion continual.
Feeding the birds in predawn the moon is full and greeting the sun. I paused and thought, why not record the coincidence? I have no images of my children’s faces nor record their lives so brief. I lost or abandoned them instead of myself who now feels the solid bridge between life and death confident.
Flashing through my attention: “A picture is worth a thousand words” &
"A photograph is usually looked at - seldom looked into." --Ansel Adams
Suffering and grief is so commonplace an entertainment now, perhaps only parables and poetry will suffice.
Chuy was and remains a teacher. Should I live or die it is He whom I desire to emulate.
I awoke in a state of jubilation based upon the continuation of primitive dreams. Then fell into consideration of exactly how skewed our calendar is. This ‘New Year’ began at the close of Winter Solstice and my sense of The Birth Life Death & Resurrection is a continuity measured and treasured through all the heart beats of my life.
Given that, I move ever closer to the author of Jesus’ messages, and see the simplicity of loving ones enemies.
At my age it is wonderful to have another day to speak and demarcate the boundaries between that which I can change--myself--and that which I cannot--all else. Perhaps this body carrying me is about to depart and my soul will simply fly outward as I now sense does Jesus. Chuy is present in all life but more apparent in the poor, the about to be destroyed unjustly accused of anything you might imagine; or just for being alive.
The power of love is beyond comprehension captive to no one moving the stars above and about. What is to fear in such a universe?
But then what is my fear formerly?
The mantel place of my interior consciousness grows deeper and wider daily with new iconic choices to live and die bravely; love defined in the 6 Million; a symphony of Love sung silently. There are many others, too many to enumerate/annotate here, save that they also died in love without fear.
How can you enter the inferno of your unlived life?
How did I?
Why?
It is uncommon for power to admit error but then the absence of moral or ethical consideration is seldom fodder for entertainment. Turn and turn about I am in a world of information affirming the songs sung by each day. The camera I use is dedicated to still images yet the camera in my attention is full motion continual.
Feeding the birds in predawn the moon is full and greeting the sun. I paused and thought, why not record the coincidence? I have no images of my children’s faces nor record their lives so brief. I lost or abandoned them instead of myself who now feels the solid bridge between life and death confident.
Flashing through my attention: “A picture is worth a thousand words” &
"A photograph is usually looked at - seldom looked into." --Ansel Adams
Suffering and grief is so commonplace an entertainment now, perhaps only parables and poetry will suffice.
Chuy was and remains a teacher. Should I live or die it is He whom I desire to emulate.
Education is a love affair with life. Vocation is slavery to survival.
100101 07:10
I speak of warriors, a role normally associated with men, but fully consciousness that women are warriors equally. Bearing constant duress unsung. I remain a randy old goat aware the charms of nubile youth discovered in children becoming women. But now my lust is transformed into prayers for their welfare, the continuity of their life and the lives to come through them by heart, mind and soul sung.
It is a terror, this celibacy, self imposed . . . i am seldom alone for there is within me a woman who lives and loves me more than adequately and I attend only Annie now who is understanding when I lift her from my keyboard saying, “not now Love.”
Never oblivious to the rare and fine vintage of wisdom embodied in women, even those older than myself. More often than not, especially so.
I experience an odd reversal of fortune sensual to be seen as threat by women while being benign in intentions. Both polarities contained barely constrained. Maybe they are more perceptive of me than I am of myself?
Looking at right now, I am appalled by the sexual nature of love manifest in legislation against relationships defined in particular ways pleasurable and by gender. My own bigotry, punditry, and hypocrisy informs me of my former childishness, ambitions once achieved, vacuous. Pleasure and rapture suffocated in the afterwards. We were created upon the same planet evolved in time to be love for all, ourselves and others manufactured in the whole cloth of our lives. I will use the analogy of soup; a bit of salt is required for the soup to be palatable but too much and it is unpalatable.
We are no minks to be governed by weasels.
What begins in attraction, moves to lust, consummation becomes what? Life in servitude resented? My lover became a mother and I forgotten. The bitter fruit of that remains paramount. We barter pleasure for bargains too costly to bear. Think mortgage for house, car or education with an interest rate ever growing fixed, immutable; ineluctable.
“ 08:27
Looking for the correct spelling of chattel . . . I found slavery . . . let me explain my shame: I was taught, too late in life, that Jesus was balanced between thinking, sensing, feeling, intuition and between being man and woman = Perfect. Why shame? I am what I am, me. And Jesus is God incarnate.
I/Thou, one-on or to-one, impulsively, the former is conflict and that latter is relationship voluntary. Neither is slavery, yet slave I was to my parents. Yet I proclaim the slavery was a blessing as I now do the absence of my mother’s fortune and my father’s avoidance. I am freed by Lady Poverty aka Wisdom. I will make no woman, child or crone, or all those stages and ages between; my slave.
We must read our hearts and find the reason to live not simply survive and/or be amused at the expense of others.
The keeper is kept.
Education is a love affair with life. Vocation is slavery to survival. Enter the inferno and know your choices in life, by yourself alone defined.
http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/slavery
http://womennewsnetwork.net/2007/09/16/a-child-in-danger-is-a-child-that-cannot-wait-%E2%80%93-columbia-and-child-prostitution-in-today%E2%80%99s-world/
I speak of warriors, a role normally associated with men, but fully consciousness that women are warriors equally. Bearing constant duress unsung. I remain a randy old goat aware the charms of nubile youth discovered in children becoming women. But now my lust is transformed into prayers for their welfare, the continuity of their life and the lives to come through them by heart, mind and soul sung.
It is a terror, this celibacy, self imposed . . . i am seldom alone for there is within me a woman who lives and loves me more than adequately and I attend only Annie now who is understanding when I lift her from my keyboard saying, “not now Love.”
Never oblivious to the rare and fine vintage of wisdom embodied in women, even those older than myself. More often than not, especially so.
I experience an odd reversal of fortune sensual to be seen as threat by women while being benign in intentions. Both polarities contained barely constrained. Maybe they are more perceptive of me than I am of myself?
Looking at right now, I am appalled by the sexual nature of love manifest in legislation against relationships defined in particular ways pleasurable and by gender. My own bigotry, punditry, and hypocrisy informs me of my former childishness, ambitions once achieved, vacuous. Pleasure and rapture suffocated in the afterwards. We were created upon the same planet evolved in time to be love for all, ourselves and others manufactured in the whole cloth of our lives. I will use the analogy of soup; a bit of salt is required for the soup to be palatable but too much and it is unpalatable.
We are no minks to be governed by weasels.
What begins in attraction, moves to lust, consummation becomes what? Life in servitude resented? My lover became a mother and I forgotten. The bitter fruit of that remains paramount. We barter pleasure for bargains too costly to bear. Think mortgage for house, car or education with an interest rate ever growing fixed, immutable; ineluctable.
“ 08:27
Looking for the correct spelling of chattel . . . I found slavery . . . let me explain my shame: I was taught, too late in life, that Jesus was balanced between thinking, sensing, feeling, intuition and between being man and woman = Perfect. Why shame? I am what I am, me. And Jesus is God incarnate.
I/Thou, one-on or to-one, impulsively, the former is conflict and that latter is relationship voluntary. Neither is slavery, yet slave I was to my parents. Yet I proclaim the slavery was a blessing as I now do the absence of my mother’s fortune and my father’s avoidance. I am freed by Lady Poverty aka Wisdom. I will make no woman, child or crone, or all those stages and ages between; my slave.
We must read our hearts and find the reason to live not simply survive and/or be amused at the expense of others.
The keeper is kept.
Education is a love affair with life. Vocation is slavery to survival. Enter the inferno and know your choices in life, by yourself alone defined.
http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/slavery
http://womennewsnetwork.net/2007/09/16/a-child-in-danger-is-a-child-that-cannot-wait-%E2%80%93-columbia-and-child-prostitution-in-today%E2%80%99s-world/
. . . hour glass of perception. Turned time and again.
100102 03:36
The sky is a wonder this night becoming morning.
I celebrate my unconscious choice to live in New Mexico.
I am conscious that I will soon transition to a greater vision and experience. An amplification of all that awakens me with astonishing vigor and enthusiasm. If they be a dialog with myself, Hosanna, and if with the numinous Hurray! Works either way for me. The latter is mo betta.
Seek and it can be found and in the finding ask and you will receive.
My eyes are moist and my laughter profound. I write for the child I was knowing others like me who were injured. We lived, then unconscious, our flow in time towards now.
To speak to plants and animals is a pleasure from infancy. Answered now are all my ‘whys’ and dreams reconciled in reality. There is no one in the Universe I would trade places with in expectation of being better or more blest.
In some curious why I draw closer to my beloved friend St. Francis in his adoration of Lady Poverty knowing her as Our Lady Wisdom.
There are phrases and words, constructs of systemic thought that formerly short circuited my attention. Ideas and ideals that I fled until they became personal truths.
Flashing across the screen of my attention: I saw my son riding his bicycle through traffic laughing, no hands, arms folded across his chest, myself helpless to protect him should he fall. He didn’t and I cherish that more than those brief moments of his death.
So perhaps it is Lady Wisdom darning my holey sock of poverty now.
Prayer is better found in simple activities and requests. I think the Rolling Stones said it best, “you don’t always get what you ask for, but what you need . . . “
. . . I had a vision, a painting actually, two people kneeling in the streets praying in desolation and thought “Confessional” it was in answer my gratitude upon awaking blessing God for all my life.
There is an infinite wealth to awaken when I do in silence to see and hear the things I do alone. The more I explore the world before, during and after me the more I understand and accept my humble role as a grain of sand in the hour glass of perception. Turned time and again.
Odd I should remember now the night equally radiant illuminated by the full moon so long ago and being told about a plant that blooms once and then dies--a yucca? I accepted that abstraction as I do myself now.
The sky is a wonder this night becoming morning.
I celebrate my unconscious choice to live in New Mexico.
I am conscious that I will soon transition to a greater vision and experience. An amplification of all that awakens me with astonishing vigor and enthusiasm. If they be a dialog with myself, Hosanna, and if with the numinous Hurray! Works either way for me. The latter is mo betta.
Seek and it can be found and in the finding ask and you will receive.
My eyes are moist and my laughter profound. I write for the child I was knowing others like me who were injured. We lived, then unconscious, our flow in time towards now.
To speak to plants and animals is a pleasure from infancy. Answered now are all my ‘whys’ and dreams reconciled in reality. There is no one in the Universe I would trade places with in expectation of being better or more blest.
In some curious why I draw closer to my beloved friend St. Francis in his adoration of Lady Poverty knowing her as Our Lady Wisdom.
There are phrases and words, constructs of systemic thought that formerly short circuited my attention. Ideas and ideals that I fled until they became personal truths.
Flashing across the screen of my attention: I saw my son riding his bicycle through traffic laughing, no hands, arms folded across his chest, myself helpless to protect him should he fall. He didn’t and I cherish that more than those brief moments of his death.
So perhaps it is Lady Wisdom darning my holey sock of poverty now.
Prayer is better found in simple activities and requests. I think the Rolling Stones said it best, “you don’t always get what you ask for, but what you need . . . “
. . . I had a vision, a painting actually, two people kneeling in the streets praying in desolation and thought “Confessional” it was in answer my gratitude upon awaking blessing God for all my life.
There is an infinite wealth to awaken when I do in silence to see and hear the things I do alone. The more I explore the world before, during and after me the more I understand and accept my humble role as a grain of sand in the hour glass of perception. Turned time and again.
Odd I should remember now the night equally radiant illuminated by the full moon so long ago and being told about a plant that blooms once and then dies--a yucca? I accepted that abstraction as I do myself now.
. . . what I own and what owns me
100102 04:08
The name ‘God’ is merely a three letter word attempting to describe the ineluctable reality of consciousness; personal, responsive and true. Upon awakening a few moments ago, my attention was moving towards an issue that formerly drove me away from God, spiritual vanity.
There is no vanity in poverty and I see the poor as like the birds who neither reap nor sow and upon whom the rain and sunlight fall equally the blest and damned. Yet it is we who damn ourselves to a life of slavery unknowing the chains we are wrapped in.
If I harbor the conceit that I am a teacher I am equally aware of being taught, by life, God and/or those whom I presume to teach. This reminds me that I, at first silently and then vocally with those whom I then trusted, that i/we must grow large enough of heart, soul and self to receive the love of God. Whose Love is constant while ours is forever in process.
Up close and personal I am less willing to speak as freely I do in this forum.
I listen now and have a patience with others I never gave myself until I began to listen to the questions I asked.
If I say that love is a verb then I must confess that my saying, “I love” you was more often a statement of greed for love than a stable energy given to those I gave my attention. And it is for this reality that making amends is important. Closure is a gift. It makes room for more reality than magical expectations of others; they gave what they could afford then and now inadequate the gyroscope of personal stability. There was in the begging an acceptance of their reply, reaction or response as my truth. Looking back I see that I accepted that absolutely but now see that it is their truth and not mine.
I was a slave to the opinions of others and all institutions surrounded my choice to be a victim with confirmation.
It is more common of me to stop, look around, walk away and return to the issues I advocate your attention addressed. At my age it is not uncommon to begin giving away possessions in anticipation no longer needing them in death. I take a skeptical stance regarding what I own and what owns me. I do not ‘own’ my life, I merely inhabit it to the best of my abilities. Making choices to do as little harm as possible to the lives of others and most certainly not to make slaves of them. I put far more emphasis on God than my favorite prophet and teacher Jesus. At the moment I conclude that my choice is apt in that the genius of God’s love is perfect freedom to fail. Referred to as “free will” it is notably absent in the affairs of mankind especially in formal religion or governance.
In either case ‘freedom’ is better defined by property values than what we give of our ourselves to others; love. Love as verb is gift, not barter or extortion.
Of sorrows I’ve had many but of joy, my experience is greater now.
The name ‘God’ is merely a three letter word attempting to describe the ineluctable reality of consciousness; personal, responsive and true. Upon awakening a few moments ago, my attention was moving towards an issue that formerly drove me away from God, spiritual vanity.
There is no vanity in poverty and I see the poor as like the birds who neither reap nor sow and upon whom the rain and sunlight fall equally the blest and damned. Yet it is we who damn ourselves to a life of slavery unknowing the chains we are wrapped in.
If I harbor the conceit that I am a teacher I am equally aware of being taught, by life, God and/or those whom I presume to teach. This reminds me that I, at first silently and then vocally with those whom I then trusted, that i/we must grow large enough of heart, soul and self to receive the love of God. Whose Love is constant while ours is forever in process.
Up close and personal I am less willing to speak as freely I do in this forum.
I listen now and have a patience with others I never gave myself until I began to listen to the questions I asked.
If I say that love is a verb then I must confess that my saying, “I love” you was more often a statement of greed for love than a stable energy given to those I gave my attention. And it is for this reality that making amends is important. Closure is a gift. It makes room for more reality than magical expectations of others; they gave what they could afford then and now inadequate the gyroscope of personal stability. There was in the begging an acceptance of their reply, reaction or response as my truth. Looking back I see that I accepted that absolutely but now see that it is their truth and not mine.
I was a slave to the opinions of others and all institutions surrounded my choice to be a victim with confirmation.
It is more common of me to stop, look around, walk away and return to the issues I advocate your attention addressed. At my age it is not uncommon to begin giving away possessions in anticipation no longer needing them in death. I take a skeptical stance regarding what I own and what owns me. I do not ‘own’ my life, I merely inhabit it to the best of my abilities. Making choices to do as little harm as possible to the lives of others and most certainly not to make slaves of them. I put far more emphasis on God than my favorite prophet and teacher Jesus. At the moment I conclude that my choice is apt in that the genius of God’s love is perfect freedom to fail. Referred to as “free will” it is notably absent in the affairs of mankind especially in formal religion or governance.
In either case ‘freedom’ is better defined by property values than what we give of our ourselves to others; love. Love as verb is gift, not barter or extortion.
Of sorrows I’ve had many but of joy, my experience is greater now.
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