a people of salt and ash dancing

Not by my lights but the Author of Light itself do I find my way into and through each epochal day. Why hurry toward the grave; it scurries towards me walking sideways; a Black Scorpion emergent from the darkness clicking.

God, or the genius of God, gave us consciousness, for which we in gratitude attempt to disprove the source.

Mom was brilliant yet addled with arrows of concern. In some sense we, at the very best of times--seldom--were each others pincushions; no squishy stuff, just pure grit.

Neither of us had from birth lived in an Iron Mask of any religion. Astonishingly I recognize M in a parallel learning to pray on our feet. All three of us having had, or being had by, many “oh shit!” moments dying in place . . . those sweet moments of peace, helpless, before crashing into a stone wall or drowning . . . yet surviving. Why? After awhile it becomes second nature to realize that we are living on borrowed time and all is less consequent; humiliation become humility.

And each in their own way live for others in need; our self long ago abandoned. Ego, vanity and greed seem more the spoon fed pablum spoiled brats.

My dreams inform me that I am what I never thought myself to be; able to breath underwater; rocked in the cradle of an infinite black hole.

Cycles of rebirth become more frequent; my sense: The meaning of “virgin birth.” Add a sense of resurrection/reincarnation. Dysfunctions dissolved.

For me, most recently, it was the disintegration of goiters of rage. Railing against that which I could not change.

As for myself; it is a sense of being able to lend those about to die peace. More difficult now seems being called to help those unaware that everything, save God, dies.

Fully aware of my decay: slow, certain, inevitable, anticipated and welcomed. I am at an age when it became apparent I must move on and forward to the living. Tweaking the perception of others to accept that this moment is the only consequent moment worthy of attention: Be Here Now. . . .Discovering life is unworthy of existence not giving to others. My cup overflows and not to give is to drown.

To linger in rage is to add insult to injury. None of the most significant women in my life ever gave me the gift of their tears until now. For a time I will let that statement stand. I have left my previous post, “Closer”, open awaiting some resolution received in last evening’s dreams. Albeit entirely dissimilar in content and context; the humor and poetry of it I apprehend as an ongoing theme.

No two of us fully alike. Each a unique snow flake filled with multifaceted prizms of perception yet snow flake nonetheless made of star stuff. All the component parts of our Cosmic Home. We are nothing like God and God nothing like we. Where we bound is consciousness and perception of one another.

I we would be whole; and this we must. Become more aware of your contra sexual component seeking integration. Or. At the very least recognition. The she in me has no face. My folly has bin to project it upon the being of another physical woman. Typical of what we call romantic love. Great stuff for stories filled with dysfunction; humorous and beguiling but folly nonetheless--always.

Turn and turn about, inside out, upside down. De constructing my psyche by return; a rehearsal to those turning epochs concluded in this: the great work and world of Self must of needs be done alone. Then perhaps, maybe not, we can heal and in being healed help others to heal themselves.

Laughing. I remember a woman, fellow resident in a condo on the shore of Lake Michigan, in Chicago. It was not uncommon to encounter her strolling through the lobby in a rag thong. Of kindness and candor, and a feasible age, though in retrospect I believe now she was married. She, by way of my greatest folly, wishful thinking, became, for a time my ideal woman.

A brief aside, I wonder now, was she the inspiration for my second Marian Dream? Wherein we swam under water impossible distances from whence cometh the ideal of breathing under water! Should any, or each of them, in turn, asked, I would have torn my heart out and handed it to them. Poor Vincent offered only his ear.

Obviously it far less brutally messy to merely write about it. And at that I am currently enchanted by Annie Dillard; her kneading my brain with the fingers of her thoughts. Discovered last night before rest: “Suddenly there is a point where religion becomes laughable,” Thomas Merton wrote. “Then you decide that you are nevertheless religious.” -Annie Dillard “FOR THE TIME BEING”

Remember Rumi’s:
"Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it."

When Buddha was on his death bed he noticed his young disciple Anan was weeping.
'Why are you weeping, Anan?' he asked.
'Because the light of the world is about to be extinguished and we will be in darkness.'
The Buddha summoned up all his remaining energy and spoke what were to be his final words on earth:
'Anan, Anan, be a light unto yourself.' - Buddhist Scripture

. . . though love: is to remember having had the love at all was more than one can ask of a lifetime. Stand Up, Move Forward growing anew in wonder, awe and reverence reborn. Fear nothing.

. . . is it enough to have grieved thirty-five years? Take however long you need but of needs you and I, we, must live. . . .Until our time to remove from this season in hell and go home to the stars creation/recreation--closure. Death is never punishment but a new beginning; learning more from failure than success. Arise this side or the other.

121117 04:21 Salt
© 2012 by Jack Spratt - All Rights Reserved

Holiday Hell's Bells

Post Cards sent myself from Hell, a childhood now celebrated and apprehended with joy. For those who remain ambivalent towards life itself. -121118 12:35 final
----
One can never realize exactly how irrelevant we are until lost. Here I think of the Horror of Holidays; laughing of course.

Imagine yourself a child, not that it matters much, but perhaps a boy best between eight and twelve inside the gigantic tomb of Madison Square Garden, dark, fetid with sweat of others, farts and all, pressed cheek by jowl, the milling herd of behemoths rhubarbing senselessly, the secure handhold separated by swaying utters of elephantine thighs.

Who me? lost! I was lost upon birth from the placental sea of security and always know where I am. I’M HERE!

However, a sentiment mother never fully understood, and in terror shook me until my eyes rolled independent up one and down the other; Mix Master Kitchen Maid at full bore.

I cannot now remember whether it then, before or latter; my arm caught too small to trigger the subway train door closure alarm and I running beside it Buster Brown’s milling not frantic but swiftly retaining my stance until no longer able to keep up merely skating upon the leather heel and sole amused that mother mired in populace attempting to find the emergency switch my grin and silent laughter. Ending with my nose pressed again the once distant cold tile wall.

Say the word “Holiday” and my instinct is to seek shelter in the closet or beneath the bed until it goes away.

Once too long ago for most who read this to recognize the wonderful Mercury Coupe driven by James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause--Red if I remember?--Dad’s was Midnight Blue. Janina and myself ensconced in the back seat. More nearly imprisoned. Our parents bicker and snarling at one another in the front on New Jersey’s Garden State Highway. Drunk or sober they shred their marriage daily but most dramatically upon Thanksgiving or Christmas Day.

Dark, cold, freezing rain, in outer orbit, shelter long lost far away. The Mercury stopped both leap out and I could not figure how to get my sister out from the rear. There are those moments when one realizes that, helpless, all is lost. Be calm in contemplation of kissing your ass goodbye. Some times death is a blessing.

Bin there, done that, have the decals and bumper stickers collected vicariously from all the tales told of their travels together. Roses conciliatory left in bidets. Terror nothing new to me ever . . . however I never was able to secure one of those baby alligators scrabbling about in a yellow window box; oh well.

Once not long ago, both antogonist dead and buried, my sister and I specualted upon this soon dark, for us, season. Noting that had they given just a smidgeon of love once in awhile the season itself may have made more sense.

. . . and to you, one and all, captive or free, I wish the best of Advent begun and Easter Tide soon arise.

121117 09:42 small
© 2012 by Jack Spratt - All Rights Reserved

Late arriving, or discovered, email indicates the the Sphinx arisen, ascendant and on fire with life. I knew, but had profound doubts; after all we've shared, her tears were not amongst them before, mine, easily, were.

I started this with “The Phoenix,” my totem since in reality it, my soul, hovers in a watchful pattern never far from her. And in greeting as well as parting it as though for the first and last time: precious. Prescient. Overtly casual but, well, at least for me, profound. Romance of the adolescent type become ancient friends from a time before time was and thought. We seemingly of the dark starry night our vault of heaven enduring.

Together and singly I met them, a couple several times in differing context. Once and each so memorable I dare now to compare them to we who will endure and prevail over death. The Bigelows--ah! there was also Leatrice Joy Gilbert-Fountain--how can one in one lifetime be so fortunate? And M too!

'Laus Deo', its location, or the architects but no one who reads this will be able to forget its meaning, or these words: 'Unless the Lord builds the house its builders labor in vain.  Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchmen stand guard in vain.'  (Psalm 127: 1) . . . . “house” being the prime metaphor for Self.

. . . I retain a sense Bert’s wife sailed with him; she appeared, a nurse, mysteriously while I emerged from anesthesia resulting from self neglect and pain beyond staying conscious. In 1958, Bert sailed his small ketch, the Golden Rule, into an American nuclear testing area in the Marshall Islands in an act of protest. Bert took seriously the obligation of being a global citizen long before the phrase “global citizen” was coined.

Count your blessings while you may and for all others become one in and of yourself. We the world and family of all life and love need you that tomorrow may come.

To myself I am cynic, skeptic, argumentative and sophist . . . sometimes ecstatic:

"When the pupil is ready to learn, a teacher will appear." - Zen Koan

. . . the face and personality will astonish you since there is no one specific nameable. Tho to be sincere I believe God is there always.

At that I rejoice receiving another broadside from M including the many marzipan Jesus sentiments. God Bless God for God. . . .all good ever lasting.

. . . the screw tightens and time seems less available--usual for this season descending into the longest night--yet for me perhaps the last longest and next longest day? Who cares; not me. But for you I would wish you to become needful for the world; we all are. Compassion is rare. Rarer still is compassion for one’s self.

121117 23:04 a needful world
© 2012 by Jack Spratt - All Rights Reserved

why do we do anything at all?

Vanity or vain attempt to expiate my guilt for rage against that which I cannot change. Why do I write?

Few wonder until around midlife; “is this all there is?” The urge to merge into the ordinary of life preceding it accomplished. Having become well behaved consumers of the economy’s purpose. Having given all due reverence to the norms, kowtow to the self-acknowledged saints, leaders and those irreverent of our right to be different.

I was born fabulously rich. Only to learn by behavior and choices regarding my welfare that I was unwanted, an accident in time. Liter like that which I picked up walking too and from the mail box mid residential complex. During the cold dressed as I like; indifferent to the climate or witness that I exist at all. Laughing! It only occurred today that for the best would be--you will understand shortly--for me to die in peace; is to cease to exist becoming a ghost. A no-see-um. A survivor in a Nazi death camp.

But then all are criminal who seek to rule for their own profit and pleasure, selfish, to an obscene degree. There are millions of ways to die. With death being no shame for a slave of vanity. To need beg forgiveness for being human is repugnant to me. No need to awaken those deeply asleep in vanity. Irk the ire of mad dogs frothing at the mouth to eat me for their pleasure. Wealth is not what you have but what you do not need.

I was once a Boy Scout leaning only that my peers wanted to see my penis. Who needs that? Yet I remained until quite recently a Boy Scout attempting to aid people crossing boundaries and receiving a trashing for my efforts; so vain I was then. Oddly misdiagnosed as bipolar thinking myself free at last of all guilt for misdemeanors sexual, intellectual, behavioral. Mother it seems remained until death convicted that we, my sister and I, she six and I twelve; had sex together. The poor woman had no father, no brother, no man to tell her she was full of shit. And I, at any early age, knew her a lethal as a coral snake. After repeated bites she began to resort to humiliation and silence. That is until like a dove with the cunning of a fox I began to outwit her. Love is not sex and sex is merely reproduction. My father, a gibbous knave, seduced me into slavery as protection from her. Neither clever enough to concoct a conspiracy of that magnitude.

I love playing the fool, a clown, since internally I shred my adversary with forgiveness and love . . . yes! Of them! But equally of the games they play against themselves. Best leave sleeping snakes lie. Loath to abuse the privilege of naming what teaches me as “God” I remain wealthier than any, I could in a vast knowing, name or long to emmulate. The greater they proclaim wealth the more foolish they are creating nothing but death from the rot of their usury and vanity.

Do I--or did I--just judge the entire governance of this once great land in vain for least “God” or whatever Created the Creation, the Big Bang, or whatever; watch over, the watchman listens and watches in vain.

I wished never to know my mother in that way, to procreate or practice the acts of love. Only to make love possible for her self. Exasperated she once wrote; “You don’t need my permission to write.” And of dad, my greatest gift is his theft of my life attempting to glean love from a turnip; but he did call me at death saying goodbye.

When weeping now it is for joy; not sorrow or fear.

"All men alike stand condemned, not by alien codes of ethics, but by their own, and all men therefore are conscious of guilt." - C. S. Lewis

121115 01:12 why?
© 2012 by Jack Spratt - All Rights Reserved

Rather i’d be falcon than falconer since she is a giving mistress allowing free flight in creation creating me. Rather than the blame game: naming genders of things insoluble. Become the solution: unconditional love. Just mercy freely given to all even to the persecutors of all life dined upon.

Yet I remain a pragmatist, capable of processing much, insatiable as the Fargo Shredder. Making not a mist of pink vanity so much as leaving it whole restructured as it was. Always in fear of death and loss.

Today was difficult for I had to rend myself thrice over to discern what I desired of my day from an admixture of myth, omen, portent, rune and ruins potential of time always consequent.  Creation stops for no mortal. The winds of eternity making sand then dust of all monuments; an idle mote upon mote in time removable. Birth is sacrificial lasting many years consequential. Of birth men know nothing; becoming lemmings playing a follow the leader infantile. Children at children’s games kill the opposition. Giving birth only to death. Or slavery. Gambling their souls for the pleasure of certainty; once killed nothing arises. All conflict dispatched.

Yet at the time of death the embryo of fear arises and realizes that it too will die vomiting the bile of all blood lust returned eating it self.

Should I have said; “Rather a day as Lion than prey?”

Is The Creator one or the other, Lion or Lioness?

The question is unanswerable. But the ability to form the question is it’s own reward. Since those willing to live and die for another know their infinitesimal origin clean and clear of vanity. Hear in silence the hum of creation blindly see the heart of things and will for those who devour them have mercy. Doing no harm.

As infant, child, man and now what? I forget the crimes against me but never the kindnesses. Thieves abound oblivious their theft of themselves. With a little less than two hours rest I went to water aerobics lead by a man I admire. In the course of chit chat sharing our origins I confessed the wonder of stained glass. It was an odd time and place for merger of love for the same life of all differently defined. Both sharing a kinship odd, unique amongst all states, the smallest. We agreed on the folly of knowing, at least I now surmise, since we both are brothers in age clearly pressed upon the dark glass of death so near. Good friends need not agree. But the friendship is a love beyond measure of value. Oddly we concur concern for those who follow and wonder what they will make of our knowing; accepting we’ve done the best we could with ours. Fabulous these lives lived; fearless in leaving.

In the silence of infinity; when the student is ready, the Teacher will appear. As for we, in that moment, upon the cusp of eternity; saw one another for what we are.

Kindness.

121114 20:31 falcon
© 2012 by Jack Spratt - All Rights Reserved

At long last dawn finally reaches into the pit of my despondent sloth singing yes, and yes, again to accept finally as I am myself. This old man whose face melts more into my chest daily; a Basset Hound loved nonetheless. For despite everything I can, finally, accept myself as enough. To love life unconditionally as it is, it’s own reward so fabulous I have no fear of death.

I wonder if Jesus could, at any time in his life, enter the sanctuary and receive welcome unconditional. Power and force create nothing but death, yet he in dying rent the Temple Curtain in half.

Yes. I am conservative but only of Creation and Creator, the Who, beginning everything watching us destroy all humanity to be correct in our vanity and demonstration of our powerise. True I’ve seen myself before and after my time and have no fear that once destroyed we who live by faith will not be reborn in a better place; well rid of our longish season in Hell. Those who purport to lead while leading nothing but their vanity; while Jesus lingers naked upon the steps outside the Cathedrals of Greed.

He did, after all say, “The poor will always be with us . . “ Yet did He mean the poor of spirit so greedy for everything, never having enough; or we the meek who sharing whatever we have survive in grace? God obvious amongst the poor. The more I seek examples of exceptions the fewer fingers on one hand need to count them. Then add; wars without end.

Scarcely able to administer myself, I speak of incompetence, those who lead us into the World War 1 leading to World War 2 and the next and the next endless war the end of which will only known to the dead.

If for me everyday is Christmas, regardless of season, knowing the birth and death of either the savior or merely the day itself; is to celebrate both. I am so blessed of, and by friends, so better educated than myself who in response/reply annotate the 11th day, the 11th hour the 11th month. So quickly we forget those who died for any reason to keep this ember of freedom alive.

I am catholic in the universal sense, small “c.” A bastard Catholic without Pope. In the sanctuary of my silent soul celebrating the Mass surrounding the world daily 24/7/365. Knowing yet there is no one religion able to contain my soul. So I reside a citizen of the Cosmos happily so. I am named by God, yet unknown until death the time of face-to-face. So I follow no one regardless of time, gender, credo save for kindness to all.

I fail that ideal for my trials continue. Beset by administrators who dick me around because they can. In some curious sense it gives them a reason to get out bed of a morning; a purpose they otherwise can not find in themselves. With prayer and hopefully the last mention of my captivity in disrespect for the elderly.

Schooled in Chicago where the young would kill one another for a pair of sneakers. To, for one moment, find pride in being alive. There was a time when I thought myself bereft of parenting yet in consideration of their lives. I see them with no family at all, dismissed by corporate officers who have their parents running daily two to three jobs just to pay for food. Both the children who became my parents and those who sell drugs in the streets of Chicago. Free Market Socialism has become a cancer and the death of all humanity.

“ . . . when I was in prison you visited me . . . “ and for this, what I’ve written by way of preamble, is girding my loins to face the trail of another presiding authority to judge me fit to address loneliness and being abandoned a ministry without preaching just being exemplar of peace.

Grateful that I am able to express love in kindness to one and all without going to prison or having to beg for the privilege.

121110 14:11 Acceptance is love

Rarely am I ill yet when so I fall plummeting into an ache beyond imagining. The only remedy is sleep from which I just arose with a sense of a new order, collaborative, a boycott of all former governance and religion. A culture within which we in love and trust do for one another what must be done without profit but barter. Imagine a world without war or poverty.

I am an ignorant man questing for an education easily gleaned via the Internet. At that, deeply concerned for evidence of censure ostensibly to protect intellectual property. I am not proud of my ignorance since in seeking to learn I discover the more I know the less it seems to have any relevance to life, mine and yours, as lived in flesh and blood terms. And curious about the Resurrection I sense it will be a woman not Jesus who will lead us into the next epoch. In a sense, or way, I’ve answered my own question for what I describe is the Primitive Christian Church.

Both Theocracy and Democracy have degenerated into “should” and “ought’ leadership. Or; “do what I say or take the highway” to hell.

121111 02:32

To be held, no matter how long or short, in the gaze of compassion is to be lent a buoyancy beyond all storm’s tempest. Not so much; “This too shall pass.” But rather a knowing of peace surpassing all understanding . . . atypical of all former journal keeping, I now wander away playing with Annie, cleaning house, attending to the vulnerabilities I am liable to from administrators whose authority rules exactly as those criminals who play with economies for their own vanities.

Again, I can change nothing but myself. And in that change, enter eternity, and peace. Occasionally bereft of desire to annihilate the thieves who rule all humanity. They who so indifferently kill senselessly would be the first to cry for mercy should we all arise and merely constrain or boycott their games.

The courage to be fully yourself independant off the definition by others; any other, including the Author of life and love itself. Is to be aware that there is a responsibility in all that we do; for nothing is for naught; all is important. While it could be argued that I am inappropriately self-revelatory--given that I am at times way overboard in confession my ideals and failures--it remains the only antidote to what passed before: pretending to be normal.

I am amused by Steve Jobs remark; "I want to put a ding in the universe." I do not proclaim him guilty of sin but hasten to add he was wildly irresponsible in dividing people from themselves, exploiting youth to find reality electronically. Profit before prophecy? Regardless, the inventor of gunpowder, who pays the price: the victims. Typical of children, we play with things before understanding their penchant for enslavement, and the cost of conceding our innate self possession to those who would exploit us to their selfish ends.

If I have hope, and I do. Would I, or should I, call it faith? My enemy has faith in the bottom line while I ask how does it work in the reality of birth, life, death, bloody reality? For the commonweal? Not the family, tribe, state, nation or religion; but the all one family we are.

Recently, where I live, a mother was driving her son to high school. Both were instantly killed by a young woman texting while driving; a head on collision. It is my nature to ponder the fate of all three participants. With the greater emphasis on the young woman selfish enough to murder the others. Then migrating backwards through the cellular providers, Steve Jobs, the legislators, stockholders etc. imagining them all being destroyed in a similar manner. . . .Slowly, one-by-one.

I am imperfect. Merely human. Yet for justice one wonders? Is there justice? In this world or the next; of course I believe so . . . or is it that I have: faith, confidence or conviction so being so? My slow waltz with death is exquisitely seductive; this brief season in hell. The Kingdom of God is within each of us. Thank God for God--the Judge. God being far more merciful than I. After all what allows me to continue living waiting for the opportunity taken by our brethren in Tibet to immolate ourselves to prove our right to be as we wish to be and not slaves to someone elses vanity. Bad Karma, you bet your bippy.

121113 05:15
© 2012 by Jack Spratt - All Rights Reserved

two kudos for Julian

How long the day newborn
the loins of solar days diminished
lengthened rays so longer night
now until the longest dark the loins of
sons born and dimmed forever more stilled

Of dreams words poems I know more for their gasping
sought the light above a breaching whale seeing the light
above the darkness below. It goes on another life lived in an hour of repose.

Baptized by whales embraced by snakes a bird of paradise returned I fling myself upon this day anew. Peace from slumber resurrect. We the new messiah conjoined enjoined

This day shared with Julian Anchorite of Norwich adored i a nave dwelling knave.
Am i not enough this reprise another life sufficient unto itself going with what i’ve got all my days seeking equality for all. To be for you what she/He was to be for me and we all

"…All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well", which Julian claimed to be said to her by God Himself, reflects her theology. It is one of the most famous lines in Catholic theological writing, and one of the best-known phrases of the literature of her era.

Creator
Creation Adored
Bless us all.
Amen . . . add nothing ever for naught.

PS Search for identity; specific not generic

121108 14:52 how long the day


In my experience Once in love Always returned Tho separated  by miles or death Hands covered with yeasty bread dough Impossible of removal Withdrawing my hands from her heart  Smearing everything I do with tears

121108 20:02 bread dough
© 2012 by Jack Spratt - All Rights Reserved