Hood Canal at the Bridge

It wasn’t a secret that you could go beneath it.
We descended stairs and found
men with green buckets, poles jutting
over the railings,
lines hanging all the way down
to the North chop,
or the South calm.
My friend asked what they had caught,
or expected to catch.

In our concrete and metal shelter,
salt wind grazed our cheeks
only to smooth over the canal side.
Expansive glad shades of gray
prepared for military subs.
The bridge center could
slide back anytime
to frustrate a highwayfull
of drivers
itching for peninsular retreats.

Does stillness ever seep backwards
to quiet its source?

Turning around towards the open Sound,
we found a tumult of tiny bursts,
small, frantic, painted strips
(magenta, purple, blue)
reaching upwards out of the depths.
Water ladies called us,
dive in.
We stood close, desiring their lush hues,
bewildered.

We waited there as the oblivious sun
prepared to finish
its glacier-bound course.
We easily forgot
how both sides held the same water.

revised 12/28/08

My mantra has no words that stay

Seeing Mother Meera today was refreshing... I have a hard time writing a description without feeling cliched. Let's just say she has a joyful, playful, delightful look in her eyes... she is purity, goodness. I came home and wrote this poem.

My mantra has no words that stay,
they float away.
Knock on letters, grammar, vowels,
you’ll hear a sound - wispy hollow -
through which spry meaning runs.

Beyond rough language launch the thread,
gather it down fine instead
from the Divine,
yours or mine,
several visages or one.

Holy messengers inspire
as long as we desire
many names and none.

Encounter at Daybreak

Amid early morning dreams
your form comes before me
unknowably thin beneath the hooded
black robe.

You have a face that is lined and pure.

Absent of expected fierce expression
or sickle, you have tired eyes
faded down to watery grey
oceans deep.

You hesitate to take my arm.

Dawn appears warm and vague
with its white complacent cotton sheets
and cocooning husband, angel daughter
still asleep.

You wander back to the Unseen.
And I resolve to buy a juicer.

Birthday Conversation

Mommy, said my daughter, you forgot something.
What did I forget, sweetie?
You forgot to make a wish.
You are right. I didn’t make a wish when I blew out the candles.
I looked at the wavy candles, only six had come in the package, not thirty-seven. She and her brother started to lick the frosting off the bottoms.
Kissing her forehead, I told her, I guess I didn't need to make any wishes this year.

Send Your Love

I heard this song recently. Time to heed your call... what is your calling? How does your past prevent you from following it?

This ain't no time for doubting your power
This ain't no time for hiding your care
You're climbing down from an ivory tower
You've got a stake in the world we ought to share
You see the stars are moving so slowly
But still the earth is moving so fast
Can't you see the moon is so lonely
She's still trapped in the pain of the past
This is the time of the worlds colliding
This is the time of kingdoms falling
This is the time of the worlds dividing
Time to heed your call

Send your love into the future

Caterpillars

Caterpillars crawling,
crossing pavement,
some already smashed,
inconsequential;

I think
I'm not that fragile.

Peace is just a word

What is it, in us,
that needs an enemy?

Why do we crave the feeling
"Us and Them"?

Until we answer these questions,
peace is just a word.

Mourning

In my heart, a high throne of cedar,
you had perched for a reverent moment,
before flying, fierce beak and feathers,
to the somber white field above the sea.

You disappeared, dot-like,
eventually exhausted,
you were taken by the swallowing
measured waves.

My deep roots seek the water table
and find there is too much earth;
My ripe branches will hover in saline air,
waiting only to meet the ocean.

Freedom from Doctrine

"The Buddha did not present an absolute doctrine. His teaching of non-self was offered in the context of his time. It was an instrument for meditation. But many Buddhists since then have gotten caught by the idea of non-self. They confuse the means and the end, the raft and the shore, the finger pointing to the moon and the moon. There is something more important than non-self. It is the freedom from the notions of both self and non-self. For a Buddhist to be attached to any doctrine, even a Buddhist one, is to betray the Buddha. It is not words or concepts that are important. What is important is our insight into the nature of reality. If the Buddha had been born into the society in which Jesus was born, I think he, too, would have been crucified." - Thich Nhat Hanh in Living Buddha, Living Christ

Spirituality from Below

"The spirituality bequeathed to us by the moralizing theology of modern times works from the top down. It presents high ideals that we are supposed to translate into reality. Typical ideals include selflessness, self-control, continuous amiability, selfless love, freedom from anger, and mastery of sexual desire. Spirituality from above surely has some positive meaning for young people, since it challenges them and tests their powers. It prompts them to grow up and out of themselves and to strive for goals. But it also tries to leap above and beyond our own reality. We identify so intensely with our own ideals that we repress our own weak points and limits because they clash with the ideal. That leads to inner division, which makes us sick."

"Today there are many people who have become fascinated to soon with spiritual paths. They think they can take these paths while skipping the difficult path of self-knowledge, the encounter with their own shadow side."

"The paradox of our spiritual path consists in the fact that we ascend to God by descending into our own reality. That is how Benedict understands Jesus' saying, 'He who humbles himself will be exalted.' (Luke 14:11, 18:14)."

"By descending into our earth-boundedness (humility is derived from humus, or soil) we come into contact with heaven, with God. When we find the courage to climb down into our own passions, they lead us up to God. This sort of humility was prized by the monastic fathers because it is the lower path to God, the path that leads through one's own reality to the true God. The heaven-stormers encounter only their own images of God, their own projections."

-Anselm Gruen, from Chapter One of Heaven Begins Within You: Wisdom From the Desert Fathers

Counter-conversion

Twelve years I kept course,
buoying bleakness with
lucent faith. All of my
verses aimed to follow
the ancient prescriptive
grammar like a compass.

How readily mantra
became meaning; sanctioned
praises steered me away
from the rocks, and karma
calming methods mellowed
deep unruly currents.

But I did not see the
reef sleekly hiding there
with its stagnant questions
and lovely razor coral.
It ripped the sturdy hull
in one jarring moment...

Sound vessels lose their keels;
to write rogue lines, adrift,
implies base betrayal.
How do I dare tread the
truth, without a splendid
intermediary?

Thomas Moore on Ritual

"Ritual maintains the world's holiness. Knowing that everything we do, no matter how simple, has a halo of imagination around it and can serve the soul enriches life and makes the things around us more precious, more worthy of our protection and care. As in a dream a small object may assume a significant meaning, so in a life that is animated with ritual there are no insignificant things. When traditional cultures carve elaborate faces and bodies on their chairs and tools, they are acknowledging the soul in ordinary things, as well as the fact that simple work is also ritual. When we stamp out our mass-made products with functionality blazoned on them but no sign of imagination, we are denying ritual a role in ordinary affairs. We are chasing away the soul that could animate our lives." - Thomas Moore, Care of the Soul

Sidewalk

Suffering will be eliminated,
as long as you stop thinking
the thoughts no one wants to hear.

Blow really hard towards the sky
so that the clouds will move away.

Your shadows will evaporate
like ice cream on the hot sidewalk,
and the man comes with a hose
to spray the residue away.

Your sidewalk will be so perfectly happy.

Dogma's Adventure in Target

In May 2008, most likely under the influence of vodka tonics, “yes,” she said, “I do know the difference between cosmology and cosmetology.”

My dogma was barking
and so I opened the screen door.

She went out to play
in the cosmology section of Target.

She bought nail polish remover
that smelled like perfume
and cotton balls shaped like the moon.

After eating these,
(they will eat anything, you know),
my dogma disappeared.

The red bullseye
is still there
but I can’t bring myself
to look at it
without a feeling of arrows.

Acceptance vs. Striving for Perfection

"Buddhist mindfulness and compassion practices allow us to accept our lives--including fear and loss--as they are. Rather than a path to perfection, these practices are a path to wholeness. We can relax the striving to become different, more perfect humans and learn to live from our basic goodness--from the love in our hearts, from our natural wisdom, humor, and creativity.” - Tara Brach, in a May '05 interview with the Washingtonian.

http://www.washingtonian.com/articles/people/1795.html

Rosemary by Suzanne Vega

Do you remember how you walked with me
Down the street into the square?
How the women selling rosemary
Pressed the branches to your chest,
Promised luck and all the rest,
And put their fingers in your hair?

I had met you just the day before,
Like an accident of fate,
In the window there behind your door.
How I wanted to break in
To that room beneath your skin,
But all that would have to wait.

In the carmen of the martyrs,
With the statues in the courtyard
Whose heads and hands were taken,
In the burden of the sun;
I had come to meet you
With a question in my footsteps.
I was going up the hillside
And the journey just begun.

My sister says she never dreams at night
There are days when I know why;
Those possibilities within her sight,
With no way of coming true.
Some things just don’t get through
Into this world , although they try.

In the carmen of the martyrs
With the statues in the courtyard
Whose heads and hands were taken,
In the burden of the sun;
I had come to meet you
With a question in my footsteps.
I was going up the hillside
And the journey just begun.

All I know of you
Is in my memory
All I ask is you
Remember me.

http://stream.officialcommunity.com/suzannevega/audio/clip/Other/Solo/RoseMaryclip.mp3

Why is this blog here?

It is for me to collect all of my crazy inspiring things. They don't have to make sense or be finished, or even be particularly profound. Whatever pulls me toward the ocean.

"From the urgent way lovers want each other to the seeker's search for truth, all moving is from the mover. Every pull draws us to the ocean." -Rumi