Wednesday, September 17, 2014
How do we rehearse for the unknown?
Let’s go!
And find ourselves falling into faith.
Let go
Into what is always in support
Of our best work.
Guidance arrives in minor adjustment and
Grand exhibitions of strength,
Sending us the secret message
That action is in service to a
Courageous prayer.
This is a living faith,
One that affirms our highest selves
With the language of alignment.
In each new moment, we hear that
All of our lofty ambitions and
All of our boundless dreams,
Are contained
In the word
Infinity.
Monday, September 15, 2014
What was it,
That I woke up?
That wasn’t enough.
A loose pin required refitting
On my desk lamp, flown and
Buried under unfinished work.
A mechanical issue, an aggravated phone call and a
Mix-up between friends, looking for each other.
Somewhere near the middle part of the day I knew
That there could be no abstinence from action and
That all moments demanded a pushing or a pulling
In accord with what is left undone.
With this, my crackled limbs cling to
Forms, faces and the screen and
Look for detailed work to do, even an old sentence left dangling.
In a conquering stride to find all that is left incomplete.
In mechanical, puppet-work from a high-brain command
That insists I set the conditions for perfection.
That knows: action follows awareness follows
action follows awareness.
On a Monday afternoon in a San Francisco grocery store: a million young people. Some of them are in the checkout line and some of them are picking at life-sustaining minerals packaged for take-home. All necks are crooked downwards into their phones. This crowd is hopped-up on the low-dose experience. The low-dose experience that is hurled across not-so-sacred devices, resting for a moment in a shirt-pocket launch pad.
Doing things the old fashioned way, like the old folks do, is a way of reconnecting directly with who it is we are. The old fashioned way almost always means simplicity. Having friends for dinner, a walk in nature, a bath with a book. By getting back to the direct experience of our bodies, we are re-aligning ourself with the physical world around us. The self-that-knows craves the ease of a direct experience without distraction. The ability to read an article without an excessively-boobed temptress leering over the words, suggesting you give online dating a try. Devices offer just enough stimulation to trick us into believing that we are having a real experience. All the energy is there, and none of the physical charge. Emotions are processed through direct experience, the going through of life. By continuously having low dose experiences we are teasing our emotions and eventually curbing them altogether. Imagine the temporary relief that our devices provide us in the midst of real emotion, as if one more man in Budapest who Likes us will stave off the well of feeling that must be experienced to create growth. With the help of the low-dose experience, we are becoming masters at emotional deflection.
The longing for a direct experience will always be there. Our hearts clamor for it. Just remember what life can be like in the flesh. The synchronicity of destined lovers colliding in line at a cafe will always be more direct than the fumbling fingers of an app like Tinder. The wild book that falls on you like Newton’s apple will always be more direct than an e-reader clawing from an overstuffed database of droll. Sex will always be more direct than sexting. It’s not that the newer modes aren’t worthwhile, it’s that they are feigning a direct experience and putting more distance between us and it. What results is that the truth of the experience, what is immediately felt, has that much farther to travel. It’s distilled through some reckless digital consciousness and comes out flimsy and unfulfilling. When it does hit you through the airwaves, in the form of all the nobodies you’ve ever met hurling praise your way, you are still left wanting. A hundred million likes won’t stand against a firm handshake of eager, sweaty palms, greeting you in daylight.
What is it about this big stone grey van that attracts all the enthusiasts?
I’ve never seen one like that before!
Inside it, two road ready honchos spiraling around scenery, stoned.
The dashboard is a mini puja.
The interior is a temple that continually integrates the outside forms
Through a bug gut windshield.
There are the structures that propelled themselves out of the earth a million years ago.
If these are the tops, imagine the roots.
Consciousness motivated forms: Red Mesa, Shiprock. Unnamed
And all crystalline underneath, then composed running and painted over
Striations of green and yellow and a million browns, arranged in competing angles and
Everything appears to be on a grid, honoring some high math that rests just above equation.
The first impression is that this isn’t humble terrain, but thats not it.
This land develops like all blessed things: quietly, quietly, adhering.
Wednesday, February 5, 2014
By the piano, a student leans in.
This isn’t music, it’s something else, nebulous, blue and circling.
Waves. The hymn of creation.
The hum of mossy, tumbled stones.
Every wet field, every ocean seeking cliff,
Every eyelid opening to meet matter halfway.
All of the growing.
Stalks finding room and Goodwill bound sneakers.
All of the suckling young.
My dancer elevates her limbs to honor all beginnings.
Closing and opening she honors all renewal.
The floorboards creak in time to everything that wants to be.
They creak in time to great heaving stars and sunbursts.
Nothing to believe and nothing to disbelieve,
Movement arrives.
