Another Forum

No, Thank You, John

2011-07-22T10:09:00.000-07:00

by Christina Rossetti

I never said I loved you, John:
Why will you teaze me day by day,
And wax a weariness to think upon
With always "do" and "pray"?

You know I never loved you, John;
no fault of mine made me your toast:
Why will you haunt me with a face as wan
As shows an hour-old ghost?

I dare say Meg or Moll would take
Pity upon you, if you'd ask:
And pray don't remain single for my sake
Who can't perform that task.

I have no heart?--Perhaps I have not;
But then you're mad to take offence
That I don't give you what I have not got:
Use your own common sense.

Let bygones be bygones:
Don't call me false, who owed not to be true:
I'd rather answer "No" to fifty Johns
Than answer "Yes" to you.

Let's mar our pleasant days no more,
Song-birds of passage, days of youth:
Catch at today, forget the days before:
I'll wink at your untruth.

Let us strike hands as hearty friends;
No more, no less; and friendship's good:
Only don't keep in view ulterior ends,
And points not understood

In open treaty. Rise above
Quibbles and shuffling off and on:
Here's friendship for you if you like; but love,--
No, thank you, John.

new boyfriend?

2011-07-14T10:33:00.001-07:00

I tend to reflect on my life i have lived. it was a pretty average life for the past 31 years, like any other man my age has. I spent the first 5 or so years of my life studying the arts; finger painting, macaroni pictures, light bright, the usual. By age 7, I was riding elephants competitively in South Africa and engaging in full-contact chess. I was nearly a fully developed man by the age of 8.

Philosophy has always been a passion of mine - I have spent long, lonely nights wondering why world hunger exists, yet vibrating shoes don't. I finished 2nd in the South American Hand Writing contest, took 3rd in the Turkish Nude Olympics, and ironically won 1st place in the competition to be on Lost and The Biggest Loser. P. Diddy has my number on speed dial. I beat Michael Jordan in a 1 on 1.

I once single-handedly commanded an entire fleet of fully trained and dangerously equipped carrier pigeons throughout Kentucky with limited visibility and caution. Unfortunately, I now have a phobia of pigeons. Using nothing but a paper clip, 2 AAA batteries, and a stale box of Corn Flakes, I once saved a child from certain drowning and personally nursed him back to health in under a fortnight. Bill Clinton named his pet rock after me. George W. Bush named his pet rock after Bill’s. I don’t believe in pet rocks.

On my days off, I invent new yoga positions and teach classical arm wrestling techniques to the blind. I watch Saturday Night Live on Sundays, Monday Night Football on Tuesdays, and on Wednesdays I order drinks off the Thursday menu at TGI Fridays. It’s always happy hour when I order. I strategically place Christmas Lights on Jewish People's houses during Kwanzaa. My motive is chaos, my aphrodisiac suspense, and my middle name is **ADVENTURE**. When I buy one I get two free.

This self description is in no way legally documented nor realistic in any way shape or form. Well, except for the part about the light bright. For some reason you ladies seem to bring that up, so just FYI, I am pretty awesome at light bright.

across the pond

2011-06-27T03:27:00.001-07:00

I woke up today
with more self-love than usual

it was coming from my womb

I had been dreaming
of mutilation
scissors snipping off my nose
and other such things

after he and I finally decided
we were too precious not
to reproduce

With him gay,
we came up with a concoction
for how to do it
but people on the street
money-hungry,
figured us out
before we could do it

I woke up,
bathed,
and decided
maybe he would
want me to contact
him

still feeling the scissors' snips
I re-placed everything
decided
on what's settled
what's settled
across the pond

there is some sort of reflection
not to be seen
but if the fish
can feel
that swirl of love again
that was given from
so many boat rides
so many days spent
sunning

forget the hooks
the hooks of dangly worms
that seemed to come
from the best crocheted hands

people once thought steamboats
were earthquakes, too

i watched my nephew,
at 7, use mickey mouse
as his character
to get him through foreign lands
i wondered if, how, wii
would ever afford
such an expedition

my womb calls my name from
inside the
pearly gates
to rice
sticky in the morning
washed gently by hand
until the gluten
dusted away
shines not so brightly
as the pearls,
steamed, seasoned
makes his perfect
breakfast
that food, ranking
just behind strawberries

strawberries
meant the world to me
melted my grandma's skin
into welts

ann
has poison ivy
that she must first explain
at a family gathering
is not contagious
on her skin

i fell asleep with her
while watching
employee of the month
as entertaining as it was
watching them zip around
the showroom floor

there is something missing
when you keep wondering
what kind of employee you are
wake with scissors snips

yet the love must reawaken
even from across the pond
even if wii can't afford
the next years together
the craving of my womb
the craving of the kind of love
i (gave)

it is in the water
somewhere
to be danced with the rice,
the pearls,
the fish who still swim
and see hope
in the glimmer of light
above

let the birds sing
this morning
sniff the air,
sweet kyla,
it is a new day
for all the things
that will come
even as we keep
our own pearls
apart
for this string

btw, blt

2011-06-15T12:24:00.001-07:00

let's
ketsup
soon.

2011-06-09T11:19:00.001-07:00

like a mosquito
they promised to visit
a bunny clad bowl in hand

the bunnies were boppin
topsy turvy
until the scurvy and the mersa
ate all their flesh
have mercy

i've been blessed with a bladder
the gall of a ladder
so many books to scale

the fish taps cotton
on his buffalo shirt
pink skirts the background
a shirt of blue fish

2011-06-03T17:50:00.000-07:00

I could have your descendants
but would they be black enough

could we still link
in international orange
if I buy a watercolor set?

I eat salsa
like my Irish ancestors
discovered
the tomato sauce
first and maybe maybe mostly in restaurants

i bring it home
fresh
from Wal-Mart
where I spoke with
him in Spanish
had the nuance
to cue senorita
even though I could've
been a mujer

hello

2011-05-26T11:38:00.000-07:00

the transcontinental railroad is smoothly sailing above stream.
kyla remains so many shades of green. she waits for her next voice to appear
and keeps her ears pert
when they're not slicked back.

sometimes she expects more than i know how to give
but maybe if we lived with other fishes we'd be so current
we'd be tickling rocks and not even noticing our scum-loving love

her hair tickles the fancy of my carpet
i try to think vacuum
but instead live in a vacuum of her clothes and mine

i try to think quarters
but they're so pretty
what if i put their shiny resonance
down the tube
and only got clean laundry out of it
that would need to be folded and put somewhere
just like now
only minus the shiny quarters

i know i will do something with the clothes someday
but the two dressers are like two ex-or potential boyfriends
that i try not to invest too liberally in
it's better to think i'm in a constant state of packing
i like to unpack rather than live in... why live in a dresser?
it seems more appropriate for an underground hobbit
but for an above-ground hobbit, i think clothes belong visible

if only i could just hang them in the air on a string
i tried closing my closet door but then realized i could live without them

i used to think the television was my friend
then my computer
now i think they're empty multiple thousand screens

i think my clothes are my friends
we really have done things together
they really do compliment me
and we really do do things together
i wash them sometimes
and i suppose i can and do take better care
they're kind of a miracle that they were even born
and that i would even think of trading the money i had
because i needed to take them home

debt is an interesting concept,
and i don't want to talk about it,
so don't even think about asking,
even if you're offering free bankruptcy services
because i'm saving the dessert for tomorrow

i will have it with cheese.
i will butter it, but that could give me a tommy-ache

i wish i had a music source, but i don't want to burden my computer
i have two computers, and i don't want to impose on either one

sometimes i run out of food, which is the most mysterious miracle
because i really never run out of food
and therein the tension lies

i think other than quarters and making sure i really do send the bills
to the right bill
i have no problems
other than trying to collect
i try to stay clam and collected
but really i try only to collect the clams as they come
because if you seek mussels
you might find them in bulk
and then what?
would i boil them or steam them?

i think i need more ex-cer-cise
but i'm busy cising the exes
that all i can think of is exes
in which case why would i ex-my-cise
i like my cise on most days
but come bikini time, what will happen?

should i think about the man across the way
or the men in the way?

should i think about cleaning?
i think about
i think about the newest book and the bathtub the most
i really am in an erotic relationship
it's not that i'm trying to be suggestive
it's just that warm water really does work
they call them sitz baths, some do,
but i just sit there
and if the book gets wet, all the better

i think the biggest improvement would be to
increase/improve/expand my relation to laundry
to really get it wet and then love it to its folded creases
as though its life depended on me.

and that's really about it. that and the relation to paper
to make sure this book is my land before placing in floor
or shelf land.

my dad says he'll buy me two more book cases and offered to help
put them together. i think we can do it.
do i invest in book space?

the head and air space is so nasa i can hardly think vanessa.
you know, the rituals of love seem so adjustable to love
but can you really make love a bookcase with adjustable shelves?
is love the shelves and the compartments of books and chapters
more than they knew when they thought love was a house?

if it is a house, and then you leave, then what is it?
you could have found the perfect house, and then one person leaves
and then what?
much conjecture to be had here about houses and its occupants
we do walk around in our bodies,
and they are our homes
so should i even think about books except the one i'm reading?
or clothes (same question)....

so, that's about it, other than losing my voice

productive....
i better get back to the milky steamboats of the rivers mound...
cha cah

some Rumi and Osho

2011-02-28T20:59:00.000-08:00

"Today, like every other day,
we wake up empty and frightened.
Don't open the door to the study
and begin reading.
Take down a musical instrument.
Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways
to kneel and kiss the ground."

Rumi ♥

"Go with the unknown, go with the new. Always remember: If there is a choice between the old and the new, choose the new. Howsoever dangerous it is, howsoever insecure it is, choose the new. And you will be always moving closer and closer to God." ~ Osho

"I teach you not only the romance of the body, which is very ordinary;
I teach you the romance of the spirit which is eternal, which begins but never ends.
But this is possible only if you start going inwards.
Going inwards is going Godwards.
Going inwards is the whole secret of all alchemical transformation of being.
Running away is simply wasting tremendously valuable time,
and a life that could have been a great song, a great creativity, a tremendous festival of lights." ~ Osho

"Between life and death is love. Life exists only to give an opportunity to love and be loved." ~ Osho

"If God said,
'Rumi, pay homage to everything
that has helped you
enter my arms,'
...there would not be one experience of my life,
not one thought,
not one feeling,
not any act,
I would not
bow to."

"Tantra is the science of turning ordinary lovers into soulmates. And that is the grandeur of Tantra. It can transform the whole earth; it can transform each couple into soulmates. It is one of the greatest treasures lying there unused. The day humanity uses it a new glow will surround the earth; the earth will become aglow with a new love." ~ Osho

Hear this if you can:
If you want to reach him
You have to go beyond yourself
And when you finally arrive at the land of absence
Be silent
Don’t say a thing
Ecstasy, not words, is the language spoken there. ~ Rumi ♥

2011-02-24T17:39:00.001-08:00

my new boyfriend john

2011-02-22T20:55:00.001-08:00

2011-02-22T02:48:00.001-08:00

2011-02-19T21:59:00.001-08:00

2011-02-18T23:12:00.001-08:00

2011-02-17T17:28:00.000-08:00

2011-02-16T21:14:00.000-08:00

God is awake at this hour

2011-02-13T11:24:00.000-08:00

In my moment of grief
Krishana
in India
instant-messaged
Namaste
He knew I needed it

He told me so many things
I used to know
Said he was Western in a former life
I could feel his soul as we IM'd,
could even smell him

Then he told me his heart belongs
to Germany
where his soul wife is

Germany was a surprise

He told me to write my own Gita
own Koran
own Bible

He has given his life
to his soul-wife

"now my happiness and sorrow full ness belongs to her"

"i told her everything about me
and so I love her truthfully"

he told her, "if i love you,
i love you by your soul
not by body."

BUT

she told him she doesn't have feelings for him
so he goes back to God
sends me his words at the right time

and says there is a reason for everything

remembering these lyrics today - in the best of spirits despite appearances

2011-02-11T09:43:00.000-08:00

Iron & Wine: Flightless Bird, American Mouth Lyrics

I was a quick wet boy, diving too deep for coins
All of your street light eyes wide on my plastic toys
Then when the cops closed the fair, I cut my long baby hair
Stole me a dog-eared map and called for you everywhere

Have I found you
Flightless bird, jealous, weeping or lost you, american mouth
Big pill looming

Now I'm a fat house cat
Nursing my sore blunt tongue

Watching the warm poison rats curl through the wide fence cracks
Pissing on magazine photos
Those fishing lures thrown in the cold
And clean blood of Christ mountain stream

Have I found you
Flightless bird, grounded, bleeding or lost you, american mouth
Big pill stuck going down

golden bridge

2011-02-10T12:46:00.001-08:00

there is a golden bridge
that will take you
to the spot
where you want to be

sometimes you walk over the paving stones
and they feel bumpy on your feet
there may be some unexpected tears,
precipitation

and you may look around
thinking where are all the people?
some of them you know, and can acknowledge
exchange the best conversations
and others are in their quiet

the goldenness is in the remembering of the oneness
that even in your pain
and in theirs
you are the same

and all the happy boys
want to be the happy boys
all the time
and they should
but just remember
that even the trees
are singing a tune
that's sometimes sad

we may all end up at the ocean
and watch its waves
and the tides coming in and out
but we feel the tides differently

and if we could watch the tides
and walk backwards
together
make sure everyone's got their feet
in the soft sand

there would be no reason to fear
for we can see what's coming
even when we don't know
what comes next

we can feel the sun
and the rain
just the same

so if i happen to feel it with you
even if it hurts
i want to thank you for that moment

and the sun, and the rain,
and the ocean, too

from omaha to phoenix

2011-02-09T02:10:00.000-08:00

I've Lost So Many Mothers

It started out at K-Mart,
maybe it was a moment

I was in the cart,
and she was off...

Maybe to pick up
some Polaroids...

then we took one
of me in the cart,

next in a line
waiting for fingerprints
to make sure I wouldn't be kidnapped

I remember a brush against
Stephanie's stubbled calf,
and then she was gone.

A blue fragrance
named Heaven
to remind me of her
I wondered if she named
me Heather to prepare me.

Next was her mother,
Annie, a death I could not
accept until I called
every bingo parlor
to confirm

She was not there,
7th grade.
I broke out
in shingles,
my nerves'
first indication
they would respond
big now
when I lost love.
Wake up, Heather.
Dad slathered on the calamine.

Next was Carolee, the biggest,
the mother of all the adopted ones,
the funeral where I couldn't speak.
She wasn't just my housekeeper,
babysitter, mom's best friend, story-teller,
she was the biggest courage I've known.

Next there was Nancy's mom,
a bigger hole in our hearts to love
each other

And now Marilyn,
the Mother I could not call mom
as much as half, or part of me,
would have wanted
It was always your mom
your joy
but the woman whose spirit
I admire
whose face now I see brightest
as I make more room for love.

John's mom, Mary,
a spirit I felt I could
touch in the lost lady-like friend
the gentle, sweet woman
who kept order, who knew
how to be part of a group
to raise a family I loved.

And Ginny
the brave, sprightly spirit
who took on Cindy
and a world of cancer
that she spun right out of
before she looks down again
with love

My response:
to see each mother now,
with more love

Kathy Kelly,
who showed James
how to skin a rabbit
when he was doing it wrong.

Becky Berg,
who tried to love me,
by giving me a Bible.

Thank you to every mother

to lost chances
and found ones

You've made a world
of good.

And even when they're gone,
they're still there,
and that part of you that connects...
it holds them
and you connect on..

MARILYN
Marilyn was a
woman's woman
the woman who
knew the crafts
the gentleness
who knew how
to show the coat closet
in the right way

I knew when Ann read
Ted Kooser's poem
"Mother"
that the wonder-view
of the world
I hungrily stole
from Ann
descended from
Marilyn

I knew when I saw
the pictures of her youth
that some of the class
I've felt
in my spirit
was mirrored
in Marilyn.

Her piano-playing, its own
movie, a woman who can
take on the world
in notes of music,
notes of care,
notes of as ever.

I quietly regarded her,
wondering about my mother's rival
who was no rival

if competition
surrendering your worth
to someone's else standards
were worth mentioning

If each woman
is the same
she is the same
in that she lives
her own life
as best she can
open her heart
down the doors she knows
the doors she finds
and in each year she
is blessed with
in each smile
and ounce of spirit
she earns my regard
but maybe none today
as much as her.

WHAT I REMEMBER
I remember moments with Marilyn
I remember when I discovered
I could chart a year of joy
by listing every family members'
birthday
and Marilyn met me
at her kitchen table
with a knowing spark
ready to tell me
every one.

I remember the first time I saw
a true girl's bedroom
in Ann's
that Marilyn created
marveling I woke in that room
the day of her funeral
with the care she took
the lace of the curtains
now the lace of the beauty
of Marilyn's life

I remember the last time I saw
Marilyn
both of us slightly startled
and amazed by the grace and vigor
of Maya's pet bird

HE CARRIED FORTH
Sex appeal
is built
from a family
yet unfulfilled

as an official student of the humanities, had to post

2011-01-30T18:10:00.000-08:00

My brother, Ron, a bankruptcy lawyer, was saying he would like to sit and watch this all day... It's all about the Humanities, how all religious paths converge, etc

http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/

these lyrics come a poppin' in my head

2011-01-12T16:11:00.005-08:00

Simon And Garfunkel The Boxer Lyrics

Send "The Boxer" Ringtone to your Cell

I am just a poor boy
Though my story's seldom told
I have squandered my resistance
For a pocket full of mumbles such are promises
All lies and jests
Still a man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest

When I left my home and my family
I was no more than a boy
In the company of strangers
In the quiet of the railway station running scared
Laying low, seeking out the poorer quarters
Where the ragged people go
Looking for the places only they would know

Lie la lie ...

Asking only workman's wages
I come looking for a job
But I get no offers,
Just a come-on from the whores on Seventh Avenue
I do declare, there were times when I was so lonesome
I took some comfort there

Lie la lie ...

Then I'm laying out my winter clothes
And wishing I was gone
Going home
Where the New York City winters aren't bleeding me
Bleeding me, going home

In the clearing stands a boxer
And a fighter by his trade
And he carries the reminders
Of ev'ry glove that layed him down
Or cut him till he cried out
In his anger and his shame
"I am leaving, I am leaving"
But the fighter still remains

Lie la lie ...

Rumi

2011-01-11T21:05:00.000-08:00

If the Beloved is everywhere,
The lover is a veil,
But when living itself
Becomes the friend,
Lovers disappear.

-Rumi

on children

2010-11-27T09:25:00.000-08:00

On Children
Kahlil Gibran

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.

2010-08-22T14:43:00.000-07:00

i think i'll skip
the stories about hell
for today, thanks

i've seen enough
but i've been missing
the canopies of the green trees
the pink caverns
the tide coming in to the sandy shore
the mermaid spreading those fins
to embrace the rolling
of the surf

dip that chip
in the red, saucy salsa
dream of places like california
the man in the skin
the secret times
when you want to say baby
and realize there's few people
maybe one
who you'd say that to

they save love is finite
but they forget
it multiplies

2010-06-07T09:17:00.001-07:00

i saw a raccoon rattling
into the grass
as he gently made his way
into making a living
out of the rain
his gentle,
unrabied gate
started in my eyes
by a fire hydrant
ambled beneath a bush
too close to my building to see
and as i sat back at my desk
he reappeared
in my dream
in my waking
skidding toward the street
where he metered the car
driving by
ran fast
across the street
and seeking safety
retreated
into the sewers
wish i could give him
a better home
in my hands
bet he wouldn't bite
that cute, cute raccoon

waking life

2010-06-07T09:02:00.001-07:00

life is a confrontation of dreamers
and workers
and wakers
and sleepers
working for the dreams
connecting to more
falling back asleep
and when there's someone next to you
saying where are we now?
and getting an answer
and sometimes
just going back to your own dream for awhile
hitting snooze
nap
and seeing how you appear
who appears
in the mirror
and realizing real life
is no different from animation
there's theory
and action
maybe the old man
who climbs the pole
without a theory
is the smartest one
but the motion
of the dreamers
and the talkers
is something worth paying attention to
selectively

lorene's parting words

2010-03-13T15:40:00.001-08:00

May your relationships be radiant and concious

behind the muse

2010-03-13T15:37:00.000-08:00

In line, waiting for the chili
He said, I'm going to wait
behind the muse
My hair soft and curly, I smiled
another character in the play

Chili in a bread bowl, reminded me
of my Dad
The beans, whole and red
Anything but dead

A new day
Started with a white sky
ready for an application
ready for what needs
to happen
life very clearly
needs to happen
in line at the cafeteria
smiling at Ella, who
I met yesterday

Onward into new moments
Life is arriving

2010-03-10T07:41:00.000-08:00

i am tremulous
in the face of anything
i would perceive as fear

tremulous in front of
of forgetting
the beauty inside
the beauty of the perceiver
of the bluebird,
laundry,
brown leaves
remembering my legs
full of energy
remembering the running
the red fire hydrant
all that is around
and within me.

we are the same
and yet each flowing
in currents

2010-02-17T17:11:00.001-08:00

people's biggest fear is falling, even though they spend the whole first year of life doing it.

thanks for the message u church

2010-02-06T11:25:00.001-08:00

"tyranny is always
better organized
than freedom"

celibate since saturday

2010-02-03T16:32:00.000-08:00

what do you think it means
when you've replaced your password
from your hometown
to sugarcoat?
(don't worry, i'll change it again)...

i chose to take the journey
i read so many student papers
and sometimes it feels like an avalanche
but you know what
if you get out from under the avalanche
you'll see
sometime the light will reappear from within
and you'll remember you have a soul

and those souls who have been weighing you down
you'll remember they have a story
and they're the hero
and better yet, you're the hero
of yours

so many of my students love their fathers
and i remember how i love mine
one father of a student drives 20 hours a day
in a semi
and she hardly ever sees him

and i don't know if i'll provide some child
with a father
maybe all the men on the planet are too busy
being other things
but i also don't know if i'll be a mother
maybe i'm too busy doing other things
and
i won't let that make me sick today
i will find a place to put each and every paper
as each story makes my heart wholer and bigger
even though sometimes
that feels like quite a stretch

but today i learned in yoga that the main thing
i need to stretch
are my hands
this typing
this white-collar lifestyle
some people may say i don't work with my hands
but what the fuck do i work with then?
my heart?

we all do

and i love my heart
and i love how i've really used it
and it doesn't even matter if the people
i loved
loved me back
or not
because i'm just in this moment
and i'm going to make mashed potatoes and gravy
and keep living
because my grandma didn't go through all she went through
and either did carolee
who was so alive
she still feels alive to me
5 1/2 years after she's dead

go ahead
and give yourself a shot
at being some kind of hero, too
for yourself
for a change

better yet
may all beings be happy
may all beings be free

bo

2010-01-22T07:43:00.001-08:00

i wish i had a cat
named bo pellini
who likes to eat
shrimp linguini

but because i spend
all my time teaching
i'll skip the cat
and skip his preaching

strength

2010-01-11T05:54:00.001-08:00

dear carolee reilly,
thank you for the strength you gave me.

lighthouses

2009-12-29T10:23:00.000-08:00

thanks to all the lighthouses

Charles Bukowski

2009-12-25T14:10:00.001-08:00

Christmas eve, alone,
in a motel room
down the coast...
near the Pacific—
hear it?

they’ve tried to do this place up
Spanish, there’s
tapestry and lamps, and
the toilet’s clean, there are
tiny bars of pink
soap.

they won’t find us
here:
the barracudas or the ladies or
the idol
worshippers.

back in town
they’re drunk and panicked
running red lights
breaking their heads open
in honor of Christ’s
birthday. that’s nice.

soon I’ll finish this 5th of
Puerto Rican rum.
in the morning I’ll vomit and
shower, drive back
in, have a sandwich by 1 p.m.,
be back in my room by
2,
stretched on the bed,
waiting for the phone to ring,
not answering,
my holiday is an
evasion, my reasoning
is not.

more baby jesus

2009-12-25T12:37:00.000-08:00

it's a baby jesus snow shower. nice day for a white wedding

alimony

2009-12-25T11:24:00.001-08:00

so alimony is like an unemployment check for the divorced. usually only women get it. you've put so many years into the system, and this is what you get back for when you're not married. it's temporary. and it's an opportunity to find new purpose

Jesus

2009-12-25T10:57:00.000-08:00

Yesterday my yoga teacher Liz mentioned that Jesus came to Earth (or we might say was born) to help the humans do something in particular. I can't remember what, though. I'll have to ask her. Was he born to help people? What would Jesus do in this blizzard on his birthday right now? Would he help me move my car? Is he on the Catholics' shoulders as they distribute mass-produced turkey to people who are further along in the aging continuum?

What kind of associations am I supposed to be making today? The snow is coming down, and the world is very white, with a smattering of orange leaves and brown trunks.

It is peaceful. It is peaceful to be a being all by herself, with or without the Internet, with or without a dog. That's kind of the surprise of the day.

Last night I felt like there was no room for me and my dog at any inns or family members' homes. It was okay. I made do with more than a manger. I had heat. I had three wise friends over the phone.

I want to remember what Jesus was trying to do... I think he was trying to uplift, to tell us that we'd have life everlasting... I don't think he mentioned hell (didn't the Puritan priest, Jonathan Edwards, come up with that--sinners in the hands of an angry God?) I have a feeling Jesus wasn't trying to start religious wars. He wasn't trying to torment people for not believing in his divinity. I'm sure he wanted us to remember ours. His last words, I believe were: "Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do." ... (But, I'm wondering, do you really think we don't know what we're doing, Jesus? I mean right or wrong, we know what we're doing. If you want to live in a duality anyway. Maybe we're just not making excuses for being ourselves. I mean what would you have done if God weren't so clearly your father? What did you do that we don't know about? :) )

Oh, wait. The reason why Jesus said that was because they were imposing the death penalty on him as, my brother-in-law Kumy says, he was doing tree pose on the cross. (Maybe Jesus' ego didn't even feel the persecution at all.) I want to remember why they put they imposed the death penalty on Jesus again... hmmm... Because he was a Jew, yeah? And the Romans didn't like it? What was Pontius Pilate's point? Say that five times fast.

Did Jesus come to Earth to fall in love with humans and humanity, to tell his dad/the creative force we were worthy of forgiveness? It's such an interesting story, that God gave us free will and then maybe was disappointed when we didn't follow the rules. (I think many people would argue the creative force wants us to be as creative as possible, so long as we're not too taxing on the system?) Some people believe in some of the rules more than the others. I guess that's what people fight about, and maybe I take issue with some rules, too.

But I hope we all agree that it's precious to be a part of it, my dear Spinoza.

It's so lucky to have the chance. And Liz says it goes on even after we die. So this essence of us, that has the good fortune to fall in love with you, and brussel sprouts, and even an inspiring philosopher or poet or teacher along the way--this is something sacred, part of it, and yet unique in its particular combination of energies.

Holy buckets of snow (much easier to see than all those snowflakes blizzing through the air). There is good fortune. And if I need to be forgiven, I'm supposed to know that Jesus and God will forgive me. And me, too.

So Happy Birthday... and global warming or not, thanks for giving me a chance to have Christmas all to myself. Hope to see you next year (and sooner, maybe even Sunday)

What If

2009-12-13T14:23:00.001-08:00

What if our religion was each other
If our practice was our life
If prayer, our words
What if the temple was the earth
If forests were our church
If holy water--the rivers, lakes, and oceans
What if meditation was our
relationships
If the Teacher was life
If wisdom was self-knowledge
If love was the center of our being

-Munay Radtke

the dog park

2009-12-13T09:36:00.000-08:00

have you ever eaten a pine tree?
actually stuck your mouth around a pine
needle, covered with snow?
if you haven't, you might need to reconsider

lately, have you walked through a drift of snow
and had a siberian husky tunnel in front of you with her nose?

i've been reading essays about how words can fail
to convey experience
and realize maybe we've just got to live our own

but have you seen two saint bernards
in their russet, thick fur
come up to a husky
and seem to say, you may be the more direct descendant
of the wolf
but the humans had a better idea with us

the husky runs away
bearing her teeth
saying i got these from the wolf
and now i'm on my way

when's the last time
you've eaten snow?

if there's snow outside
and you haven't had a bite today
you might
be making a mistake.

i crossed paths a couple times
with a woman with three dogs
one was a tan beagle
with a bark bigger than his bite
and i wondered why she didn't try to
calm my environment and shut him up
she had accepted her circumstances
gabbing away on the phone
telling someone she thought that
was the best thing they should do

but i'm wondering:
really, have you eaten snow?
there's something healing,
deeper than water
or ice

a man just walked by with a cowboy hat
carrying a round case saying something
about a cowboy

and i want to tell you
it's all spiritual

so was the man with the beard
who could be a santa claus
but looked like he spent more time
on a motorcyle
and today he had a german shepherd pup
who he can count on spending at least
12 years with

what a policy
a dog represents
and that pine needle
with its snow for today

and those drops of honey
you put in your tea
and the cheese-flavored chex-mix

and the papers you need to grade

and those lips you dreamed of kissing today
especially after you ate the snow.

the thing about poetry

2009-12-13T06:05:00.000-08:00

the thing about poetry
or words that don't go all the way across
the page
but try to be more contained
is that it helps you make better choices
you see how in a few words
rather than racing thoughts
trying to claim
chapters of your life
you can shape your vision
you can represent yourself
look at it
and think
how would i like to better represent
experience
not just on the page
but in life
you can sort of
reshape your eyes
to make sure
you're looking at the trees
that you're listening to the om
song

you realize more acutely
maybe
your om song
i'm from omaha
i've actually never lived there
i'm from bellevue
but i've driven in omaha
and hung out there
and had family there
enough to feel like i'm from there

and then i've lived in lincoln for 8 years
it has been this funny place
in my head a lot
where it's just me a lot
figuring out life
while living my 20's here
and now it's the 30's
and somehow i set up some gigs
so that this little place
that has trees, too
and some restaurants
feels kind of like home
and this apartment
where i've been since halloween
is nice
i've lived here for about 10 years
and 2 days

Sunday morning

2009-12-13T05:34:00.000-08:00

Ever wake up
on a Sunday morning
at 6 or 7 am
and know who you want to talk to
know who you wish your arm could be around
that moment
and you want to talk to him?

You know he's in his own place
sick in a bed of sorts
and you want to drive over
but you finally have the sanity
to realize the best thing
is to let him sleep?

You get in your car anyway.
You look for light.
You go through Starbuck's
some kind of friendliness at this early hour
while you wait for them to turn your phone back on
now that you've made a payment
even Sunday mornings sometimes require payment

The girl on the other side of the Starbucks speaker
doesn't understand your language
you're trying to speak hers
going to the trouble of saying Grande
when you know that it's medium

you say you want hot tea
she doesn't understand
"you mean the most complicated drink ever that will cost
more than the two dollars you're holding?"
no, just tea, please
you mean... and eventually you tell her
they say they don't have it
you revise
she gets another woman on the line to make sure
she understands you
all this before 8am
and then you're proud
when a man gives you your change, and you're
not mad at anyone
you remembered yesterday that it feels better
when you let go
of all resentments.

you want to talk to that one person still
instead, you drive by the house you almost bought with him.
it's beautiful. you still wish you could live there.
you realize more clearly where he is, wherever he is
you think if you did live in this lovely house,
still for sale,
it would have Christmas lights up right now

you drive down that street to the east
the sun is still coming up, and canopied by trees
there is beauty
you see an elementary school with a sign saying
book fair and music concert
and you think is life too complicated, or am i
for me to think it would be fun to go here with my kid
for it to be that simple?

you want to call somebody
a friend on the east coast perhaps
where they're awake
but busy, even on a sunday morning, you're sure

you've finally thought of what to do, what you could do today
and you might walk in the woods later with your snowpants
and your dog
and you will definitely read/grade papers
and you will drink the tea
and you love all the music you play
and you play it again and again
so happy that you can make choices
that make you feel better

and you know that what he needs is to feel better
and you feel glad for him
that he has the freedom
of figuring out what will make him feel better

and you get a phone call
and you hope it's someone you love
you don't get it in time because your ringer is too quiet
but there's a message
from a random guy "from class"
who saw your message on facebook
that you'd lost your phone
and he did the same thing, and it's no problem
and you say thank you on the internet
and glimpse at his pictures
and see some ones where you think this guy is nice
and it's not an attraction thing
it's a human thing
and you're human
and you're glad about the humans

and you look forward to later in the day
when you do something nice for your dog
and your tea
and all the things you'd love to do

and you realize nothing is going to kill you
maybe you'll put up walls of fear
once in awhile
to get out and work through

and then you'll climb through them
to some place snow-covered or sun-strewn
and you'll be back on the beach again
and you'll see green again
and as dar williams says, you'll push on into that mystery
and it will push back
and there are worse things than that

and as for home, you're somewhere right now
you lucky dog
and there's no way this could have an end
because love doesn't
and life chooses us after all
dar says

and we choose back

The Balance of F

2009-12-06T12:39:00.000-08:00

Future
Fuck
Freedom
French Fries
Frank
France

Franchise
Fat
Failure
Forward Bend
French

Fallen
Fantastic
Forgotten
Fa Jian

Fry-daddy
Frailty
Future
For now

Free
French
Fellatio
Fall down
Friends

Father
Fry-daddy
Fantastic
Forever
Foot down

Frankly
Forever
Forgotten
For now

Find me
Feeling
Frisky
For hope
For now

Find Freedom
Five Fingers
Five Femurs
Five Friends

Five
Fifty
Five-Fingered-Feet
don't fall down

quotes

2009-12-03T17:54:00.001-08:00

"We are never so confident as when judging other people. But to be ourselves is the true test of confidence."

Courage is leaving a part of who you were behind to find out who you are now, to become..."

-Heather Hunter

all of it

2009-11-23T19:55:00.001-08:00

your whole life
has meaning.
and it's all as positive
as what you tried to give it.
that's the gift
under the tree of life
that we all take with us.

set the intention

2009-11-22T13:13:00.001-08:00

set the intention

the words,
the path,
and the people
will follow

and you will know them all
through the body
and the heart

for the rest of your life

2009-11-18T05:18:00.001-08:00

for the rest of your life
you are going to have me
walking around inside of you

each act of love
moves us forward
love can be letting go
love can be a thought, a feeling

but to be not just an obsession
but a life
it takes steps

sometimes we want to run
and stretch beyond our highest heights

but for today
let's have faith
and walk forward

looking forward to the reunion
of voice
hands
mouth
tongue
us.

accessed privilege

2009-10-27T19:33:00.001-07:00

when we're walking back from the beach,
i hope you feel like you got something out of it
i used to think the beach was all that
but now i know
that if i went with you
you should have gotten something out of it.

i can go back to the beach by myself.
but if i went with you
i sure as hell got something out of it

if you didn't,
you better go back to the beach
you better get in those waves
you better taste some salt

if you didn't taste
that you accessed privilege
when you accessed me
then you never went to the beach at all
you should have stayed home

because whatever it is was
that was boring you there
is still you
so just stay home next time
because if you think that i'm the waves
and you can ride the waves
and walk back from the beach in silence
then just bury yourself in the sand
because access to the privilege of me
is sand in your eyes.

talk when you can speak
until then
just keep turning over that sand
over and over again
granule by granule
in every wet part
in every gap
of your entire body

because until you get what you accessed
when you accessed me
you might as well plant an umbrella
in front of the cable television
with a lawnchair in your living room
because you don't get at all
what it means
to be alive
and true.

don't mute that commercial.
you're the commercial.

The Truth is

2009-10-14T06:15:00.001-07:00

The truth is
since I met you
I haven't had
a moment's peace

My mind reflects upon
loving you
upon your interests
what you say
what you do
where you are

Sometimes I can't wait
to hear
what's next
I want next to be
with you

I've had to find new depths
of reason
to want to do anything
but have you
in my mind
in my heart
in my bed

the truth is
the most peace
I would find
is to be without you
if I can't be with you

The truth is
you will never leave
my heart

and the Truth is
I've gotta find peace
again
because you've shaken me
so full of love and desire
I can hardly find my toes

highly sensitive...

2009-10-06T01:52:00.000-07:00

amy mentioned that jung had a term called "highly sensitive person"... i found an interesting website on the topic. while i only scored 11, and you need 14 to be highly sensitive, i find it all highly interesting. here's an article on grief and coping:
http://www.hsperson.com/pages/1Aug09.htm

Who Dunnit?

2009-09-24T05:17:00.001-07:00

It's not about Who Dunnit?
Who is the person responsible
for bombing those buildings
let's get the guy
who left those suitcases outside
and bombed the cops?

The question is not
whose DNA it is
but why is it happening?

Injustice
is not a social issue
It's a spiritual one
And we can keep building
the bars in the buildings
and in our minds
spending more and more money
on insulating ourselves
from the one thing we need:
understanding
of why

Due process
cannot be achieved
when money is the only means

It's all Love

2009-09-24T05:06:00.001-07:00

In the moment,
It may not always seem "all good,"
but the Positives would like us to think so
In the moment, though,
It Is
ALL LOVE

The Hate
Is Love
for the Self
The Inability in that Moment
To be in Relationship
Until We Can Understand

The space to understand
Is Love
The space of the Self
Is Love
It is deserved
Each Self
is deserved
and is love.

Delphiniums in a Window Box

2009-09-18T17:44:00.001-07:00

Delphiniums in a Window Box
by Dean Young, from the New Yorker... Thanks for the reference, Zulaika...

Every sunrise, even strangers’ eyes.

Not necessarily swans, even crows,

even the evening fusillade of bats.

That place where the creek goes underground,

how many weeks before I see you again?

Stacks of books, every page, characters’

rages and poets’ strange contraptions

of syntax and song, every song

even when there isn’t one.

Every thistle, splinter, butterfly

over the drainage ditches. Every stray.

Did you see the meteor shower?

Did it feel like something swallowed?

Every question, conversation

even with almost nothing, cricket, cloud,

because of you I’m talking to crickets, clouds,

confiding in a cat. Everyone says,

Come to your senses, and I do, of you.

Every touch electric, every taste you,

every smell, even burning sugar, every

cry and laugh. Toothpicked samples

at the farmers’ market, every melon,

plum, I come undone, undone.

growth

2009-09-02T10:01:00.000-07:00

it's only been 1 month and 5 days since my last post? this seems impossible. i think i am re-emerging into an online creative persona on some level because of my online fiction class i'm taking, but i don't know what kind of gems i'll have to offer here, but i'd like to try...

for today, i'll say:
growth is quite a stretch. we can't expect to grow if we don't wanna stretch... :)

alarm

2009-07-27T03:26:00.000-07:00

the alarm went off at 5:15
and it was beautiful
to wonder
where you are

the unwaken being knows
your presence
and expects it

and it's so unexpected
wonderful,
beautiful, and natural
how that came to be true

next i pictured us
in a sports utility vehicle
driving up the california coast
to meet my friends

don't worry, it wasn't our
sports utility vehicle

i pictured easily
my friends being your friends
my brothers your friends and brothers

and this is all in the 13 minutes
since i woke up to a new day

last night i wondered what life
would be like beyond that moment

today i knew, in my early moments
in the bathroom, this brown-carpeted
temporary place we've managed to inhabit
despite the bats, who have now been warded off
with a spearmint-peppermint combination,
that this new moment, this new emotional place
includes you

it felt expansive,
ready to receive you further
ready to look up at those trees
in a new neighbhorhood
ready to look out the windows
in the winter
in our new home
ready for our dog
to have a new yard

ready for all that will come to us
ready to get to work now on the things
that earn money
because now
that earns
more time with you.

poem to relieve nausea?

2009-05-12T12:09:00.000-07:00

-by Natalie Goldberg, intro in Banana Rose

If we have no soul
Something aches in us anyway
Heaves our breath
Pumps our blood

Sun thrown across tree tops
Do you see New Mexico?

Wind storms crack across it
Days break against it
I hurt for dry dirt
Big sky
Bell in a tower
Sage across the eye

Burnt land
Old sand carcass
Your rosebuds are hardening
Your leaves turning
My heart burning

no more slices

2009-05-03T19:30:00.000-07:00

there will be
no more
slices of matrimony

it's something that
should be served whole
those pieces of strawberries
the cream
the cake
that seems to come
from something whole

it has to be whole.

we can't share a piece of that.

matrimony is an unknown game
of chance when it comes
to the future

love itself
can lead to sobbing
that can't be placed
on a phone
or on a person
who cannot hear it
or receive it

matrimony
cannot be served
by the slice

in a cafe
with the man you love
with your whole being

so much that the tears
when he is gone
when he cannot do it
when he says it was a mistake
if it led you here

matrimony cannot be served
by the slice
it cannot be called
delicious
it cannot be savored
for an hour
followed by
a beautiful kiss
a false promise
and an end
and an end
and an end
and an end

in grief
we hope to come
to some new place

we hope that upon
finding ourselves
in tears
we will
someday
find ourselves
again.

sometimes
we are supposed
to pretend
that we are alive
when we want to be dead

sometimes we are supposed
to pretend that it was
just an ending

like a death
but
when they are alive
and we are in love
what then?

some kind of compassion
for another's
compassion
that leads
to our what?

it is pain.
it is suffering.
it the loss of
the slice
of the whole thing
of the house
of the kiss
of the word
of the sound of the voice
of the body we love
of any moment
of any future
of any car
of any frog
of any
of any
of any
of any

matrimony
cannot be served by the slice

it can be ended
by divorce
but not tonight

what about the soul?
what if we're the only ones
who feel it?
what if we are the only one?
what if we are the one who has
to walk alone?

find the tent?
find a place to be free
to be whole
to find a word
called recover
take cover
take cover
from the storm
of your heart
take cover
from me.....

if only that were true
if we could take cover
together

how will i take cover
from the you in me?

from "why him? why her"

2009-04-08T19:29:00.000-07:00

Somewhere there waiteth in this world of ours
For one lone soul, another lonely soul--
Each chasing each through all the weary hours,
And meeting strangely at one sudden goal;
Then blend they--like green leaves with golden flowers,
Into one beautiful and perfect whole--
And life's long night is ended, and the way
Lies open onward to eternal day.

-SIR EDWIN ARNOLD

be

2009-04-08T16:43:00.000-07:00

be
who you are
don't get tied up
in the excuses
of anyone else's expectations

what is your greatest joy?

sitting on a mountaintop
and wondering who you are is fine
but go for the best you
you can be

it's not about who everyone sees
it's about how you feel
it's about your joy, your bliss
your greatest resonance,
your highest frequency

if you have one life
to broadcast
what tune do you want to play?

if you have one life
to broadcast
who do you want in your audience?
do you want an audience that talks back?

what moves you to tears?
is it worth pain
to feel the positive tears
the ones that come after the pain?

how many new wonders
could you cry for?
how many new joys?
how many beings could you love?
what helps you to love the greatest?

these are the big questions.

the stuff behind us
has shaped us
but it's not all
we choose what lies ahead

the great paradox
is that life is change
and yet it's what we most resist

people bang their heads
night after night
against walls
finally get into a soft bed
where they hope to sleep

there are soft beds everywhere
your body could be a softer bed
if you gave it a life it loved
if you gave it the relaxation
that comes not at death
but from living the life you love

what makes your spirit bigger?
what traps it in a case?

there are no guns to your head
and your life should not be a gun

there is no need to go off
when what you need is to walk

we have had many loves
what do we want to carry tomorrow?

sometimes there is conversation
sometimes there is just talk
sometimes there is not conversation
and sometimes we have to have a talk

come to jesus, they say
this is my word
this is my life

and i'm not hanging it on a cross.

a poem a day (by someone else)

2009-04-08T04:22:00.001-07:00

How to Read a Poem: Beginner's Manual
by Pamela Spiro Wagner

First, forget everything you have learned,
that poetry is difficult,
that it cannot be appreciated by the likes of you,
with your high school equivalency diploma,
your steel-tipped boots,
or your white-collar misunderstandings.

Do not assume meanings hidden from you:
the best poems mean what they say and say it.

To read poetry requires only courage
enough to leap from the edge
and trust.

Treat a poem like dirt,
humus rich and heavy from the garden.
Later it will become the fat tomatoes
and golden squash piled high upon your kitchen table.

Poetry demands surrender,
language saying what is true,
doing holy things to the ordinary.

Read just one poem a day.
Someday a book of poems may open in your hands
like a daffodil offering its cup
to the sun.

When you can name five poets
without including Bob Dylan,
when you exceed your quota
and don't even notice,
close this manual.

he asks "who has this?"

2009-04-07T06:13:00.000-07:00

soon i'm going to post some stuff from mary pipher's new memoir that resonates with me and my experiences... not now... stay tuned.

two posters of notes in greg keller's classroom

2009-04-06T06:07:00.000-07:00

There's a Hole in My Sidewalk: Autobiography in Five Short Chapters

1.
I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost . . . I am helpless.
It isn't my fault.
It takes me forever to find a way out.

2.
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don't see it.
I fall in again.
I can't believe I am in this same place.
But, it isn't my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.

3.
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I SEE it there.
I still fall in . . . it's a habit . . . but,
my eyes are open,
I know where I am.
It is MY fault.
I get out immediately.

4.
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.

5.
I walk down another street.

"The Precious Stillness"

One final paragraph of advice:
Do not burn yourself out.
Be as I am--
a reluctant enthusiast...
a part-time crusader,
a half-hearted fanatic.
Save the other half of yourselves and your lives
for pleasure and adventure.
It is not enough to fight for the land:
it is even more important to enjoy it.
While you can.
While it's still there.
So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around
with your friends,
ramble out yonder and explore the forests,
encounter the grizz,
climb the mountains,
bag the peaks,
run the rivers,
breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air,
sit quietly for a while,
and contemplate the precious stillness,
that lovely, mysterious and awesome space.
Enjoy yourselves,
keep your brain in your head
and your head firmly attached to the body,
the body active and alive,
and I promise you this much:
I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies,
over those desk-bound people with their
hearts in a safe deposit box
and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators.
I promise you this:
you will outlive the bastards.

-Edward Abbey

bbc article

2009-04-06T03:27:00.000-07:00

zulaika told me about this article (from 2003, that she still remembers) linking women's use of the birth control pill to a choice of inappropriate mates, changing their natural pheromone detection...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/2677697.stm

epic poem

2009-04-05T08:12:00.001-07:00

i just watched rivers and tides and wrote the longest poem i've ever written while watching it. if you are reading this, you influenced this poem, too. someday i should edit it. probably not today. have concrete things to do, too. i think it's a movie length-poem, so beware. it needs an editing room. some words are stolen. i try to quote them when they are. others are me changing things, seeing things, extrapolating, trying to tell you and me and everything something.

When spring begins
it doesn't begin on the surface
it begins below.

an exchange of energy, of heat
that begins inside
and must work its way up
before we can see
the evidence of change.

the snow may still unexpectedly fall
down from the heavens
but the earth knows
of the change that's begun.

it is only a matter of time
for the change to sprout up
for the new cycle to begin.

roots can look charred, look painted,
fragile, but it's just the way we find them.

we find ways of understanding
what's going on at the moment.

some of last year's plants
will not grow again
even though they're still
connected to that root system
underground

the idea of what happened last year
is being repeated this year

we are going to come through this.

the old must burn
to give new life

the real work
is the change.

processes in nature are connected
to the sun, the moon, the tide, growth.

pull your own tooth
hold a baby bunny
look at film
see stones
through light

talk about
sculpture
through pictures

we get visually
and physically numb
to what we've made

good work
and bad work
everything
is put into here

who are you working for?

do you work intuitively?

pick
yellow flowers
by a stone wall

make
your best work

indications of how strongly
you feel for this place

pick dandelions
for a tin bowl

. . . . . .

a child is the first
to be born on the street

you see only births,
she sees only deaths

he lies in the rain
on the concrete
to see his shadow
while he rises

a rainbow

a yellow trail
of picked flowers
through a purple patch

a red ribbon
streaming through
green leaves

water rushes,
a bouquet of dandelions
afixed to rocks

he loves me, he loves me not
thrown into the
rushing stream

beauty
for its own sake

the river,
a line we follow
an unpredictability
running through
its own cycles
to the weather
and the sea

the river
joins the year
together

a river of stone
animals
wind
water

a river is not
dependent on water
we're talking about
flow

green leaves
chased through
by a green ribbon

a river of growth
that flows through
the trees
and the land

a spiral eye
on the skin
of a tree
its depth
is not seen
when it stays still.

our depth is not seen
when we stay still.

the barbs on the tree
the bulbous growths
make it look
tumored
cancered
but seen from
the landscape
it is
its own whole

its branches make
its own kaleidoscope
while the rams,
the ewes, the baby sheep
make their kaleidoscope
in its midst.

the shepherd
still carries
a hooked staff
catches
a running,
cornered sheep

helps it
to birth
new young

it is not
stillborn
though covered
in mucus
the shock
of new life
it may seem so
at first

surprisingly
it is all over
very quick
painless
the baby shakes
its head

the mother
her own fur matted
licks mucus
off her baby

the men look on,
handle what they can
with their hands

somewhere
there is also
death

a curled horn
seems so inappropriate
for this life
too ornate
for our eyes
let alone
his head

clumps of sheep hair
strung together
strewn over stones
a river of sheep
a flow of movement
in their own way

sheep dot the landscape
strings of wool
strewn on rock

there are no trees
because of the sheep

they have had
a deep impact
on the land

he feels a need
to work with
the sheep
and yet knows
his perception of sheep
is so different from
the reality
of sheep

it makes it
an incredibly
difficult thing
to work with
because
we perceive it
as being a wooly animal

to get through
that wooliness
the essence of
the sheep
is very hard

the sheep
is a powerful animal
in its own way

a wall of lumpy stone
built by man

..............

sheep have been responsible
for social and political upheavals
he says

people were put off
the land,
moved away
for the sheep
baby sheep today

they have left their
story behind them.

there is an emptiness
in the landscape
because of sheep.

wool-y mammoth
stone

big stone
touched by man

people lived, worked, and died here,
he can feel their presence
in the place where he works

.....................

I am the next layer
upon things that have
already happened.

climb a moss-splotted stone
seen from above
it forms a circle

not a sign
of man or woman
but a gateway,
an opening

mothers and fathers
to an art

a monument
amidst a landscape

the camera revolves
in earthy revolution
resolution

he doesn't think
the earth needs him
at all
but he does need it

his work
roots him again
and if he doesn't work
he feels
root-less.

he doesn't
know himself

he needs to be
on his own
at times
enjoys being
by himself

there are people's
company
he does enjoy
and yet he heals and feeds
on his own solitude

to be honest, he says,
he is drained
by people.

there are subtleties
that only he
is aware of
the present state
of the wind

though he looks
as calm as he did
30 seconds ago
there are those little warning bells
going off inside

he has built
an unknowably standing web
of twigs
connecting to a tree
somehow standing
in the air

he makes what shouldn't
stand in the air

its vast difference
from expectation
from convention
stands
and makes space
for the sun to shine through.

when he makes a work
he often takes it
to the very edge
of its collapse.

a beautiful balance

it shakes
and he reaches
to catch it
steady his creation,
with both hands
bandaged fingers

He watches it collapse
and holds his head.

It is gone,
and he sits sighing,
That was close.

"I am amazed at times
that I am actually alive."

His creation
lies in a heap
the tree branches
stand
in a heap,
root system
seeable, greened by codependent creatures

.................................

"There have been occasions
when someone very close to me died."

He smacks the dirt off the moss
makes thread
as he does from wool, from flowers
strings along everything he knows
to his most beautiful extension.

He reaffixes what he can.

The image
of his brother dying
is burned in his mind.

The day after
he worked
at the tree.
Seemed
the right place
to go.

He finally made
a work with the whole
on the tree.

He has come to see it
as a kind of entrance
into the tree, the stone, the earth

"An entrance
between which
life both ebbs
and flows."

Looking into a black hole
he often describes
is like looking over a cliff's edge.

A sense of being
drawn into the black
as drawn into the depths
The distance

But the other side
of that
is out of that
also comes growth

even stones
have holes

The black is not just a death
not just the absence
it's the intangible
but in the context
of a tree
that he knows
will come back to life.

There's nothing more potent
than a black hole
that he's made

and later he sees
a little finger of growth
a blade of growth
growing out of the black.

the river gurgles in
an unimaginable surge
of its own
unexpected direction.

forces following
the earth, gravity
as they unexpectedly combine
circle
and entangle
before making their way.

leaves upon leaves
strung together
in unexpected chains
twining their way together
like a serpent
down a stream
a sway they live
in their own creation

unexpected leaps and bounds
a ribboned collapse
of unpredictable direction

a flow
not knowing
which end
is up
until it is up

breakfast is served
at a diner
syrup over eggs
over waffles,
bacon.

men pound stones
shirtless in shorts

they are making a wall
repairing gaps

he has to respect
their work
their lives

they each have their roles
working their own space

their dialogue with the stone
is what makes the wall

it makes itself
to some extent

the fluidity of working
that gives the sculpture
a sense of movement, energy

walls are a link
back to a home

settlers make
walls
and we remake
the walls
so that they talk
about the place
as it is now.

"The walls have
come out of that process
of cutting down the trees
and turning the forest
into farmland.

But then farming has shifted
away from this landscape
and trees found shelter in the wall
and grew."

It is a dialogue.

"A wall is a line
in sympathy with the place
through which it travels."

That sense of movement
is very important
to the understanding
of sculpture

the river of growth
a flow that runs
around the world
the veins that run
around the world

roads
arteries
trucks
farms
land
music
pulse
water
curving walls
expanses of trees
birdsong
symphony
quiet regret
sound of movement

red drips on stone
he reaches into the water
and collects
stones that color
red on rock
he beats them
their iron,
making rocks, blood red

he feels special energy
in the red
its relationship to blood
something he can't explain entirely

a relationship to life
even though things die
they're part
of that flow still.

they become part
of the river of red.

"In Japan you'll see
a red maple tree
against a green mountain
and it's like a
wound in the mountain."

an energy and violence
about the color

a continuous pursuit
of red

as he approaches its source,
he learns the lessons
of the color

the color is also
in him
a feeling of a color and energy
flowing through all things

the water turns red
a seepage
of iron

realizing the red
is not so obvious

something so dramatic,
so intense
and so hidden
underneath the skin
of the earth

released,
it swirls,
it pools

a shock at seeing that color
so alien to the river
while its origins are rooted
to that place.

stone goes through a process
of solidification
and then becoming fluid again
and becoming solid once more

a memory in the life of the stone
very much in the spirit, in its nature

"We set so much
by our idea
of the stability of stone
and when we find
that stone itself
is actually fluid and liquid
it can undermine
our sense
of what is here to stay
and what isn't."

. . . . . .

They put human hair
from the barbershop in his town
in the clay to the walls that he builds

the cracks at the surface
of the clay
contain us
the cracks at our surface
contain the growth
the flow
of all

of course it feels alive.

words do their job,
but what he's doing there
says a lot more.

unravel your soul.

mist, water, the snow blows

much deeper than that.

the art of letting go

2009-04-02T17:28:00.000-07:00

close your eyes
and have someone read this
to you...

you are getting very, very
sleepy
9, 8, you are going deeper
7, 6, you are into the deepest
recesses of your unconscious
mind, 5, 4, these suggestions
reach you and sink into your core
3, 2, you are letting go of all
the pain, 1,
you let go of all fear...

you are in the present moment
the past is behind you
there is no more worry about
the past or the future
you are settled in your own
mind, in your own being
in the river of your
own existence
and you make it your best...
you give in to the flow of your
own current...

i wish i could steal the hyp-yoga
trademarked script that is so
much better, and so much more healing
but
it is against the law

eating kung pao tofu in my
blue honda civic
i am free to sit in a parking lot
in my car
and am freer
than i was at 16.
i remember that freedom
and today it is more...

i am eating emerald sesame kale
as i turn a corner in my car
and the guy behind me honks
because i'm going too slow
and i take it as no commentary
on myself or him
just this moment
and what he did, and this
is what i'm doing...

i rented rivers and tides
after a session with pete
relating about the flow of our
river, the surrender to our current
not getting stuck in crags
not holding on to dead branches
but going with the flow of our
own current

when i came out of lincoln high
with my phone, the kids i had
entrusted my dog to had become
modeling agents, and new
kids were practicing taking
pictures of my husky talent..

she licked the camera,
wanted to scratch it,
that sexy vixen dog...

when i came home, she was waiting
in the window,
greeted me
at the door,
just wanted to go outside
like my date after a long day's work
i took her out when the words begged
to be typed instead,
and this isn't as good as it might
have been, but my dog got to run
for a block before i took her home.

we are working on forgiveness
we must love ourselves before
we can love anyone
we must forgive ourselves
because we are really capable
of forgiveness
we must clear our minds
to be free to be who we are...

in your head, in the street, in your car.

personal nagasaki

2009-04-02T08:23:00.000-07:00

what is the price of fear?
what is the price of truth?

a young woman buys frosted
mini carrot cakes with walnuts
to celebrate picking up her lover

she sees him run to her car
in her rear view mirror

she licks icing off her fingers
turns around to watch him

he walks.

he gets in the car.

instead of kissing her smile
he dashes it with a letter

after the contents of the truth
and the un-truths and the half-truths
have been displayed

he tells her she has to quit crying
not to be so dramatic
he tries to drive her away, drive her
home

she cannot go home with him
she needs the car to stop
she needs the ride to stop

needing safety, she drives to
the office of her therapist
a man at work
he has a client
she is crying louder than
she has heard herself before

the building reacts as though
there has been a bomb
women pour out of a girl scout office
can i help you?
do you need to use the phone?

she calls her sister.
in her grief and tears
she says you have to come down
her sister wants to say okay
but she has to work, she has
meetings

she never says what happened
their dad is not dead.

a woman working in the building
comes outside, says wait, don't
drive like this.

she drives anyway. there is no way
to explain.

he put money in the envelope
keys, words. she reads them,
trying to find how this black and white
can in any way match her love and her truth

her hopes

a river flows, and then a boulder drops.
the river learns to flow
not get too excited,
not get too grateful
it learns to value the price
of peace.

can there be peace without truth?
how much does that cost?

he always wanted to know
how much was that doggy in the window
he did hope that doggy's for sale
he took home that doggy in the window
before he went and chopped off her tail.

i wrote a little ditty

2009-03-31T18:50:00.000-07:00

and sang it.

it's called i know
where you can detoxify your soul.

but i erased it.

still, i had great fun singing it
to myself.

maybe for an hour?

that soul detox... puts me in touch with my self. what a good place to be.

still integrating body, mind, and spirit, but spirit and mind are making a come-back. they've been in shock, i noticed when i forgot the rice and beans in the oven. good thing i smelled that they were done.

today i put both legs behind my head for the first time. i was really limber right then. i don't think i could do that now. my yoga class clapped ;)

more from liz

2009-03-31T08:25:00.001-07:00

"when you finally integrate body, mind, and spirit -- watch out: dynamite!"

the brain has about 145 million thoughts going through it per second... we choose to listen to about 12. the twelve that we habitually choose create our world, our belief system. we can decide whether to reach into positive consciousness or negative consciousness and create our world in doing so.

me: when we act with positive spirit, we can achieve anything... we find all we need. when we act with negative spirit, with the desire to control or possess, to manipulate someone... we don't end up getting our way... we are not living life the right way, and we will create misery. if we believe that we should get our way, even when it violates others against their will, we end up violating ourselves, too, and eventually we will have to meet up with society's support system to help us get well: counseling and/or the police. these are not bad things. prisons could use reforming. pysch wards don't sound glamorous. but people end up needing to be in a place that can contain them when they don't do the work to make sure they're in a good place by themselves. we all end up needing help. we accept it when we're ready.

favorite quote

2009-03-31T04:59:00.000-07:00

Competition is giving away your opportunity for joy to the standards of others. Be joyful simply because you are.

-krista burlae

next in the netflix queue

2009-03-30T22:19:00.001-07:00

kramer vs. kramer

2009-03-30T21:16:00.001-07:00

is your life a bad dream you feel like you can't wake up from?

see pete at heather thursday at 3:15. by grateful bread, where they have the best soup in the world.

love transcends

2009-03-30T21:02:00.001-07:00

love transcends understanding
as it should
the love that transcends understanding
is to be free
it need not be granted any permission
or blessing of any past
it is born of the moment
as each cell in our body
is born each moment
we are changing
we are becoming who we'd most
love to become
it is our evolution
is our growth
it is our truth
it is the love
we've abandoned each past moment for
because it only enriches it all.
it only enriches us all.

flow

2009-03-30T20:37:00.000-07:00

you have to release yourself into the flow
of the life that you have created for
yourself
out of the deepest desires of your heart
only you know why you pick up that book
why you pick up on that scent
why that body moves you
to touch
why that voice
begs by your ears to be heard

only you know why you crave what you do
why you crave the partnership
that you do

only you know how to pursue
the dreams you have
for yourself

so release into the flow
of the life you are presented
the funnest part is the surprises
that come
which were
more than you'd imagined
more a combination of your own energies
than you ever expected to live.

an idealist

2009-03-30T19:54:00.000-07:00

i want to be an idealist
i want to believe we can all
have our dreams
we can all have our journeys
we can make them as ideal
as we dream them to be
without controlling
any other human being
what we share in our dreams
we can share
and live

and we can remember
the past was a dream of its own
and strive higher
and happier
and wish the same
for every living creature
that we may all evolve
into our most glorious self
into the self that is loving and giving
to ourselves and our deepest happiness
which only we can find for ourselves

and when we find it
we will never give up in finding
it possible
we will never give up in making
our audacious hopes
our audacious reality
we are not held back
by money or fear

we are not held back
by the expectations of other people
because our ultimate being
exists in the framework
that we can make anything happen

to this oneself is the dream
to make it, whatever it is, happen for you,
and if it involves others,
by the full consent of their heart and mind.

we can love who we love
we can live the lives we want to live
without fear
because fear is the only thing
that holds us back
and guilt
guilt is the past
guilt is the surrender
of one's own heart to another
and that can never lead
to true happiness

true love is the true surrender
to what two people naturally share
it cannot be shaped by any obligation
of power and submission

true happiness can only flourish
for us all
when our unfettered hearts
love truly

living truly means
living by our hearts
and being true about
how we must live
in our own greatest joy

we support the happiness of others
by holding strong to our own hearts

only then can we all live the dream
of living the dream of our lives
all together
only then can we be
who we were meant to be
when we adapt to the new possibilities
that are presented
to our souls

and when they fit
we open up into a
bigger and bigger soul
so we can set an example
for all the souls still growing

so when we merge the final time
our light is glorious and luminous
based on deep feeling
shared and lived

this is the life force
the force of our hearts, and minds
this is why the beauty of life
is that it's no chore
to take care of yourself
when you let your heart live.

when you let all hearts live.

control

2009-03-30T17:02:00.000-07:00

control, over anyone's happiness but your own -- IS AN ILLUSION.

liz's wisdom

2009-03-30T15:38:00.000-07:00

yoga was dripping with liz wisdom today, and the stories of my own mind that i need to tell right now.

first, we were practicing balancing. practicing being balanced is very challenging for me right now. we went to the wall. we had to learn that we can touch the wall for balance. we can know that it's there (available in the form it can provide)... but, we have to learn to be balanced on our own. we can know the wall is there, maybe touch it, but ultimately, we need to be balanced bodies, able to place our bodies where we need to be as we're able to get there, as our journey takes us. we can't be mad at our bodies for where they are. we just have to have positive thoughts, imagine the future we want, and create it. take our bodies there.

the body regenerates every 5 years. we get a whole new body. the thoughts we give our cells shape that body. we could run a marathon at 88, if we give our body those messages, if we practice. exercise makes our cells feel good, gives us positive energy.

it reminds me of a friend of mine who is a rabbit. he likes to dart from place to place without making conflict. he happens to live with a monkey. she likes to chatter and chatter. sometimes he wants to dart, but feels like he can't. lucky me, a horse, the rabbit likes my company. horses are supposed to be attractive and popular to the opposite sex, you know, but i prefer this rabbit... i hear someone saying "it's an addiction, for sure," outside of this five willows office, and i hear that. i guess we get addicted to the good feelings. but sometimes, we have to be balanced on our own, or get our bodies there somehow, while only touching the wall. even without.

i thought of a time when i was hanging with z and her friend jc. z was really in an acting place. but the way she was acting that night made me uncomfortable. it wasn't meeting my needs. i love z, and i like to take in a good performance, and be appreciative, but that night, i was getting really annoyed. i didn't feel like i wanted to be an audience anymore, but i also didn't know how to leave. i didn't know how to participate, and i didn't know how to leave. when i finally left, my exit made her upset. i love z. i didn't want to make her upset. she was mad at me for awhile, and i had to learn to deal with it. talk to other people. that has happened with c a lot, too. pisces are sensitive and can make you feel like you need to be uber-sensitive.

but, clint and bones kind of gave me a wake-up call. i felt bad for hurting z. they said i shouldn't. they said if i was annoyed, i should leave. i didn't understand. why should i hurt z? because you don't want to be there. sometimes in z's life she has an audience. other times she just takes care of herself. she likes it that way.

amy was pointing out that my ex is a "stand-up" guy. that night i had to be a stand-up girl. i had to stand-up, because i didn't want to be there, even though it would hurt z. the thing is, if we don't stand up when we need to leave, we'll never feel balanced. then we really can't give much of our heart and mind to anyone, including ourselves, and that's no good. we'll be stuck in our heads, an audience to a show we don't want to watch anymore.

every good tv watcher knows to change the channel. there will always be another viewer somewhere.

liz also talked about embracing what we attract. we've attracted it because we were looking for it. two people walk around looking for the same thing, and eventually they find each other. then you figure out what to do with the people who have come into your path, this new soul who wasn't here yesterday but is here now. wow. what kind of excitement does this bring? do i want to stay on this path?

the rabbit likes to dart. the monkey likes to chatter and stay busy. the horse likes to talk and be admired. somehow we learn to deal with our natures.

the taurus is stable and hates to change. the pisces is sensitive and artistic.

we're given our nature. we're given this life. we go, go, and go, and then we're gone.

ps. i invite anyone in lincoln to go to five willows. it is open to all. helpful and good for all.

2009-03-29T03:36:00.000-07:00

Longfellow: "Not enjoyment, and not sorrow
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each tomorrow
Find us farther than today!"

Robert Kennedy: "Some men see things as they are and ask ""Why"", I dream things that never were and say, ""Why not""?

J.M.Keller: "Much thunder, little rain", "A man of words and not of deeds is like a garden filled with weeds"

I Ask the Possible

2009-02-25T05:29:00.001-08:00

I Ask the Possible

I ask the possible: love me forever.
Love me with all desire
Love me with the single-mindedness
of your most precious gift.

When the world has stretched open
its heart, its spirit
and put me into your arms
hold me
beside, underneath,
and on top of you
and keep me there.

Love me every night
Love me with the fullness
of every thought
that strays to me, our fullness
and satisfaction together.

Do not discard this.

Love me not out of the
weight of time
but the fullness of your heart
and spirit
Love me not as a job
but as your avocation
your bliss
the gift we have given
each other.

Love me for the meaning
of who we are
and have been together
Love me for each beautiful
precious memory
and for the potential
within us
and our days together
for every memory to come.

Love me in a new place
in a place not of
what has been known before
but out of what we know
is possible.
Love me each day
not to counsel the past
but to LIVE the present
and the future

Love me for the future
and I will make
the possible
a simple act
by loving you, loving you as I do.

food for thought

2009-02-10T15:03:00.001-08:00

"We are in need of a reflective activism born out of humility, not arrogance. Reflection, with deep time spent in the consideration of others, opens the door to becoming a compassionate participant in the world."
~Terry Tempest Williams

blog

2009-02-10T10:18:00.000-08:00

blog,
i am sad. i don't think anyone reads this anymore (as i don't write this anymore), but that's not why i'm sad. i'm sad because i try to do all the right things, and i don't know where it leads me.

i'm reading the book the hero within because my therapist recommended it. i wrote the first 5 pages of a novel tonight for class. i tried to capture what i'm going through. i guess in many ways it's the feelings of not feeling in control of your life, of facing the unexpected, in its good and its very bad and scary.

i don't know what's going to happen, blog. i only hope i can find enough mellow music and chex cereal to get me through it. and that eventually, i'll come to an unstuck place where i want to go on a walk outside. if i can get to that place, i know i'll exactly where i'll go. for today.

hi

2009-01-16T20:20:00.000-08:00

dear blog,
i feel like we've fallen a bit out of touch... but i want you to know i'm still here, and my fingers still work.

i'm listening to the nip/tuck soundtrack. the song is "so damn beautiful." what a beautiful sentiment. someone is so beautiful they're damn beautiful. so damn beautiful. does this speak to the power we feel someone has over us when we find them attractive? the vulnerability that we experience? perhaps being in love is the state of being not only mutually vulnerable but hopefully equally assured of the other's vulnerability and interest?

the interesting thing the actual state of in love, however we define it. does it diminish? does it deepen? this is the question... and what circumstances lead to those states?

do we really expect love to last? in some cases, it seems to. i'm wondering if in those cases the couple experiences continual growth, probably despite what they share economically... i would think they would have to be mutually invested in something other than a bank account... maybe vacations? kids? pets? but those are outer things... is there a set of conditions/compatibility that leads to the continued positive emotions?

my therapist pete said ideally both members of the couple maintain one another at their highest level of happiness and function (while still being human)... i guess in order to do this, both parties would have to feel secure... i was looking at a friend's e-harmony site, and one of the guys of her potential suitors said he's looking for 100%... this is an interesting idea... he said he could handle 80% or 90%... how would he know, say, if she was really 75%, and would he then be out of there? he said he wanted to allow for just off-days... are those days really off, though? maybe those are the real days... this is sounding pessimistic...

pete also says that you should make decisions regarding relationships from a positive place... this is assuming one can always get to a positive place regardless of their status within the relationship... hopefully this is true... but sometimes people are in these constant states of turmoil, though... what then?

well, turmoil probably does wane in times of pleasure... does that mean we should privilege pleasure? i think i have all kinds of questions...

i cleaned an important instrument tonight. i think clarity could be a cool name for a child... this cd is quite sexy to be listening to myself... i'm liking it... i find myself a fun person to hang out with by myself... this is a cool thing to learn... witnessing my own consciousness appear on a computer screen is sort of fun.

i'm taking a fiction class, and jack kerouac has some great advice... wanna hear some?

(lyrics: you give me fever when you kiss me, fever when you hold me tight... fever in the morning... fever all through the night... everybody's got the fever (wouldn't that be nice)... that is something you oughta know (they say)... (they say) fever started long ago... (i guess so to have such a world population)....

if you could adopt a child for free, like you would never have to pay anything (all paid for by the government maybe, even toys/education) -- would you? well, it would be cool if we could take shifts with the kids... like there would be a pool of kids that we could go pick up (not that we would keep them in pools, but they could use them)... and kids would be exposed to all kinds of good people because we would be all kinds of people... but, in the long-run the idea of parents is okay... not that we stay connected to our parents like a placenta forever, but it is nice that these people who hopefully loved each other in some kind of way get a kick out of you coming from their genes together, so they give you more attention than anyone else and hope you develop well... i just think we'd get better outcomes if all of that were free... i just wish everything were free... could an economy work like that? where people volunteer to do things? i'll live in the big house, i'll live in the small one, i'll build a new one with that wood... like if we all just worked what we felt like working... why should anyone's time be more valuable than anyone else's? why should we have all of this anxiety over money? god, it's crazy. i mean we live once... now, without money, maybe we'd all be volunteering to travel all the time, and then we'd run out of gas, but some people would enjoy learning about new forms of energy... i mean, it would just be a learning/experiencing world...

what do you think about dancing? why will we do it by ourselves, or maybe in front of some people, but not others? does this go back to the idea of having one lover with whom we might have a kid, and then we're parents together, but only the lovers can see each other dance (or not, if they're embarrassed, but maybe they only have sex in the dark)

i think the world could be really different if we start thinking about it/our experiences really differently...

i like the idea of positive thoughts... i used to think it was bologna for people to try to think positive thoughts... like, hey, if you're not feeling it, don't fake it... but we do choose which positive thoughts we have, and we do want to be going in a positive direction all the time...

it's interesting how people choose between such positive thoughts as, for example, i'm gonna love this guy, i'm gonna move to california, i'm gonna apply for this job, i'm gonna live in this place... the idea of intuition, following yourself is something... to make decisions, i try to imagine how i'd feel if i did the other thing... or, i might get in my car and see if i'm ready to drive to california. if not, i think about what i'm staying here for and how powerful that is... if we didn't have money to worry about, we'd all work like this. but, i'm afraid i'd be in santa fe one week, portland the next... i'm just wondering where we'd all end up if we traveled freely... if we didn't have money, then maybe no one would have to be a nurse... but if we had good public transportation and we took good care of ourselves, maybe we wouldn't need nurses? well, some people might still enjoy "nursing"...

we would still have musicians for sure... would we have actors? would it be nearly as fun if they weren't being paid and could travel freely? i wonder if we could ever get rid of money. like what if we just said this doesn't count anymore. i guess it would come down to growing food... but again, i just like the volunteer idea. how could we get that passed?

last word for now

2009-01-13T09:12:00.001-08:00

A thousand half-loves
must be forsaken to take
one whole heart home.

Let the lover be disgraceful, crazy,
absentminded. Someone sober
will worry about things going badly.
Let the lover be.

Lovers don't finally
meet somewhere.
They're in each other all along.

OPEN SECRET

2009-01-13T09:06:00.001-08:00

Love is an open secret, the most obvious thing in the world and the most hidden, with no why to how it keeps its mystery. Sufis say the genesis of lovers meeting is God's sweetest secret.

There is a truth that comes with following the energies, and there is a love, a truth-knowing essence, in the innermost heart.

Bawa Muhaiyaddeen says,
Do not ever fight or argue, because for God there are no fights and no arguments. For that One everything is love; everything is in the form of love, compassion, and truth. May God provide you with the blessings and grace to live in that state.

TWO WAYS OF RUNNING

2009-01-13T08:55:00.000-08:00

A certain man had a jealous wife and a very
appealing maidservant.
The wife was careful not to leave
them alone, ever.
For six years they were never left
in a room together.
But then, one day at the public bath
the wife remembered she'd left
her silver basin at home.
"Please, go get the basin,"
she told her maid. The girl jumped to the task knowing she
would finally get to be alone with the master.

She ran joyfully. She flew. Desire took them both
so quickly they didn't latch the door.
With great speed
they joined. When bodies blend in copulation,
spirits also merge.
Meanwhile, the wife back
at the bathhouse is washing her hair.
"What have I done!"
I've set cotton wool on fire! I've put the ram in
with the ewe!"

She washed the clay soap off and ran, fixing
her chador about her as she went.
The maid ran for love.
The wife ran out of jealousy and fear.

There is a great difference.
A mystic lover flies moment to moment. The fearful
ascetic drags along month to month.
The length of a day
for a lover may be fifty thousand years!
There's no way to understand this
with your mind. You must burst open!
Love is a quality
of God. Fear is an attribute of those who think
they serve GOd,
but actually they're preoccupied with the penis
and vagina.
Rule-keepers run on foot along the surface.
Lovers move like lightning and wind.
No contest.
Theologians mumble, rumble-dumble, necessity and free
will, while lover and beloved
pull themselves into each other.
The worried wife
reaches the door and opens it.
The maid is
disheveled, flushed, unable to speak.
The husband begins his five-times
prayer. As though experimenting
with clothes, he holds up some flaps and edges. She sees
his testicles and penis so wet,
semen still dribbling out,
spurts of jism and vaginal juices
of the maid.
The wife slaps him
on the side of the head,
"Is this the way a man prays,
with his balls? Does your penis
long for union like this?
Is that why her legs are so covered
with this stuff?"
These are good questions.
People who repress desires
often turn, suddenly,
into hypocrites.

sacrifice

2009-01-13T08:50:00.000-08:00

Attar says that if you want to learn the secrets of love that your soul can know, "You will sacrifice evertyhing. You will lose what you have considered valuable, but eventually you'll hear the voice you've most wanted to hear saying, Yes. Come in."

Another Sufi, Junnaiyd, recommends that we JUMP! "Plunge headfirst into the ocean of your loving. Then look around patiently for the pearl that is yours."

Really there is no end to love's unfolding, and no one can tell you how yours should or will go.

Everyone has in them the great love that Rumi's poetry comes out of. It is the given that never goes away.

Grief

2009-01-13T08:45:00.000-08:00

Fierce Grace (now #1 in my Netflix queue), a film about Ram Dass's life and particularly the stroke, focuses on the use of the starkest tragedies, not just his, to open the heart and help us find the vital core of consciousness, the soul... In it, a woman's lover dies, and in her dream she asks him where he has gone. He says, "Listen. The love we had was wonderful, but that is small peanuts to what's ahead for you, and when that love comes, I'll be part of it.

Ram Dass (according to Rumi's translator) ecstatically tastes the truth of what the dead lover says. No sticky possessiveness, no hanging on to the past. Grief opens us to more love, and the new love builds with the former, and there's miraculous expansion. Rumi's translator says that this rare movie gives off the fragrance of enlightened love.

NO BETTER GIFT

2009-01-13T08:37:00.000-08:00

When the ocean comes to you as a lover,
marry, at once, quickly,
for God's sake!

Don't postpone it!
Existence has no better gift.

No amount of searching
will find this.

A perfect falcon, for no reason,
has landed on your shoulder,
and become yours.

~

This moment this love comes to rest in me,
many beings in one being.
In one wheat grain a thousand sheaf stacks.
Inside the needle's eye, a turning night of stars.

~

The clear bead at the center changes everything.
There are no edges to my loving now.

You've heard it said there's a window
that opens from one mind to another,

but if there's no wall, there's no need
for fitting the window, or the latch.

~

A thousand half-loves
must be forsaken to take
one whole heart home.

the superabundance of ordinary being

2009-01-13T08:32:00.000-08:00

Says Rumi's translator: Love is the connection with spirit, and one way it flows is through form. That's the state of rapture Rumi praises, the joy of being inside an intersection with the divine, which is what this world is.
"Truly being here is glorious," says Rilke in the Seventh Duino Elegy, and in the Ninth,"
Isn't it the secret intent
of this taciturn earth, when it forces lovers together,
that inside their boundless emotion all things may
shudder with joy?

This resonant trembling of the earth with lovers, if the suberabundance of being...

Response to Your Question

2009-01-13T06:15:00.000-08:00

Why ask about behavior when you are soul-essence,
and a way of seeing into presence!
Plus you're with us!
How could you worry?
You may as well free a few words from
your vocabulary.
Why and how and impossible. Open
the mouth-cage
and let those fly away.
We were all born by
accident, but still this wandering caravan
will make camp in perfection.

Forget the nonsense categories of there and here,
race, nation, religion,
starting point and destination.

You are soul, and you are love,
not a sprite or an angel or a human being!
You're a
Godman-womanGod-manGod-Godwoman!
No more questions now
as to what it is we're doing here.

~~~~

If you want what visible reality can give,
you're an employee.

If you want the unseen world,
you're not living your truth.

Both wishes are foolish,
but you'll be forgiven for forgetting
that what you really want is
love's confusing joy.

Rexroth's late afternoon love poem

2009-01-13T06:11:00.000-08:00

"When We With Sappho"

Stop reading. Lean back. Give me your mouth.
Your grace is as beautiful as a sleep.

You move against me like a wave
That moves in sleep
Your body spreads across my brain
Like a bird-filled summer;
Not like a body, not like a separate thing,
But like a nimbus that hovers
Over every other thing in all the world.

Sufis say there are three ways of being with the mystery: prayer, then a step up from that, meditation, and a step up from that, conversation, the mystical exchange they call sohbet.

Who You Talking To?

2009-01-13T06:05:00.001-08:00

Rumi's translator says:

I have a friend who, when she wants to know who I am seeing, who I am in love with, asks, Who you talking to? The exchange of deep friendship makes a fine entrance into love and trust, into the mysterious action that moves through the eyes, the voice, the heart.

Rumi wonders, Can you see these escapees, the ones who have gotten free of their personalities and into the true self? He celebrates the freedom of those escapees, how their friendship dissolves into everything: what anybody says, whatever happens.

Where You Love From

2009-01-13T05:58:00.000-08:00

Look inside and find where a person
loves from. That's the reality,
not what they say.

. . . .

In your light I learn how to love.
In your beauty, how to make poems.

You dance inside my chest
where no one sees you,

but sometimes I do,
and that sight becomes this art.

. . . .

rumi's wandering

2009-01-13T05:50:00.000-08:00

rumi's translator says: "Rumi is way happier than sex and orgasms, his wandering more conscious and free."

~

Excuse my wandering
How can one be orderly with this?
It's like counting leaves in a garden,

along with the song notes of partridges,
and crows. Sometimes organization
and computation become absurd.

~

FIVE THINGS

I have five things to say,
five fingers to give into your grace.

First, when I was apart from you,
this world did not exist, nor any other.

Second, whatever I was looking for
was always you.

Third, why did I ever learn to count to three?

Fourth, my cornfield is burning!

Fifth, this finger stands for Rabia,
and this is for someone else.
Is there a difference?

Are these words or tears?
Is weeping speech?
What shall I do, my love?

So the lover speaks, and everyone around
begins to cry with him, laughing crazily,
moaning in the spreading union
of lover and beloved.

This is the true religion. All others
are thrown-away bandages beside it.

This is the sema of slavery and mastery
dancing together. This is not-being.

I know these dancers.
Day and night I sing their songs
in this phenomenal cage.

elegy

2009-01-07T11:38:00.000-08:00

father meditation
mother yoga
partner of utopia
i give birth
to new layers
of myself
watch myself
blossom
an unfolding lotus

try not to
focus
on the uncertainties
of my own burgeoning
fertile desires
of continuing childhood
amidst a
budding adulthood
loving relationship

while seeds of security
sprout within
soft, white roots
poke their way out
searching for rich soil
free of pesticides
that would wither
my spark
or yours

i want to
be believed
cherished
have my hand held
body caressed
watched with
growing delight
as i dance

give me the security
of tomorrow
visions of
fertile decades
even if you're
not sure
how many
you've got

i want
to take root
here
and grow
not some
continuing stream
but a path
with you whose
yellow brick road
leads in and out
always home
to the same place
as we people
our tribe
together

purple
our hearts
in the blooming
of each others' irises

you are god
and so am i

. . .

for five months
i watched
as we formed
a chrysallis
around an
unexpected
gestating love

one weekend
we wanted to
spend together
i listened furtively
as the calls came in
about your departure

an unexpected arrival
on a sunday

i had a child friend here
to receive you
and we wondered
together
how you would come

you had spent
hours driving
from your first home
to what i hoped
would be your next

as your mind twirled
through your past, present,
future an unknown
but a new destination
tonight

. . .

so many nights
i dreamed
you would be here

now you are
and i know not
what to dream

except that your feet
will keep reaching
beyond the boundaries
of the bed
your soft skin
will stay close
your voice will speak
to me every day
and i will speak, listen,
laugh, stay still, and grow
into my next
formation
let you unfold
into yours

as we dance
and sing the
songs of two hearts
who happened upon
what was bigger
than a mushroom
in a forest
bigger than
a best-selling novel
or a movie on a screen

it was a transformation
of more years
than i have lived
and its duration
direction are uncertain
but now we are
here

. . .

dear flower
lying next to
each other
in the field
of our bed
i tried to give
you my sun
til your sweet
snore grew soft
when i touched
you with love
you wakened
slightly
and i could feel
the waves of
you, your sun
warmed me
with feeling
of your
peaceful force
mind over matter
the persistence
of your freedom-
loving love

a snore
a whinny
is it
a sleeping prayer
for easier breathing?

may not my
lofting dreams
press you
may our stillness
grow
our communion
foster
life, of who
beyond us
we do not know
because it all
matters.

from today's morning almanac (on the way to yoga)

2009-01-07T11:36:00.001-08:00

VII

by Wendell Berry

I would not have been a poet
except that I have been in love
alive in this mortal world,
or an essayist except that I
have been bewildered and afraid,
or a storyteller had I not heard
stories passing to me through the air,
or a writer at all except
I have been wakeful at night
and words have come to me
out of their deep caves
needing to be remembered.
But on the days I am lucky
or blessed, I am silent.
I go into the one body
that two make in making marriage
that for all our trying, all
our deaf-and-dumb of speech,
has no tongue. Or I give myself
to gravity, light, and air
and am carried back
to solitary work in fields
and woods, where my hands
rest upon a world unnamed,
complete, unanswerable, and final
as our daily bread and meat.
The way of love leads all ways
to life beyond words, silent
and secret. To serve that triumph
I have done all the rest.

"VII" from the poem "1994" by Wendell Berry, from A Timbered Choir: The Sabbath Poems 1979–1997. © Counterpoint, 1998. Reprinted with permission.

2008-12-25T17:42:00.001-08:00

I am here/now with your heart;
I hold your hands in here/now.

-Dainin Katagiri Roshi

are you my mother?

2008-12-14T09:32:00.000-08:00

i looked over at the woman to the mat on my right and thought i was looking at my mother. it had been a long time. she had the short, curly hair. the feminine, true woman look. she had the physique. she had the smile, the face. but she could not have been my mother. i needed her today.

my posture toward her, for less than an hour, became that of a daughter. she was less practiced than me, and i wanted to show her respect. she was a woman. she looked like my mother. i wanted her to take me out to coffee and model a life for me. i wanted her to model a perspective. but this woman, truly not my mother, would have no perspective on my situation. she may have hers. but who could she possibly be besides someone with an eerily similar appearance? my mom would be 61. but she didn't make it to 35.

i remember going to aerobics with my mom. i don't know that she ever made it to yoga. she would do her work-out, and i would do ballet and tap. it was mother/daughter time of some sort. that and going to the pool. we had four years of some of this stuff. of course i will never forget her. of course i still look for her, but it has been so long since the likes of her has caught my attention.

taking the bus from bellevue to omaha every day to go to my christian elementary school, i would look out the window into the windows of cars to see if my mom was out there. i wanted her to be out there. i dreamed about her and what i imagined could be her new husband. sometimes they lived in a castle. sometimes they lived in the pacific northwest. i wondered if she would ever send for me. later, i wanted to see the pictures of her, when they found her dead, but my dad begged me to never see those. he hadn't. he wanted us to remember her the way she was.

but it was so hard for me to remember anything besides a prickly leg, a stick of orange trident gum. i remember her encouraging me to eat plums not sugary cereal, wash my face like it was the most important thing i would ever do. i kept asking how many more years until i can drive?

my dad used to always tell me how my mom could do back-bends. "she could do the bridge and reach over to the floor with her mouth and pick up a hankerchief." he was clearly thrilled by her flexibility.

growing up, i would look at pictures of her and think she was so beautiful. how could she have been my mother? who was this woman? i was jealous of her perfect body, thinking maybe i had that in me somewhere, wondering when i would have the stamina to stick to a diet and exercise routine that would get me there.

when i started yoga again in lincoln, i began to remember that i had always been flexible. i remembered my brother kyle telling me not to sit with my legs bent backwards, that it was bad for my knees. but it didn't hurt. why would it be bad for me?

the first time i ever did yoga was in berkeley. it brought me great happiness. i would come home and get stoned with amy and monique, and all i would want to do was those poses. there was something amazing about seeing my body like that, my self like that, not just sitting behind some desk but engaged in something that seemed true to me.

at five willows, i began to see my body re-form in the mirror and saw my mom's body. it was the one thing i had of hers. i don't have her face, though we may share some characteristics. i don't have her voice, though sometimes it might be similar. i am not her in any way i can identify except my body. the fitter i get, the more i see her.

today, sitting beside the woman i revered as my mother, i wished i could go back and tell my mother she was beautiful. influenced by barbies, i wished she had long hair when i was little. i didn't get her short, curly hairstyle. when my dad started dating again (right away), i thought i'd put in my request: date someone with long hair. it was shallow. i was four.

roxana, the yoga teacher, came by today and suddenly wanted me to do the bridge. i was in shoulderstand, one of my specialties, and she wanted me to try some new moves she just learned in spain. there i was thinking of my mom, and roxana is asking me to do the bridge. only me. i did. it was easy. i was confident. i was my mother's daughter.

in shivasana, roxana had us imagine a color that would bring us safety. i needed it. i visualized myself in purple, my favorite color since i knew what colors were. my mom's favorite color was yellow. i hated yellow growing up. everything was yellow. our carpet, our wallpaper, our house. a psychiatrist came over to our house once and said yellow is the favorite color of the depressed. it's kind of like false hope. i've thought about this numerous times re-reading charlotte perkins gilman's "yellow wallpaper." on the only acid trip i ever took at 16, i started to tear down the yellow wallpaper in my room. i'd always wanted it down. i would rather have torn wallpaper, beige walls, than have to keep looking at this stuff i'd hated, that had no relationship to my own aesthetic.

when i came home from visiting my aunt jan in arizona when i was 7, my dad had a new bed for me. i had been begging for a canopy bed with a purple ruffle and a purple bedspread for years. every time i saw the sears catalog at my grandma's house, i would rip out the purple bedding and show my dad i wanted it. i came home to a canopy. he had ordered a white canopy, a white bedspread. i couldn't understand it. he thought it looked best. he was having a party at our house for people from the museum. it had inspired him to shop.

when i woke up from shivasana, body filled in purple, i was slow to move to my side, to raise again into lotus position. when i looked to my right, the woman who was not my mother was gone. she is always gone.

i wondered why it was my destiny to always have her gone. to always be alone. to always wonder why. to never have her. to always want her. to never have that feeling of someone older to look up to. to never feel like i was walking in some kind of shadow i could re-shape or understand.

the only shadow i walk in is suicide. it is not life. that is something i keep creating for myself. there have been a few periods where it felt easy. where it felt like i was in the right place with the right people at the right time. recently it felt more right than ever. my spirit was happy. my spirit could reach through walls.

i wonder where my mom is. if there is some part of her inside me. pulling back my purple bedspread at night, i have recently been more thankful for the sacrifices and the pain that brought me to be.

if my mom truly loved my dad, she must have suffered so much when he went back to his wife. once, when i told my dad i can't handle my situation, he said my mom said that to him, too. he was reminiscing. he was still in those moments. 26 years since she is gone, he still lives in those moments so often. they had 12 years.

this morning at 6am, when i hadn't slept because of the partying neighbors once again and had gone online to find other apartments, my dad promised to help me move anywhere i needed to move. he doesn't want me to feel unsafe. he doesn't want me up all night. he said start shopping. he has never broken a promise to me. i really haven't realized before how, aside from replaying his tape over and over and over again about law school, he wants what is best for me. there is a love that reaches across the telephone. sometimes his canopy has been white when i needed purple.

and what about getting what we need? is there a place for that? what about getting life's one due? my mom broke the promise she made to me that she wouldn't die after my grandpa did. she found herself obsessed by empty garages. i wondered today why she didn't just drive through a stoplight? wouldn't it have been quicker? but then she could have hurt someone in the other car.

i guess a kindness of hers is that she didn't take me with her. my dad told me inappropriately as i was growing up that she had threatened to do that. i guess that's how he made it as as single parent. he was glad she didn't take me with her.

the garage that she ended up choosing belonged to a jerk. his name is phil godawa. he lived in a fancy fontenelle hills apartment with his wife joanne. years later, they moved in down the street from me, across from the artist, sue, and joanne told me that my mom had been parked in phil's garage. phil was not a very nice man. though i think he did feel sorry for me. i'm not sure if he found my mom. i wouldn't want to ask him. all i remember is a police officer named russell.

she died in a grey buick riviera. while we were in corpse pose today, roxana told us that some yogis can get their heartbeat so slow in corpse pose that if you hooked them up to life-detecting machines, they would technically be declared dead.

i wondered if my mom had a chance to move and then to die just a little bit every day, like i do in yoga, if she would have made it. could yoga have saved her?

i used to wonder if she had been more academically successful in high school, if she hadn't had a reading disability, could she have made it? but her body, like mine, would have thrived in yoga. she could have taught it. she would have had something to teach me, although she believed she never did.

i don't know where to end this or how. that is the big question during times like this.

i moved to lincoln because brad was here. because i needed to be near my best friend. we never hung out here. he had moved on. i ran into him one time in andrews hall, and he was shocked that i had cut off all my hair. he visited me once a couple years later in lincoln, when i was married to clint. he came to our house, saw our dog, we went to the mill.

everything in life, mine anyway, though, changes. not my love for people. never that. yesterday kelly and i were talking about how we didn't expect these places in our paths. she is 9 weeks pregnant. we started talking about if we would ever be pregnant 7 years ago, before either of us were married. four years later, three months apart, we were both married, at each others' weddings. my marriage did not last. her love with christophe, beautiful, did. i always thought they should have a baby. they were too good together, too beautiful and similar, not to. i cried when i read on email that she was pregnant. she's not there yet. her body is growing.

on our last walk a couple months ago, she told me about the benefits of the rhythm method. she had read a book. she knew the secrets. she told me not to get on the pill. i joked about this yesterday on our walk. kelly has always been saddened by the way that women she knows seemed to be reduced only to mothers, only talking about diapers, bottles. she wants to keep talking about art and culture. she wants to work full-time. keep working on her phd. she will create with christophe what she needs. she believes in that.

i look forward to small things right now. i look forward to seeing my dad again. going to see "happy-go-lucky" with kelly. i try to look forward to christmas eve. people at yoga are saying hi to me, speaking to me. i keep being surprised when this happens. i feel gone. i am looking for myself, for the deeper part of me, for the wholeness, out the window on the bus. i am looking through windows to find myself, to find my happiness, to find that stirring again.

i don't know if when i wake up, where she will be? i drink a latte with a shot of mint from meadowlark. i wait for my soon-to-be wusband (new term i heard on the radio) to help me figure out cable. i look for viewing content, reading content, that will soothe my soul. i remind myself i don't have to do much. i lower my expectations. i wait.
i

passionate honesty of the midwest

2008-12-12T17:41:00.000-08:00

i just saw this description of a lincoln band and liked it:

There’s a passionate honesty to middle America - it’s deep-rooted and straightforward...

(I've never heard of this band before but may go see them next saturday night)...

Few places embody that better than Lincoln, Nebraska, home to Word/Warner Bros. newest rock outfit, Remedy Drive. A four-piece, four-brother band (David, Philip, Paul and Dan Zach), Remedy Drive has been cranking out their own brand of music as a full time indie for the past 5 years. The band’s debut release, “Daylight Is Coming” was produced by Ian Eskelin (All Star United) and will be nationally available August 26, 2008.

With a message of hope for the searching and a desire to reach beyond a static life for something bigger, Remedy Drive combines a heart-on-a-sleeve sensibilities with their one-of-a-kind live show - the Midwest has never felt like this before!

the monarch

2008-12-10T17:23:00.000-08:00

terri's wisdom during shivasana was really cool today... i won't be able to capture it all. first, a major concept in yoga is that the breath is the spirit. the spirit is what generates our abilities to experience love and bliss.

when we learn to control the breath, we have more connection with the spirit. the diaphragm is the site of our intuition, and the heart is the site of compassion... the stronger our diaphragm, the more intuition we have, and intuition increases compassion... runners probably get a lot of this stuff...

then she was talking about the guidance that we get from the earth, from the universe... she was saying that monarch butterflies have no gps system (though i know a lot of scientists study how birds know how to migrate)... she was saying that the monarchs get guidance from the earth, and after they leave mexico, they are different butterflies than they were before they left on the journey. when they go home, they are changed butterflies.

terri was talking about how our intuition will awaken us to our needs which will lead us home.

she also talked about elephants and the love they have for their families takes them from water and food to water and food. their love guides them...

interesting metaphors she was mixing, that love is equivalent to guidance from the universe, from the earth. that the guidance and the love that we get changes us. and leads us home, wherever that might be, where our needs are met.