Monday, March 2, 2009

Melee, The Storm

Here are more in the pensive mood that happened at the end of last November. I have no idea at this point what I was going through so I can't tell you more than the poems do. Still, it is the emotional life that these poems are about, no doubt. It was not a real war that I was close to so emotional conflict is in view. I do honor those friends of mine for what they go through when they hold up, and I am rather proud of me when I avoid the worst of my tantrums too. I am sure someone was going through something and this poem was about that.

There is a huge lesson in the fact that I can't remember what it was. These things seem so big when they happen. But if I can have the presence of mind to wait a few days and ponder the hugeness from that distance, well... in AA they call this pole vaulting over mouse turds.

Melee

View from the distance:
I see the flames and arrows
Of your holy war,
How you bravely fight
Flaming, flying all apart
In red explosions
Of your emotions
Not in order, in shambles,
You engaged full out.

I sit here at this road's end
In wonder that you survive.

***********************************

This next poem takes the Shaman's position in the midst of things. This is the truth of it, just as Zen says, chop wood, carry water, that is, back in the thick of it but able to rise. Even as enlightened, do we always rise above? What if to do some thing I must NOT rise above? If I can rise and choose not to, to a purpose, is this not a spirit sacrifice? Yet I must beware claiming skill not mine and know when I sink that I sink, not that I descend on true purpose.

I have been privileged to live with many cats. Sometimes they screw up. Quite often what happens next, the feline version of "I meant to do that!" Uh huh. So posing is older in evolution than humans because cats know how to do it, and cats became true cats before humans became true humans, and they did this millions of years earlier.

Pretending to more than I am is an ancient mammalian ploy. Its original purpose, still in use today, is to save the species through propogation or to save the self from uneven contests. Posing can be borrowed and used out of the original context. Posing in spiritual matters actually reverses the field. It is so out of place as to endanger the spirit, damage the soul. Where posing may be required in the field of ordinary affairs, posing is a failure of humility in spirit matters. Humility is one of the primary distinctions between white and black magic. That is what we learn in even vapid spiritual tales, such as Star Wars.

The Storm

Balance within storms,
Tornadoes, cyclones, strange eyes
Within, I am tossed
Above clouds looking
Down into deep dark shadows,
Lampblack paintings spread
Across the dim lands
Of your lost hopes, my lost dreams,
Still I hold balance.

Meanwhile the storm master's song,
Thunder rolls in the distance.

7 comments:

  1. It feels as if he stands in the center of the wheel ...the only real stability
    Linda

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  2. Musing on the center of the wheel:

    The center of the wheel is a matter of a trained heart.

    It is the purpose of demons to pose in just the manner I described and so move me off center. Perhaps they defend or guard against me if I am not qualified to enter the central position. The training involves learning to see through the falsehood offered as real danger. If I falter the danger may become real, but invariably will turn out to be a more or less disguised form of self inflicted misery.

    Demons themselves may actually have a certain kind of reality apart from me. The misery they inflict does not have reality apart from me.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Pole vaulting over mouse turds...hee hee. I do that all the time. As much as I enjoy your poems, I also enjoy your thoughts that accompany the poems. It hits home. I find it fascinating that you can't remember what you were worried about. Again, that's me. If only I could remember that lesson each time some new "tempest" is on my horizon.

    Both poems are wonderful and teach me a lot.

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  4. ╖I sit here at this road's end In wonder that you survive╖

    i encountered a young lady in an American airport one day during one of the wars..... she was standing beside me in line at the ticketing agent wearing the baggy khaki and olive clothing often in style among the youth of several generations, and a knapsak.

    on an outer garment on he chest she wore a trinket that caught my attention..... a skull with wings arched upward around the cranium like a wreath; old gray-silver that looked like it had been hewn from lead.

    after looking at it for a few moments, and recognizing it to be modified militaria, i indicated to her that i liked it and asked her where she got it... she replied that her father had given it to her.

    i had somehow known that, seeing that her father had given her a lot, and could tell by the way that she told me about the winged skull she loved her father very much.....

    i imagined also that her father loved her very much.....

    in that moment i loved them both very much.....

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  5. You guys do me honor. Thanks so much for adding to this blog. I have to dash. I went back to work and my time is significantly curtailed.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Beautiful Ghost

    Linda

    Christopher...contemplating this one..especially the last line.
    Demons themselves may actually have a certain kind of reality apart from me. The misery they inflict does not have reality apart from me.
    Linda

    ReplyDelete

The chicken crossed the road. That's poultry in motion.


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