Saturday, March 31, 2012

In The Moonshine


On occasion someone really does seem to understand. This is rare, though. It requires not only that you do understand but that you can communicate with me, and that I get what you say and what you do as well. No matter how well you understand me, if I do not get it that you do, there is no way that I end up feeling understood. There is timing involved in this somehow, because yesterday you said it and it worked but today you say it again and it doesn't. This is one of the struggles of my entire life and it is so extremely self involved it embarrasses me to admit it. I have built stories to explain it, all about family and my childhood and all that. I have no idea if my stories, sort of true, are really explanatory as I intend them to be, but they do illustrate that I am touchy about being understood.

I have had to be vigilant for example, because I am badly allergic to a couple really common foods. I also abhor a couple other common foods. I cannot trust that you understand this. You can forget. I cannot forget. My lack of trust in part seems to generalize from here. Maybe that's actual. Probably not, but still I have to assume you will forget my allergies and I cannot. When I was a kid, like third grade or something, this could be a real difficulty because I might be in the charge of adults who genuinely did not know and might insist I eat what was "on my plate". I might have to go into defiance and that is awkward when you are in third grade. It insults adults, something a little kid finds problematic. It never actually happened like that as I recall but I certainly feared the situation. Of that I have no doubt. I avoided getting into the situation as best I could. I still do. Nearly all fast food places are out of bounds for me just because I don't want to deal with all that food restriction stuff. Not because I don't think there are ways around my food restrictions, but because I don't trust someone else to understand and respond to them very well. They forget in twenty seconds sometimes. I have had that experience and I don't want to work with the mistakes. It's all just embarrassing.

My food illustration is so basic. How much more tangled up can the emotional life be? What next? Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke.


In The Moonshine

I don't know if you
can get how this is for me
as you stand beneath
the moon in silver
rays, unearthly as you are
in this raw moment.

You said you just might
understand me this one time
and the ache in me,
the ache in my bones
has begun to part like reeds
on the verge of things.

March 11, 2010 7:39 PM


Friday, March 30, 2012

This Is What We Know

By the way, the stones depicted here are larger than man height.

Wiki says: The Carnac stones are an exceptionally dense collection of megalithic sites around the French village of Carnac, in Brittany, consisting of alignments, dolmens, tumuli and single menhirs. The more than 3,000 prehistoric standing stones were hewn from local rock and erected by the pre-Celtic people of Brittany, and are the largest such collection in the world. Local tradition claims that the reason they stand in such perfectly straight lines is that they are a Roman legion turned to stone by Merlin or Saint Cornelius – Brittany has its own local versions of the Arthurian cycle. A Christian legend associated with the stones held that they were pagan soldiers in pursuit of Pope Cornelius when he turned them to stone.

Most of the stones are within the Breton village of Carnac, but some to the east are within La Trinité-sur-Mer. The stones were erected at some stage during the Neolithic period, probably around 3300 BC, but some may date to as old as 4500 BC. In recent centuries, many of the sites have been neglected, with reports of dolmens being used as sheep shelters, chicken sheds or even ovens. Even more commonly, stones have been removed to make way for roads, or as building materials. The continuing management of the sites remains a controversial topic.


This Is What We Know

We are all just shards
and fractured snaky visions
eeling through sawgrass
searching for the heel
of the goddess and trying
to avoid smelly
goats and the dark mounds
of goat scat scattered about
this sacred hillside.

March 11, 2010 10:08 AM





Thursday, March 29, 2012

Chasing The Goddess

I have to teleport to get here anymore. My body doesn't support the land quest. Life is hard. Then you die. Corky taught me that in 1983.



Chasing The Goddess

There are finer points
in this pursuit. I am mad
for you but don't show
it for fear of snakes
issuing forth from your heart,
but I modestly
will say now this is
my hill, these are my goats
and my oracle.
You are on my turf.

March 10, 2010 7:14 PM


Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Dark Matter


Without dark matter, the gravitational attractions at the galactic cluster scale do not work.

Without dark energy driving the universal business the expansion of the universe that is undeniably there does not work.

Not only that, these two dark things are 95% of everything to make it all work.

The cosmologists have created a mathematics that includes dark energy and dark matter and works descriptively quite well to present the universe as we know it.

Either the universe is really odd as we think it is now and we know very little, or we know almost nothing yet and something else will be in the eventual description of things.

Wanna bet??

Dark Matter

Oh dear what can that
matter be in between things,
between the wide wheels
of heaven's carriage,
oozing between God's splay toes?

They say space doesn't
hold together right
without this invisible
stuff and yes, weeping
is called for after
forced invisibility,
bowlegged lightyears.

March 10, 2010 2:09 PM


Dark Matter

We believe that most of the matter in the universe is dark - it cannot be detected from the light which it emits (or fails to emit). Its presence is inferred indirectly from the motions of astronomical objects - specifically stellar, galactic, and galaxy cluster/supercluster observations. Dark matter has measurable effects on the anisotropies observed in the cosmic microwave background and plays a central role in the modeling of structure formation and galaxy evolution (shown in this NASA ESA image).

We have four lines of evidence for dark matter in cosmology: the formation of large scale structure in the length of time since decoupling requires it; the limits on the baryon density from primordial nucleosynthesis requires it; the velocities of stars within galaxies and of galaxies with clusters require it; leading theories of particle physics predict it. The cosmological effects of dark matter on cosmic structure provide one of the best windows on this physics beyond the Standard Model of particle physics.

Dark matter was postulated by Fritz Zwicky in 1934, to account for evidence of "missing mass" in the orbital velocities of galaxies in clusters. According to new supernova observations and Big Bang cosmology, dark matter accounts for 23 percent of the total mass-energy of the observable universe. Dark matter comprises about 6 times more matter than ordinary baryons do.

Witchcraft - 3 Word Wednesday


Thom writes: 3WW CCLXV - Each week, I post three words. You write something using the words. Then come back and post a link to the contribution with Mr. Linky (but please, link to the exact post, not your blog, by clicking on the exact post title and paste it to Mr. Linky below). As always, there's no hard-and-fast rule that you have to post on Wednesday. Here's the link to the site: 3WW CCLXV

This week's words: Fragrant; Jostle; Remnant.

Witchcraft

Fragrant like jasmine
near my nestlings, in my dream
where you jostle tunes
free from the remnant
songs of my deliverance
I stumble in my rise
to final judgement
and watch black shadows gather
in the old designs.

March 28, 2012 3:23 AM

Elizabeth Searle Lamb says:
"Pausing is the doorway to awakening.

"We pause not only with our body but also with our mind. And sometimes we can be attentive and sometimes we cannot, but that is all right, for the next moment always brings us the fresh possibility to pause and be present again. There are no steps to follow, there is no enlightenment to work toward - there is only the simplicity of relaxing into this very moment that is complete in itself. This naked moment is the only guide that we need to relax our mind. We need to trust this: in the midst of our daily life activities, the possibility to slow down, to stop, and then to appreciate naturally unfolds. For a fleeting moment we pause and note the sunlight on the sheets as we make the bed, note the warm sun on our cup as we sip tea, or note the fading light on the curtain as we enter the room. And we let out a breath or sigh. Pausing."

I say:
"To survive the craft, one must find the way to pause."



Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Moon Worship


Moon Worship

I receive my life
from the blood you shed for me
and give to the earth.

I shall turn to fire
worship, blazing from the source,
then bathe in white snow
and wrap in the moss
from your bed, knowing at last
the truth of night's sky.

March 9, 2010 11:26 PM


Monday, March 26, 2012

Upside Down


Upside Down

You released your scent
and everything changed up.
I was the hunter,
but you no longer
were the prey, so hot the day
became between us.
I am upside down,
heart surely broken and now
I must not let you
know you have spiked me,
taken my soul from my grasp,
laid my plans to waste.

March 10, 2010 7:34 AM

Wiki says: "In journalistic parlance, spiking refers to withholding a story from publication for reasons pertaining to its veracity (whether or not it conforms to the facts). Spiking is relatively rare and usually happens late in the editing process (after the assigning editor has signed off on it). It is only required when a simple edit or questioning the reporter or assigning editor cannot fix the problem.
Reasons for spiking include a clear bias (someone on an opposing side of an issue did not respond, despite the fact that said response is central to the story), a major hole (many, if not most, readers will have a question after reading the story) or a sudden change in events (three more people have died, but getting details from officials is impossible on deadline).

"In some cases, a story may be spiked if it is deemed to conflict with the commercial interests of the newspaper's publisher - if, for example, it concerns a company with whom the publisher has a close relationship. This is more likely at a local level, where small newspapers are dependent on advertising revenue from businesses such as estate agents and recruitment agencies.

"Stories are spiked for other reasons, but in any case, the decision is not taken lightly, as a valid, usually detailed explanation will be solicited by those further up the chain of command, often at the behest of the reporter."

Now I have revealed my age in deep language. That I would use "spike", meaning that I have been forcibly shut down, knowing the newspaper usage from the age when newspapers were the dominant form, means I have memory of a world without calculators, let alone computers, when slide rules were the engineering tool, and books of logarithms and calculated trig functions were on every engineering desk. In those days, we used slang terms from the hot work of the time. Newspapers were happening things.

Of course this could be a baseball term too... If I am working second base, then the runner sliding in high from first might spike me to break up the double play.

Any sports team wearing spikes can use them this way.

How about getting esoteric and theological in the far background, because Jesus was spiked to the tree.

I like the main newspaper reference: "...withholding a story from publication for reasons pertaining to its veracity (whether or not it conforms to the facts)..." which clearly describes what I call lying by telling the truth. Lying by telling the truth is the highest and most subtle dishonesty, the top end tool in the skill kit of a liar.

Oh yes, here's another reference for the use of "spiked"...a woman in "spike" heels can use her shoe as a weapon as we were taught in the sixties.

If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction,
we lessen the importance of their deprivation.
We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world. To make injustice the only
measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.
- Jack Gilbert
from A Brief For The Defense

Sunday, March 25, 2012

The Photo Album

from Tess Kincaid's Magpie Tales, Mag 110

The Photo Album

I am caught between
frames as if little silver
dots in emulsion.
This is what you do
when you flash into my eyes,
a pulse of white light
and then you again
are charged and new in my life,
ready to capture,
to paste all right down
in sequences and grand themes,
titled and arranged.
So I pay you back,
write these tall tales of your grit,
send them far off world.

March 25, 2012 3:22 PM


Photos by Duane Michals, who apparently is one of the creative New York crowd that included Andy Warhol. He is also outspokenly if low keyed and non-politically gay and as of 2011 marked 51 years with the same partner.

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Tune Up

image: from Tess Kincaid for Mag 109, by Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison

Robert and Shana write: "We create works in response to the ever-bleakening relationship linking humans, technology, and nature. These works feature an ambiguous narrative that offers insight into the dilemma posed by science and technology's failed promise to fix our problems, provide explanations, and furnish certainty pertaining to the human condition. Strange scenes of hybridizing forces, swarming elements, and bleeding overabundance portray Nature unleashed by technology and the human hand.

"Rich colors and surrealistic imagery merge to reveal the poetic roots of the works on display. The use of color is intentional but abstract; proportion and space are compositional rather than natural; movement is blurred; objects and people juxtaposed as if by chance in a visual improvisation that unfolds choreographically. At once formally arresting and immeasurably loaded with sensations—this work attempts to provide powerful impact both visually and viscerally."

For the site ParkeHarrison.com, *click here*

Tune Up

You peel me back raw
just like you did the whole world,
revealing the gears
within my split skin,
me watching my life's blood flow
in red rivulets
from the razor's edge
of the embodied terror
I am left holding
in my bag of tricks.

The spanner you use to tune
me up is so cold.

Written for Magpie Tales, Mag 109. *click here*
March 18, 2012 3:53 PM


Thursday, March 15, 2012

Spider Talk

The bright and interesting Camel Spider is also known as Sun Spider or Wind Scorpion. A camel spider can run at 30 mph and they have a very high pitched scream. They are 7 cm in length. According to a test, their venom caused paralysis in 7 out of 10 lizards which were injected with their venom. They are found in deserts and hence got their name, Camel Spiders.
Solifugae are not true spiders, which are from a different order, Araneae. Like scorpions and harvestmen, they belong to a distinct arachnid order. There are about 1065 species of Solifugae known, grouped in about 153 genera and 12 families belonging to the order Solifugae.



This poem, which has never been published yet, is over two years old. I have been busy writing new stuff and publishing that instead. I still have 380 or so that are just hanging around, unpublished, waiting, languishing. Alas!

Spider Talk

So the spider says
come to me baby, never
mind the tall sawgrass,
the holes between us,
the snakes. Don't think of the snakes.
Don't think of the fangs
glistening, dripping
venom as they lie in wait
for you. Come to me.

March 9, 2010 8:14 PM

You Gotta Do What You Can


You Gotta Do What You Can

I cannot sit still,
not right now my friend, fuzzy
logic anyhow.
I have wrestled that
to the mat more than one time
but my knees freak out
and my back. My head
hurts from the hot spite I spend
trying to balance
so much clotted oil
girding my spiny red soul,
which blurts, "Whatever,
Dude!"

written March 14, 2012 9:08 PM


Wednesday, March 14, 2012

A Hard Decision

Pieter Brueghel the Younger. Style: Northern Renaissance

Thom writes: 3WW CCLXIII - Each week, I post three words. You write something using the words. Then come back and post a link to the contribution with Mr. Linky (but please, link to the exact post, not your blog, by clicking on the exact post title and paste it to Mr. Linky below). As always, there's no hard-and-fast rule that you have to post on Wednesday. Here's the link to the site: *click here*

This week's words:

Baffle; elegant; negate.

A Hard Decision

That's what I built up,
a baffle to slow the flow
of your elegant
and crucial desire.
A figure of pain, bleeding
above us, the cross
groaning - I negate
all that matters to me now
having turned away.

March 14, 2012 4:38 AM

A Japanese Crucifixion




Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Hot Tuna, 2009



I love these guys. Old farts now but in 1971 they were cutting a swath, well, not these particular guys except Jorma. In those days it was Papa John on violin and of course Jack on bass. And then there were a whole township of people wanting to sit in. They would go to a bar in the mountains east of Santa Cruz and the whole place would go psychedelic while these guys did this bluesy shit. Now everyone is basically old and mostly sober. Or dead, like Skip.

Jorma has a music ranch in the Midwest. Google it. My friend Bill Groff just posted a video of Hot Tuna shot in 1971. There is a bunch of Hot Tuna and Jorma on YouTube.

I spent a semester with Jorma at Santa Clara U. in 1963 fall or 64 spring. He was without question the strangest guy on campus with his already long black hair and his all black clothes. I had no idea. Neither did he, but of course he was hungry for music already. I was a freshman and he an upperclassman. I have no idea where he got his money. Santa Clara U. was private and not cheap. I was there financed by my Dad because my appointment to West Point crashed and burned and only SCU was in a position to take my transfer. I nearly flunked out and had to go to Community College next to bring my grade point back up so I could go to San Jose State.

But first I was going active in the Army, and there I caught meningitis and nearly died. What happened next, my Dad got the chance to be a school administrator, Superintendant of the American Family School in Teheran, Iran, the Shah's Iran. I got kicked out of the house before I could sign on for that two year deal. My sister got to go while I tried to put my life together. I was living with brain damage from the meningitis. All this before I was twenty. At twenty one I spent four months in a mental institution. Damn. Sorta weird and really busy. I actually got to the edge of Junior in college status but my major was a shambles.

I am still pretty much nuts. Hyuck, hyuck, hyuck. Ooooh, pretty colors!

Monday, March 12, 2012

Reform School


Reform School

The rich feel of things
has deepened my clarity,
flipped into whipped cream.
Years ago I ate
whipped cream by the gobs and got
a headache from my
hunger for sweet fat.
You've gone and changed my thieving,
Sweetie, just like that.

‎March ‎12, ‎2012 7:32 PM

Another Kind Of Whipped Cream

Although "only" about 250,000 galaxies are shown in the above image, the entire Universe is estimated to have at least hundreds of billions of galaxies, spread out over a spherical region about a million times larger in diameter than our galaxy is.

Image of the visible universe by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey.

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Talking Behind Your Back

image: Uzengia (Aleksander Nedic), from Tess Kincaid, The Mag

Aleksandar, published in HappyPhoton, Online Magazine For Contemporary Photography, 15 Feb 12 says, "My name is Aleksandar Nedic, and I was born 35 years ago in the city of Vukovar in Croatia, where I still live...photoshop software with its endless possibilities. I discovered that even a beginner and photo-ignorant like me, is able to create something interesting."

And in Blur Magazine:
"Aleksandar Nedić, better known under his artistic name Uzengia, was born in Vukovar (Croatia) in 1977. He has been into visual arts since childhood when he started to paint and draw. He was studying painting for a few years at the Academy of Fine Arts in Banja Luka (BiH), and today he is a professional illustrator. Uzengia has been actively engaged into photography for several years now and he prefers digital photography with a strong emphasis on post production."

Talking Behind Your Back

I've a bad habit
of peeping through the wormhole
at you backlit by
the latest foreign
shape of your traveling show.
Then I go and start
some new rumor about
why the hell you won't settle
for your homebound life.

March 11, 2012 10:02 AM

Son of a bitch! I just noticed...someone stole an hour from me in the middle of last night! I really, really hate this!

Compiled and written for Mag 108


*click here*

Friday, March 9, 2012

Tracking Neutrinos

Section of neutrino observatory under Mount Kamioka.

Photo taken from Greg L.'s Blog: *Quantum Spirit*

This poem was found in the notebook of a physicist found dead of unknown causes.

Tracking Neutrinos

You weigh tiny bits
of nothing and oscillate
among your own selves
as if you might change
the very nature of time
and further ignore
the last vestiges
of relationship with space
having long surpassed
the wan likes of me
on your straight way, you beyond
us all forever.

March 9, 2012 5:16 PM

An electron weighs almost nothing. Neutrinos weigh a million times less but just enough to change identities in what are called neutrino oscillations. Electrons can actually push things around as we well know, having harvested their power. They push things around only because there are so many of them. Or as someone pointed out, there may be only one electron manifesting simultaneously so many half precise times and half determined places. At the level of a solitary electron, you can only know so much with precision. If you wish to know all, then you have to accept considerable uncertainty in what you know. Neutrinos are so small and weigh so little that they really do ignore us all. Such aloofness may be tough to take even if you are professional.

Thursday, March 8, 2012

What Coyote Gives


What Coyote Gives

Coyote gives you
what you want, gives you the moon
as she snuffs the edge
of the world right there
in your yard. She gives you eyes
for the shape of things
and a way to find
my scent as I pass nearby.

She gives you a tail
and sure footed grasp
of the wild life just outside
the door to your heart.

March 9, 2010 10:10 AM

"I cannot help you understand. In the realm of the ultimate, each person must figure out things for themselves. Remember that. Teachers who offer you the ultimate answers do not possess the ultimate answers, for if they did, they would know that the ultimate answers cannot be given, they can only be received."
- Tom Robbins in Jitterbug Perfume

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Getting Right Sized - 3WW


Thom writes: 3WW CCLXII - Each week, I post three words. You write something using the words. Then come back and post a link to the contribution with Mr. Linky (but please, link to the exact post, not your blog, by clicking on the exact post title and paste it to Mr. Linky below). As always, there's no hard-and-fast rule that you have to post on Wednesday. Here's the link to the site: *click here*

This week's words:

Deviant; minuscule; trivial.

As usual, this poem wrote itself. As for me, I'm just another bozo on the bus. I am sure I deserve a variety of criticisms. I often have people in my life who are willing to accommodate me in trimming off my excess self. Apparently it doesn't really work.



Getting Right Sized

Name calling again,
you say I'm deviant 'cause
I do things my way
shrinking the wide world
to my own minuscule size
as if my game was
"Trivial Pursuit."
After all you've said and done
I do still love you.

March 7, 2012 4:45 AM


Wiki says: Trivial Pursuit is a board game in which progress is determined by a player's ability to answer general knowledge and popular culture questions. The game was created in 1979 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, by Canadian Chris Haney, a photo editor for Montreal's The Gazette and Scott Abbott, a sports editor for The Canadian Press. After finding pieces of their Scrabble game missing, they decided to create their own game. With the help of John Haney and Ed Werner, they completed development of the game, which was released in 1982.

In North America, the game's popularity peaked in 1984, a year in which over 20 million games were sold. The rights to the game were initially licensed to Selchow and Righter in 1982, then to Parker Brothers (now part of Hasbro) in 1988, after initially being turned down by the Virgin Group; in 2008, Hasbro bought out the rights in full, for US$80 million. As of 2004, nearly 88 million games had been sold in 26 countries and 17 languages. Northern Plastics of Elroy, Wisconsin produced 30,000,000 games between 1983 and 1985. An online version of Trivial Pursuit was launched in September, 2003.

I was involved in this game for a while as a party game in the eighties, but I haven't played for years, missing all the on line stuff. Oh by the way, on the card above I have three of the right answers :D

Monday, March 5, 2012

Inventory

Just for the amusement. Don't try to tie it in to anything.

I am not really a Buddhist. I think Buddhism is the spiritual walk that expresses the human condition (the psychology, sort of) the best of all the spiritual walks. However, personally, I require a more definite presence of God than can be found in all but Pure Land Buddhism and some sects of Tibetan Buddhism. It is said that Buddha was religious but pointed out that religion is not necessary, that God is not a requirement to engage in a successful spiritual walk. I think that Buddha was right in his claim in general and that a billion Buddhists can't all be wrong. However, still, I personally must remain true to my experience and my experience places the God of my understanding at the center of my spiritual walk no matter what I may want to think. There is plenty I could write about all this but it would be pointless. It is too personal.

So might this poem be too personal:

Inventory

If I had the way
to turn the clock back without
the price I know now
I wonder, would I?

One hip a mess, my eyes too,
arthritic thumb joints
and knots on tendons
in my hands and feet, and gout
in one big toe, while
one leg don't work good
and yet I feel better for
holding still right here.

March 8, 2010 7:17 PM

What I didn't put in the poem....I don't hear as well as I once did either, heart disease, stroke risk managed by coumadin, low level diabetes managed by metformin, obesity greatly increased by the heart disease, high blood pressure managed by drugs, benign prostate managed by drugs, serious shortness of breath caused by heart disease leading to sleep apnea managed by the CPAP machine, sleeping only on the living room couch to lift my legs at night high enough to lessen the swelling the lymphedema causes in my legs, coming primarily from the heart disease and secondarily from the diabetes and still I am better for holding still right here. I am okay despite all the pills and accommodations. Sometimes I tire of the diuretics I must take to manage the pulmonary edema. I get tired of having to pee all the time. I am mostly at peace, no matter what comes next. Perhaps you could say I look forward to the changes.

Getting older is not for the faint of heart, nor is it for sissies. In fact, I have long been of the opinion that the capstone of living well is dying well. Heyo! Eeyah! Coyote sing for me!





Sunday, March 4, 2012

Keeping Secrets

This image belongs to Sarolta Ban

Sarolta writes: "I was born in 1982 in Budapest, Hungary. Originally I’m a jewellery designer, later I discovered digital photo manipulation and it became my passion and main activity. I like using ordinary elements and by combining them, I can give them various stories, personalities. I hope that the meanings of my pictures are never too limited, are open in some way, each viewer can transform them into a personal aspect.

I’m not so good in talking about myself, I prefer the pictures ’talk’."

This too belongs to Sarolta Ban

Keeping Secrets

I'm not so good now
at keeping things under my
hat. The god damned birds
won't leave me alone.
The other day my hat blew
clean off, multiplied
just weird - a raven
landed on my head. That hurt.
And that other time
I was surrounded.
Now here you are, you looking
at me just like that.

March 4, 2012 9:02 AM

A third belonging to Sarolta Ban

I wear other hats but mostly this one fedora I bought in 1989 or thereabouts. It is of course sweat stained, old and faded by several shades from the dark olive it once was. At the crown, I have stains from handling the hat so many times. Some days I wear it all day long but I don't sleep in it :D

Me in my trusty old hat

Compiled and written for Mag 107

*click here*



Saturday, March 3, 2012

Into Gnarly Shape


In one way or another, every religion and spiritual tradition offers up some kind of world view to explain the discomfort of this mundane life. Most take the tack that there is a "heaven" or a "pure land" or a "Golden Age" or there is "nirvana" or "samadhi". Some of these paths offer a Savior or a Buddha or some other kind of "enlightened master" to guide us, while some of these paths offer some kind of effective sacrifices, devotions or disciplines, all to the purpose of attaining a place in the "elsewhere" that might even be as a mustard seed right here.

My favorite of these relations with the sacred is the ideal of Bodhisattva, who is infinitely in love with us all. While Bodhisattva has attained perfect freedom and is now capable of disappearing into the pure light, there is a task and with that task a vow. Bodhisattva will not depart the world unless we all go, all sentient beings. The vow is to work toward that. Followers of the ideal who are not Bodhisattva vow to work toward becoming Bodhisattva. "Infinitely in love with us all" - most commonly that is called "compassion".

Into Gnarly Shape

It was possible,
I told you that but never
thought you would try for
naked reality
like you have. I fold myself
into gnarly shape
just to fit your bed,
not like me at all. I don't
usually do
this wild sort of thing.

March 8, 2010 6:43 PM


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