Stress Reduction - Reprise

Stress Reduction

I have no advice
to give, no grand instruction,
only a viewpoint
that repaints the way.

I say stress strongly flows,
a river between
close high banks that press
and force the rising tumult.

So open wide, wide,
so wide that all goes
quiet, placid in the way
of soft meanders.

January 13, 2010 8:45 AM

I first posted this poem and the photos as I show them here nearly two years ago exactly. I choose to reprise that posting this Halloween morning because it is one of my favorite blog post compositions. I was being silly in the first two photos but starting with the poem, I really am a bit serious. I think in the end the post hit a spot of sorts because Blogger recorded over five hundred hits over the last two years. As a post of mine goes, that is no slouch, though my top ten posts all beat it by more than two times. My top post is far more popular with over 10,000 hits, or by about 20 times. I wonder how many people copied and posted the stress reduction directions photo? That is of course what I did. That's an example of "going viral". Facebook is of course full of that.

Incantation

Stand by me oh God
of my tribe and lift me
into the surety of my destiny.
Steady the hands and hearts
of those who will touch
and change me
if you deem that good
and settle me into your peace
that passes all understanding.
May Your healing rays
burn through all blocks
and hesitations.
And while I must turn inward
for now protect all whom I love,
all who love me, known and not known,
past, present and not yet.
Place me in the best of worlds
and return to me what is mine.
Please remove from me all that is not.
I hope You and I agree
there is much yet to do
but if there is not,
then I will go peacefully.
Whatever comes next,
I am ever in Your debt.
Thanks to you, my tribe
and thanks as well to You
oh my God.

I Keep Losing Things - Reprise

Choreographed Version Of A Shamanic Ritual

I love the play of things in a world of magic and love. I am firm in my belief that the spirit world has a power dimension. I believe that the power issue was primary in the oldest forms of the human spiritual walk, that the earliest human groups needed to get the world to cooperate, the prey to come to them, the storms to hold off at critical times, and similar issues, on pain of death. This was no joke. I believe the need for spirit power produced in certain locations a “science of spirit” over generations that in a certain sense could be handed down from master to apprentice.

After literally millions of years of yearning after power and entry into spirit worlds, the practices in place were tribal, forms of shamanism. In China, Tibet, and Southeast Asia these practices were brought forward and institutionalized in aspects of Taoism in China and other local forms elsewhere, such as Bon in Tibet and precursors to Hinduism in India. These traditional forms of shamanism were deeply transformed by the advent of agriculture but in essence were unbroken.

The shamanic roots of Taoism remain in place still today, why Taoist thinking is overtly alchemical in many areas. Alchemy is in its largest context a disciplined approach to mastering spiritual power. The power is transformative, lifting the self into higher realms, the meaning of transforming lead into gold, for example.

Elsewhere on the planet, especially in the near East, India, Egypt the advent of agriculture broke shamanism and replaced it with priesthood religions that match the political power structures of empire. The shamanic traditions had to go somewhat underground, because spirit power could not be allowed to be as dispersed and accessible as tribal cultures permit.

I love the play of things in a world of magic and love. I am shaman at heart. I have taken my own spirit journeys. I believe music, art, poetry can be alchemical in nature, transformative in ways difficult to fathom without intimacy, magic, love. And with coyote, I say, “you better be able to take a joke along the way.”

To ignore the depth of a shamanic spirit practice is to ignore literally 50,000 years and more of accumulated cultural wisdom. Such ignorance may assume the ancients were rubes and boobs, buried under superstitions and fantasies. It is clear the ancients were at least as intelligent as we are all the way along. It is also certain they were highly motivated by their uncertain life to achieve success in marshalling spiritual power. Why would it be surprising that they actually did achieve spirit power along the way?

Here is a poem that seems to assume the spirit world is nearby.

I Keep Losing Things

I see you coming
my way out of the forest,
that place that the moons
of this world visit,
nestling in the trees.
You hold a basket of rose
petals and I know
you are going to
give me a shower of them,
expecting that I
hold the golden key.
I'm sorry, but I lost that
key two lives ago.

Poem Written March 6, 2009 11:58 AM
First posted December 12, 2009
The poem is untouched. The introductory essay has been modified and the photo added, October 28, 2013

The End Of Poetry - Reprise

This depiction of Comet Halley's orbit is typical for all recurring comets. There are many other comets which plunge in an elliptical arc to loop near the sun and then depart, never to return or at least not in any forseeable future. I am more like Comet Halley. I keep coming back. That might be cause for dismay.

Note that Comet Halley is in retrograde motion, that is, it is in solar orbit travelling backwards in relation to its planetary neighbors. That's probably right for me too.

I have an agenda. Here it is. Sometimes my orbits are like the comets but at the near end of the ellipse is always the Bodhisattva ideal.

The End Of Poetry

I want my poems
to reach heaven's view and say
just everything
so clearly, without
refutation, that lives change
and we all can rise,
grow the angel bright white wings
and I no longer
have to write this stuff.

April 30, 2009 12:27 PM
Image of Comet Halley added October 27, 2013

Originally posted April 6, 2010, this little thing is unchanged but I am rather far into the surreal part of the loop these days. You never know. I might enter the shape shifting asteroid belt again any moment now or the sarcastic cometary source, though the comets are birthed at the far end while the solar Bodhisattva source is at the near end. I hope you all can take a joke.

It's All So Surreal - A Magpie Tale

Le Jardin by 

Max Ernst, dated 1962

Offered by Tess as a writing prompt for The Mag:Mag 191.

To vist the Magpie Tales writing group and enjoy the work the contributors produced this week *click here*

I hope you will decide to add your own work, following the directions Tess gives in the sidebar of The Mag site.

It's All So Surreal

I've laid down the map
of things to come over you,
a blanket of sorts
to cover the snake
as it wraps you up.

Sweetie,
I don't understand
why you keep the snake.
Yes you've explained it before
but that snake crowds me.
She takes the corner
where holding our cat I like
to crouch and watch you
as you wash yourself.

October 27, 2013 11:02 AM

Concerning snake symbolism: I checked the Wiki article and it is accurate, as far as I know. The article is reasonably thorough besides. Go there if you like. There are many internet sites and whole libraries of books which can be significant resources concerning snake symbolism. Snake symbolism appears to be very old, and probably arises in man's relationship to snakes from the very beginning, from long before any recorded history.

Snakes not only represent evil but fertility, wisdom, and healing, all very good things. Snakes symbolize the union of opposites, as on the modern medical caduceus. This snake symbol is a very old symbol. The first known image of snakes coiled about an upright pole (the world axis) predates the modern symbol by four thousand years and more. In medical terms, this symbol represents the tension between actions or substances which can be used either to heal or kill.

A snake can symbolize the whole, as in the Greek vision of the Ouroboros, shown as the snake swallowing its own tail. Snakes are dangerous, potentially evil but as often are enlisted as effective guardians of the most sacred places. Snakes symbolize rebirth quite directly as they are observed to molt, to shed their skins periodically and emerge refreshed. Snakes represent the chthonic, or underground (hidden and secret) power of mother earth.

In human terms snakes can symbolize the powers which resides in the soul and have the capacity to rise up and meet God in spirit and then return to the seat of the soul, empowering all in between. In this Hindus vision, a snake becomes humanity's central spiritual power as the kundalini serpent. The serpent symbolism is worldwide, appearing on every continent and not only contains but also usually contradicts a more limited vision of the serpent as the successful tempter and subverter of woman.

The One Eyed Man

The One Eyed Man

Let the rains arrive.
May they wash behind my ears
and sluice all my cracks
clean of sludge and grit,
splash my patchy skin with trust
so it sparkles fine
grained, love strewn and streaked,
heavy packed inside my veins
where it thrums and drums,
and still the front hums
displeasure at the sloppy
sight of my one eye.

‎October ‎25, ‎2013 2:24 PM

Photo taken minutes ago in the basement where I live. I wear the patch because my blind eye waters incessantly in the light. It does not matter, computer backlight, daylight, overhead illumination, all will distress my left eye. I am not blind to the light, but I see only some movement through the haze in the fluid. Hopefully the upcoming surgery will give me a sliver of far left peripheral vision = a crescent of my former left eye world. Surgery will happen on October 30.

Charlie B and Lucy V

Charlie B and Lucy V

Bent west at the waist
and east at my wide wide eyes
worried I might break
falling to my right -
no matter what, I still try
to play the big kid
and hold it all in.
You said you would mend my soul
when next I shattered.
I hope you talk straight
this time.

‎October ‎24, ‎2013 4:09 PM

Do you remember Linus and Lucy's last name? I gave a hint.

Death On My Shoulder

Gadgetry and color scheme similar to the room I was in but Kaiser Sunnyside's Emergency is divided into individual small rooms. The bed iteslf is a bit different. The emergency cot at Kaiser is on braked wheels such that the people do not move you off the bed for transport, but instead take you bed and all to wherever you are to go.

Death On My Shoulder

When my heart attacked
me and sent me that signal
that all was not well,
it surprised me to
notice my thoughts and practice
had held me steady.

I lay on that bed,
that bad hard emergency
transporter, thin sheets
and open backed gown,
for simply hours, hours while they
decided what to
do with me and then
shot me up with dark morphine.
Next they sent me up.
All this while I joked
and played some with the nurses
and I did not fear.

I knew possibly
I should quake and think last thoughts.
It was not in me.

‎October ‎22, ‎2013 3:15 PM

This experience is several years old now.

The Fate Of The Drunken Pirate - 3 Word Wednesday

Thom writes:
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.

To join this week's 3 Word Wednesday writing group *click here*

This week's words:

Greasy; Insidious; Reveal

The Fate Of The Drunken Pirate

You had greasy hair
and with all insidious
tendencies fully
flying like your flags
planted in designs taken
from some old tribal
patterns it was brought
to our abruptly challenged
notice, indeed our
peeled back eyes and lids,
that you might reveal secrets
we wanted hidden
for the next decade.
That's why we had to shiver
your rum soaked timbers.

October 23, 2013 6:14 AM

This ditty was found pinned to my chest on a ragged piece of wrapping, me wrapped in chains and anchored to a dumpster in a Cleveland, Ohio alley last Christmas. I was heard to mutter imprecations but not coherently. By the time they sobered me up I had no memory of what had befallen me. They had to replace my eye patch with a fresh one, the old patch being soaked with something uncertain and smelly. They had to whittle me a fresh peg leg. It is certainly awkward to appear as a three hundred year old pirate in Cleveland, Ohio.

Note: "My timbers!" as an exclamation appeared in print as early as 1789. And "shiver!" was used, also exclamatory, first appearing in print in 1791. The phrase "shiver my timbers" was made popular by Robert Louis Stevenson in his Treasure Island ca. 1883. So say contributors to Wikipedia.

I Will Miss You When You Go

Oh special this day,
the day you chose to show me
how to live, you hung
in branches, setting
like the April sun sets here
within the dogwood
tree, like it always
does in every springtime
I've known in this place.

Now I've thought to show
you some token of esteem,
and how love breaks out.

August 27, 2010 6:01 AM
Modified October 21, 2013

Because the photo was a springtime photo, I had to change the setting of the poem from autumn to April. It still isn't my tree but some other tree and some other yard. At my house I would have to reverse the tree from this side yard to that, and then stand in the street to see the sun like this. My dogwood is pink flowered, not white. So the poem is not written with me and my lover in mind except perhaps some other me and some other you. I suspect that beneath this tree, just like mine, there are squirrel stashes left over because squirrel forgets them. In due course walnut trees will start up.

Stand Up

Walter as a door greeter at Walmart

Stand Up

Jeff Dunham's partner
Walter has taken that job
as a stand up guy
at Walmart's front door.
They've joked about it on stage
but times are hard now
and their wives have split
and Jeff is unsure what's next.
When Walter greets you
he says, "Buy your shit
and get out!" but he's famous
and no one complains.
It's part of the show.

‎October ‎18, ‎2013 4:11 PM

Jeff Dunham with Walter

A Three Word Challenge - A Magpie Tale

Back in 2010 I missed a chance to link to the 3 Word Wednesday site. Lately I have been composing and posting my current work most days of the week, only ocasionally filling in from my queue of over 300 backed up poems. Today the usual exercise of Sunday's Magpie Tale challenge is missing because Tess is holding her annual Willow Manor Ball *here*. I have taken this opportunity to pull from my queue.

I am no longer of a shape to dance the Tango nor of the temperament either truth be known. I am grateful for my simplified life now that I am no longer so driven by chemistry and scent. I'm half blind and while still upright, this is with care and a cane now. I am not grumpy. Neither am I seriously debilitated. Well... I am not seriously and debilitatingly grumpy. I assure you I still appreciate the women in my life.

I still know how to pray, by God, I still know how to pray.

Underwater Sculpture Kneeling in Prayer
See the National Geographic photo spread *here*

A Three Word Challenge
(use abstain, halo, prayer, in a poem)

Two syllable words,
a triune group, a challenge,
how do I get there?

How from here shall I
use the word abstain?

I will
place it next to me,
withold myself as
you asked, with all perfection,
earning a halo
and wings and the right
to kneel in prayer as if
I have found myself.

August 26, 2010 8:43 AM
Modified October 20, 2013

Oh yes, the blind part? At the end of the month I shall be entering into surgery to help my blind eye, replacing the vitreal fluid with an inert saline solution. In time that solution will be replaced by my eye's natural secretions.

My Blue Sky Eye

The Spanish Imperial Eagle and the European Griffin Vulture paired in the sky. The photo is one of a series found on this site *click here*

My Blue Sky Eye

I want more than this,
more than I have, blue blue sky
and raptors in it,
more than one's the best.
I used to want more drugs, or yours
would be right because
I never had money
of course, though that's all been changed.
But now my blue sky
eye's still dry and sore
and the stuff I want, money
can't buy anyway.

‎October ‎17, ‎2013 4:38 PM

The classic sin of the seven deadlies that relates to alcoholism and addiction is gluttony. People think of gluttony as having to do with food. However, our modern times clarifies this as we understand that food addiction is about comfort and about affecting emotional and mental states and is not different in this way, not different from alcoholism and addiction which are also about affecting emotional and mental states of being.

Even gambling as described by addicted gamblers and sex by those addicted to that will admit eventually to the way their addictions when they acted out of them would change their emotional and mental states of being. All addicts tend to escalate their use whatever they are using, assuming that more is better or becoming caught in the phenomena of tolerance. It often takes more of the booze or drug or sex or gambling or food to satisfy the craving.

Very often recovering people will joke about their hard times, by saying something like "I was a garbage can addict/alcoholic and would drink or use anything, but my favorite drug/drink was more." Alternatively they might say, "My favorite drug was yours." It is amusing when said this way, but it might be well to remember that these people aren't really kidding. They were among other things gluttons, and while they would quite often be happy sharing your stuff, they certainly would not be sharing theirs. That abhorrence for allowing others to drink or use off their stash certainly contributed to solitary use. It was far easier to stay alone than to share a stash.

The picture I paint here is not universal as there are several varieties of addicts and drunkards but this picture is common as addicted people near the end stages of the illness.

Finding My Way

Sometimes bears find a pathway so obviously well placed that they create their own trails by the simple device of using it that often. Perhaps this one turned to pass near a honey tree.

Finding My Way

So what I'm trying
to do is find the way to you
whether it's summer
nights camped outdoors
or winter's chill dim indoor
days and nights that go
forever, ever
on and on, slaying
my thoughts of winding bear trails
and your honey trees.

August 25, 2010 8:40 PM

What Do They Really Think

Washington's Boulder River. There is a relatively easy hike to get here. Photo can be found on this site: *click here*

What Do They Really Think

Sometimes I question
things as if they would answer
back, reply to me
in kindness, loving
me, such an ignorant son.
Or maybe changing
it up, I'll compose
poesy something like this
to show how clever
I am when I try.

I say the river coming
to a boulder smack
in its middle course
will complain all the way back
to the birthing clouds
about how it must
turn and roil up, throw its froth
or how trees whisper
against each other
in the rising thunderclap,
waiting for the hail.

‎October ‎15, ‎2013 10:47 PM

I was taught once about lightning and have just now confirmed that while lightning starts in the clouds, most often the really visible path we see is the response that rises from the ground going up to the cloud. In the picture above, the three heaviest looking strikes include these upward directed flows. You would not be incorrect to say that lightning rises. However, it is really both ways most often.

In Fred Meyer's - 3 Word Wednesday

Thom writes:
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.

To join this week's 3 Word Wednesday writing group *click here*

This week's words:

Daunting; Fastidious; Intensify

In Fred Meyer's

Trying to keep love,
I would go out to Freddy's
late at night for that.
I would go back there
however daunting the store
might be to keep love
alive, how I feel now.

Mister fastidious, me-
I'm all squeaky clean
and scrubbed pink in part,
a ritual bath taken
to intensify
my presence tonight
among you all, with all your
different plain Jane
stories just like mine,
trying to keep love alive
just like me tonight.

‎October ‎16, ‎2013 6:29 AM

Wiki says:

"Fred Meyer, Inc., is a chain of superstores founded in 1922 in Portland, Oregon, by Fred G. Meyer (not to be confused with Frederik Gerhard Hendrik Meijer, former chairman of the Meijer superstore chain). The company was one of the pioneers of one-stop shopping, eventually combining a complete grocery supermarket with a drugstore, clothing store, shoe store, fine jewelers, home decor store, home improvement center, garden center, electronics store, toy store, sporting goods store, and more under one roof.

"Fred Meyer stores are located in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Alaska. Before the company's merger with Kroger in October 1998, it traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol FMY. Although the company is now a division of Kroger, the stores are still branded Fred Meyer, and the western region of the Kroger Corporation is headquartered in Portland.

"Fred Meyer is sometimes known as "Freddy's", a nickname the company was given by its customers and which is used in its advertising. For a number of years, the company has used the marketing slogan What's on your list today? You'll find it at Fred Meyer! or, more simply, What's on your list today? in its advertising."

I Am Listening

I am listening!
Just as you said, it's my task
to listen for you
in the summer's hum,
in the hot electric blue
of this August day,
I am listening.

You said you would circle me,
touch my sore eyes, breathe
your cool across me
and change this day just like that.

So I'm listening
because you've become
my call, my one great task, gold
like daylight and you
are pure notes, like rain.

August 25, 2010 5:02 PM
Modified October 14, 2013

At The River

Trout Fishing On The Klamath River

See The Running Y Ranch

You are off the hook.
You will love them all someday.

As for me, I caught
a trout without thought,
for no damn reason at all
and I let it go,
my line in this stream.

I shall practice unfolding.

Heart fishing depends
on my engagement
with restraint on doom and gloom,
with a well placed lure.

‎October ‎12, ‎2013 2:51 PM

At The End Of The Chase - A Magpie Tale

Photo by Scavengercat808

Offered by Tess as a writing prompt for The Mag:Mag 190.
To join with the Magpie Tales writing group and enjoy the work we have produced this week *click here*

At The End Of The Chase

A dozen of us
on your trail, would not back off.
At the end you treed.
We howled and circled
below you, calling the men
to us and to you,
though we would have been
fine had you broken branches
and fallen among
our hungry pink maws.
We would have painted the world
a despair of blood
red. But no, you had
to hang on. For now they leave
one hard bull on guard.

‎October ‎13, ‎2013 8:13 AM

So what happened to the rest of the pack? They set down to tables rather like this.

That is all of them but me. I'm a poet and a bit of a hermit, you see, not a poker player.

The Three Crows

I'm asking you this,
please take my hand and hold on.
We are strangers here
(though not all places)
and above us in the gnarled
and naked branches
three crows preen and flash
and crack wise about us both
laying each trimmed log
of our hope down as
the corduroy of one road
however it winds.

‎October ‎11, ‎2013 2:26 PM

What is the significance of three crows?

"Crows are associated with the Celtic Goddess Morrigan. She is a Goddess of war, chaos, death and rebirth. She is also a triple Goddess (maiden, mother and crone). The 3 crows would signify that you are coming into a time of major change, whether you are prepared for it or not. There may be some major disruptions involved, but it will all be for the best, you will have a 'rebirth' and new paths on your journey will be opened to you. Go with the flow and all will be well."

I found the interpretation of three crows *here* AFTER I wrote the poem.

Photoshopped image of The Morrigan by wintersmagic