Wednesday, April 30, 2008

the grass.

there was a field here once.

there were rocks and rivers and streams and birds and flowers and animals.......and they are mostly still here.

and we came along and because we are not well adaped to living in harmony with nature as it exists, we have to build shelter and manipulate crops and livestock to survive.

so where the field once was there became a house and paths and gardens and farms and so on.

men made metal things and wooden things and pretty soon the paths became tracks and men threw down stones to allow a better surface to run carts on.

then one day some men build cars and found that the gravel paths were limiting to the will to move things faster.

so some other men melted some stuff in a big pot and poured it all over the gravel paths and made smooth flat roads for these new cars to go quickly on.

and here we are today with these smooth flat roads and parking-lots everywhere so that cars can come and go everywhere that used to be fields.

but when we rest for a while and stop pouring hot melted stuff on the fields and pathways regularly.....the fields come back.

look down sometime when you aren`t too fucking busy with whatever bullshit you are after and see in the cracks of the pavement.

really take a moment to look.

the grass is growing up from underneath the pavement and pushing ever so slowly but determinedly with it`s delicate shoots, against the underside of men`s best attempt to cover the fields and control nature for his needs........driving and parking cars.

each little bud does it`s small yet invaluable part to recreate what was once there.

the fields and streams and rocks and dirt and rivers and streams.

and if this process is allowed to go on long enough, the grass wins and the man-made surfaces are split and cracked and otherwise destroyed so that nature is restored.

it is a constant struggle of man against nature, and man gets tired eventually.....as an individual and as a society, and quickly the grass takes over again.

lawns overgrow and roads and pavements crack and trees grow through walls and roofs and buildings an highways crumble and collapse.

it`s happened before and it`s happening now.

relax.

there is nothing to be afraid of though.

it`s the way it`s supposed to be.

to open up.

what better way to celebrate a day like today than by opening up to love.

with each beating of the drum of our heartbeat we recognise more of everything around us......

boom.

boom.

boom.

the small white clouds formed in impossible perfection, hanging like cotton in the bright blue sky of this perfect morning.

boom.

the sound of children playing, running, laughing and screaming with joy in the playground outside my window.

boom.

the thought of the adventures of the day to come and the people we will meet and the smiles we will share.

boom.

what else rushes in when we open ourselves up?

boom.

boom.

boom.

boom.

boom.

we listen to our heart beating long enough to allow the whole universe to rush on in and through our souls, and we become.....no, we remember that we are......part of this miracle called life.

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

the calm.

as the seas roil and swell with the pulse of energy rising we are swept along for the ride.

this powerlessness we feel when caught up in something as powerful as the ocean it`s self can be terrifying when we try to make the feeling stop.

our will to control makes our ability to deal with these feelings that much more difficult to bear.

the alternative is to let go of the need to control and predict when the next wave will rise and lift us up or when the next trough will drag us down intot he depths.

because it doesn`t matter whether we are high or low.

nothing lasts forever.

but things do return.

so enjoy the highs and rest during the lows.

and find a calm center to enjoy all of it.

Monday, April 28, 2008

toxic?

toxic.

a word i`ve heard entirely too much of lately.

it is too easy and typical of modern throw-away society to discard something with a facile comment.

toxic.

what about patience and understanding and hope and belief in love?

toxic?

everyone seems to know something about this toxic state and how to avoid it.

but they are unable to look me in the eye when i ask them about love.

have we reached a point where society believes love it`s self is toxic?

i somehow get the sense that people would prefer to remain in some holding pattern of unattachment to feelings, just in case......

......sort of what she is being accused of b some.

Saturday, April 26, 2008

i am.......

..........icarus, and i discovered a way to fly high.

but the sun melted the wax that fixed the feathers to my arms so that i could soar so high.............and down i fell, crashing into the dust.

the moment i hit i saw the error in my plan and the solution flashed before me.

now i am healing from my injuries and have plans for a better way to fix feathers to my arms that doesn`t include wax.

and so i will once again swoop and sail and dive and climb and soar on wings of my own design.

those who stand below while i fly are so certain i will fall, and each time i come tearing down to earth they are proven right, and they warn me never to attempt such foolishness again.

but they forget one thing, these sensible and pragmatic men.

i fucking flew.

the chase?

whoever said the the chase is better than the catch isn`t a carnivore.

Thursday, April 24, 2008

essence vs. character.

when you meet someone and spend time with them daily for a period of time, you get a sense of who they are.

you see them do things and hear them speak of things and act and react to situations, and so pretty soon you can say you know a person.

obviously this process of getting to know someone never stops, and suprises and challenges arise because people are complex and mysterious, even to themselves.

but there are two things going on here. two seperate "people" inside both of you as you travel along together.

there is essence and character.

i call the true nature of who we are when we are born our essence. the pure undiluted you and me. that which comes out over time and is what we strive to discover by "knowing ourselves."

the essence is what shines out brightly to those who are centered and grounded enough to pay attention.

then there is character. to me character is the accumilation of pre-suppositions about what reality, life, love and everything else is about.

lies.

these pre-suppositions are mostly the ideas of others based on consensus from history and are false.

why do i say this?

becaue they are judgements of someone else`s experience in the past with different situations and people and so cannot be applied to the current situation in anything but the most general of ways.

so our character is made of convenient falsities to allow us to quickly draw conclusions about things and move on.

and 99.999% of the lies are functional enough to be so near to being true as to be virtually the same.

so our character gets us through the day and let`s our head hit the pillow at night ready for sleep.

but what happens when we cannot rest and all of our lies have been revealed?

we have to fall back to our essence.

the pure truth.

it takes work, because the lies are easy to believe.....in fact people demand you lie to them...and so to break the chain of lies takes work, anguish, tears, bargaining, begging and finally after fatigue and exhaustion claims you.......

....understanding.

and even then the understanding still can be painful.

but it is better by far than the lies.

two people who share something in essence find love.

the lies slip away unjudged and un-needed.

all of the character breaks down and dissolves because it has no function in intimacy.

no ego necessary. no bullshit. no negotiation for winners and losers.

just a pure meshing of the soul.

two becoming one.

today`s lesson for me.

to let life flow around me. the good, the bad and the ugly.

to realise that things are on purpose and magical and somehow deliberately mysterious.........

.....not so much for a reason, because reason is an intellectual construct, but because it just is.

we cannot know what it is like to be anything other than what we are right now, and if we manage to know something else, we have then become that thing.

so my meditation today is about acceptance and loving myself unconditionally and being grateful for so many things.

surfaces.

so what`s inside a brick?

well break it in half and we`ll find out......right?

no.

we have just created more surfaces to look at.

the brick we`ve broken in half may reveal things caught in the mixture of brick that made it, but those things are made of more surfaces.

this surface we reveal reduces to the point where we find less and less stuff that will stand still long enough to even be identified.

the smaller the thing who`s surface we look at gets, the faster it tends to be moving relative to us.

(you`ll have to excuse me for this thought but i`ve been reading richard fyneman`s autobiography and, well........he makes you think.)

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

dry, silent tears.

you are surrounded by tears.

they flow when i come near.

dry and silent. they flow.

this is not my natural state. but yet i find myself crying now.

please cry, so i don`t have to any more.

i know i ask too much.

tool.

10,000 days.

grateful.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

these walls.

they know the truth.

they hold the key, but they are not saying.

they`ve seen it all and stood by.

mute witness.

and so they remain.

they provide no comfort as would a friend who knew, yet somehow there is an echo, faint yet clear.....of what was then.

moments of us held in pure truth that cannot be denied or revised or edited or deleted.

merely recorded.

these walls.

but all too soon i will stop listening myself, and only the walls will know.

held forever.

the hawk.

i watched him soar.

high above the highway, riding the warm spring heat as it rose off the ever spreading concrete and ashpalt of our city, the bird never stopped looking.....searching for what he needed.

food.

relentless.

not asking why or how or why again, just doing.

the relentless pursuit of one thing is intoxicating in it`s simple beauty.

i watched him for what seemed like an eternity, circling and gliding and looking, and i realised that beyond all of our self-absorbed thinking we are precisely the same.

relentless in our pursuit.

except that we have to ask why.

Monday, April 21, 2008

steven, dude......

http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/primitivealienlifemayexiststephenhawkingsays

so, only primative alien life?

so how do you make the distinction steven......?

us non-astro-physicists see no logic in your observation.

you feel it`s safe to say that there might be bugs under a rock on saturn, but no technologically advanced civilisation on pluto, merely hiding from insane humans.

alrighty then stevo......

er.....

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080420/ap_on_re_mi_ea/israel_clashing_christians

i didn`t realise you could pummel someone with a palm frond, but i guess if you are intent on conflict, anything can be a weapon.

Sunday, April 20, 2008

accepting.

the pain we experience in certain situations is a form of energy stuck inside.

we try to find a reason why we are in pain and once a reason is found we hold that reason responsible.

and so, because our word is absolute in this world, the reason becomes a fact.

and the pain remains.

but here is the issue.

if you are pushed by someone, do you blame them and hold them responsible for your fall?

but how do you know why they pushed you?

and do they?

this chain of pushes goes back forever, and we can never know the reason why the first push happened......so blame does nothing.....but continue to have us stuck in the pain.

so, how do we unstick?

remain in the pain without judgement for a while, until the feeling passes, like it does.

like it would had you reacted.

only when you reacted the pain continued and you passed more painful energy along in the process.

so when you don`t react the cycle stops with you.

Saturday, April 19, 2008

a problem.

a thousand times i have ridden the logical un-merry-go-round of a problem i have been caught in.

the problem has stolen my sleep and left me strained beyond my ability to function, to think or to begin to enjoy life at all, and so i have finally ended the process.

it is so against my nature to give up and turn the other way, but i have no other choice otherwise it will begin to wear me down irrepairably.

i packed everything about this problem into a box and shut the lid, in my mind.

then my life started again.

i heard the birds singing in the trees and it liftedmy soul.

i enjoyed my children`s laughter as we played in the park.

and i heard the music on the radio.

led zeppelin`s "rock and roll" came as a gift of such immeasurable joy, when i heard it on my friend`s car radio, that all i could do was play air drums and imagine john bonham hitting the skins so many years ago......

.....and i went to that place where all people go when we transcend the physical.

and i am so grateful.

Friday, April 18, 2008

since i`ve been loving you.......

http://www.songmeanings.net/lyric.php?lid=7758

deeply passionate piece of blues that sings of the pain of betrayal, not only in the lyrics but with the drums, bass and guitar.

and as this chapter of my life winds away down, the song will remain......and not remind me, so much as inspire me to heal.

i remember my brother some years ago deciding that he`d heard enough of me lamenting over something i was going on about and he hit the cd player and fired up achilles last stand.

i forgot my worries then and as i think of that tune it does the same thing now.

Thursday, April 17, 2008

sadness.

there are those who sing happy songs and those who sing sadder ones.

why is that?

experiences, i suppose.

the miles we walk shape us, and so the songs we sing reflect that.

i am an optimist in that i know the sun will rise tomorrow, though some days will be cloudy at best.

i have always felt a deep regard for the blues.

it`s not even an understanding of the words or the inflection of the voices so much as the mood of the music it`s self.

country music has a sad message traditionally, in some ways similar to the blues, but does little for me as i`m irritated by the busy noises made by the musicians.

the guitar, bass and drums of the blues evoke trains leaving the station, love betrayed and loneliness, and from my early childhood i was transported somewhere at the sound.

i can remember hearing led zeppelin doing "since i`ve been loving you" as a boy of thirteen of fourteen and i lost all sense of time and space standing that night on my back patio in the rain as the outdoor speakers carried jimmy page`s guitar to my ears.

i taught my oldest boy to play the beginning of that tune on the guitar and when he plays it the feeling is the same.

christine marion stood beside me that night waiting for the kiss that never came, because the music took me to a place where she couldn`t go......though we did finally kiss some other night.....i was incapable then.

is it a sadness?

who knows. i just know that, like robert plant says, "a minute seems like a lifetime, when i feel this way."

acceptance.

we are machines designed to do things.

our bodies are engineered to run and lift and twist things and bend them and make things into other things, to dig ditches and use tools to make shelter and make tools to help us in our endevours.

our minds are designed to solve problems and imagine things that don`t exist yet but become real if we put our minds and bodies to the problem.

so we are "doing" machines.

doing is all that we know.

and this is what gets us into trouble in certain situations.

sometimes there is nothing we can do and no picture we can see in our mind that will change a situation and yet we persist....because that`s all we know.

so we continue on until we collapse from mental and physical exhaustion.

and so we finally find that being is preferable to doing in some situations.

the human doing is a robot running on programs and beliefs.

the human being on the other hand is a loving, compassionate spirit that can accept situations and let them pass.

the human doing is programmed by experience and trauma.

the human being is the essence of who we were born as.

when we remember our essence then things are ok.

so we must remember so we can accept that which we cannot change. those things that we should not even try........

a miraculous day.

the universe reminded me of something today.

what it was like to be warm.

i walked by the lake and got some sun as the thermometer crept toward 70 degrees.

and so yeah, the warmth of the sun brings a promise of growth and new beginnings.

conditional.

the opposite of unconditional.

the conditions are many, and most are about oppression.......not for the greater good, but for the comfort of the few.....while the masses are controlled.

when it comes to love the situation is the same.

conditional love is the one that causes the pain.

the unconditional one lifts one up.

the question then remains.

how can we love someone else unconditionally?

by accepting who they are.

and if they aren`t in a place of unconditional love for themselves, then they will bind you to conditions also.

and the universe will test you.

oh how it likes to test you.

regular programming.

the regular programming was about unconditional love for the self.

oh how i had forgotten.

how does this unconditional love for the self work?

like this.

no matter what happens, do nothing to harm the self.

when we pump energy into this by breathing in body and spirit we attract that which resonates with this.

how do we breathe in body and in spirit?

by sitting quietly and physically breathing and watching our thoughts go by and letting them float off as we just........breathe.

so i am getting back to this now with my sleeves rolled up and stalking that precious joy of the the certain knowledge that i`m in the universe of abundance with a front row seat.

what remains while we sit and breathe and let the noise go is the unconditional love for the self.

perfect peace and tranquility.

Saturday, April 12, 2008

the universe.

i got off my game and started doubting the universe and it got right back to proving it`s self to me in it`s same old staggering and beautiful way.

and what`s even more amazing is that it included me even though i got fearful and full of doubt.

challenges, lessons and new chances at the realisation that this is all on purpose and i just have to remember to allow myself to flow along resonating with the perfection.

the same messageboards and numbers and co-incedances of perfect timing have been happening and the people saying the right thing at the right time to snap my head around and wake me up, just as the pain and fear tried to drag me down and away from the glory.

and the dream last night.....well actually this morning, of the four dogs sitting on a blanket......meaningless to those who haven`t been this way recently, but to the three others who have been in this with me from the beginning, it is all blindingly clear.

we are precisely and perfectly on the pathway.

fuckin` a.......

and now we return you to regularly sceduled programs.

Monday, April 07, 2008

i am speechless.

i haven`t posted here for a long time.

i have been following another path for the last few months and enjoying a new sense of vigour in life, love and commerce, but something i recently heard shocked me so profoundly that i had to type it here and read it over to try to make some sense of it somehow.

two people met and enjoyed hours of conversation together over coffee. nothing unusual there.

nothing unusual in that they would find eachother more and more often and become hopeful of catching eachother casually.......for coffee.

one day the woman asked the man if he would be interested in meeting somewhere other than the coffee shop, and he agreed.

they met, kissed and fell in love in a few short weeks.

again, nothing unusual there....my dear friends.

he then, one evening in the heat of passion, says that he`s falling in love....and she says don`t.

she then says that she has a dilemma.

she had an affair some years ago with a married man and that she promised him that if he ever left his wife that she would be there for him......

the married guy had seen the two lovers together and reminded her of her promise and that he is leaving his wife april 30th.

she then says she still wants to keep seeing him until april 30th when the other guy has officially left.

he says no, of course, and goes away.....misses her, and calls the next day and starts it all up again.

he lasts another day and says to her don`t come back until you have dealt with the other guy.

she says don`t be so dramatic and encourages him to keep seeing her like they were.

what does he now think?

he thinks she has made a decision to let the other guy go.

they spend every waking available moment together going biking, grocery shopping and just sittting close over coffee.

she tells him she has fallen in love with him one night on the phone, and his heart leaps.

this goes on for three more weeks until he asks again about the state of thier relatonship.........and she hasn`t changed one single thing in her mind.

he breaks it off that night.

i have read this over so many times trying to make sense of it, and it follows no line of reasoning, other than pain.

can love be that frightening and painful that this sort of thing persists?

i remain optimistic that love can conquer all, including such tragedy......