Saturday, October 05, 2019

painting received on Rokie’s birthday yesterday



From one of the men in our Friday morning conversation gathering.

What a beautiful gift!

He titled it, “ the way to heaven.”

A Japanese garden language expert writes and translates, “So beautiful!!  It says (literally) 
’the road/path of heaven’.”

Friday, October 04, 2019

pax et bonum

St. Francis day.

We celebrate his gift to this earth.

Thursday, October 03, 2019

what you can’t find, create

Call it creation.
Say, for instance, there’s no god but god,

and what we call god is
the sound of creation revealing Itself.

Francis along the mountain
Across brook, up trail

Looking at creation looking as god is
Looking at the mendicant

No owning, only use, no other
It is Transitus

Creation is passing
Mountain sleeps


Wednesday, October 02, 2019

here

We’ve never really understood what “here” means. 

Let’s try.

“Angel of God, my guardian dear,
to whom God's love commits me here,
ever this day be at my side,
to light and guard, to rule and guide.

Amen.”

to light and guide

Phrases of intelligent encouragement.

Pauses of reflective gaze.

Practices of light and inclusion.

It is the feast of Guardian Angels.

Those whom we see not but wander near even when we don’t comprehend at all.

Tuesday, October 01, 2019

this poem

Aleph Pattern
In Hebrew, the word women is the word men
with the first letter dropped. Not just any letter
but the first first letter, the aleph of the aleph-bet:

אנשים       anashim—men
נשים           nashim—women

The steel band securing the forehead
to the bed is preheated, but cools quickly.
Inside every men is a women
you’ll need to amputate to find.

אלוהים     Elohim—god
לוהים          lohim—to tire

Even the god gets tired in our first story.
Adonai has many lids over each eye
and so she pretends to rest
closing one set of eyelids at a time.
Never a Sabbath of visionless sleep.

אבא           aba—father
בא                 ba—come

Do away with the role charged to the first father
and we will all orgasm more freely.
We will bleat like beasts while we come,
our wooly curls matted and frizzy without a single embarrassed shiver.

אני             ani—I/me
ני                 ni—lamentation

Too many of the dead
cry silently in their coffins
grateful for a place they can finally weep alone
but fearful even now to be overheard.
The dirt we are formed from can seem so thin.

אים            iyom—threatening
ימ                  yam—sea

If the ocean is the first mother
then the lakes are those moments we hear ourselves
threaten our children in our mother’s voice.
Afterward, we absorb the tears into our own waters.

אסור          asoor—forbidden
סור                soor—withdraw

What’s forbidden is often drawn as a circle.
But every circle, no matter how small
contains another circle within.
The way to escape circumscription is inward.

אפשר         efshar—possible
פשר            pishair—compromise

To say possible is to leave someone out.
No one is possible until everyone is.
On this one truth, never compromise.

Monday, September 30, 2019

שנה טובה ומתוקה

Shanah Tovah, u’metuka —

A good and sweet year!

Rosh Hashanah

Sunday, September 29, 2019

helping across, this also can be, love

This looks interesting. 

Yes, ‘this looks’ — and is interesting.
Well, you know that I love to live with you 
But you make me forget so very much 
I forget to pray for the angels 
And then the angels forget to pray for us
(—from, So Long, Marianne, song by Leonard Cohan) 
We are moving from perspectival viewing to aperspectival seeing. Where everything is looking from everywhere and everywhere is being seen.

for here there is no place that does not see you.  
You must change your life.
(—from,  Archaic Torso of Apollo, poem by  )
We don’t see angels because there is nothing to see. Angels are the intelligence behind everything that is. Mostly, we cannot see behind us. Mostly, we cannot read situations. And if angels are the intelligence behind situations, and we are ignorant of the readout of situations, then we need help with literacy.
There is no intelligence the equal of the situation.
(—from, Love, poem by Charles Olson)
Arrive anywhere, intelligence is there. Leave anywhere, intelligence remains there and is waiting for your next step, next arrival.
Many arrivals make us live 
(—from, Manifestation, poem by Theodore Roethke)
Angels are arrivals at situations longing to be seen.

We come to ‘see’ by feeling what is revealing itself to us in this and this and this.

It is the feast of Michaelmas and all angels.

Michael, Raphael, Gabriel, Jophiel, Ariel, Azrael, Chamuel. (Chiefs, all)

Who is like God

Heals

Strength

Beauty

A powerful life-force

Helping across

Seeing God

This is what we have.

Moving beyond names.


There are only two ways: 
Create the situation (and this is love) 
Or avoid it. This also can be Love.
(Charles Olson, Love

This is interesting!