שנה טובה ומתוקה

Shanah Tovah, u’metuka —

A good and sweet year!

Rosh Hashanah

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 Rainer Maria Rilke )

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! 

circumstance graced

Comes Michaelmas.

Now, to get something absolutely clear, you must understand that angels are not humans who have died and gone to heaven. Angels are a different kind of being altogether. For most of the Church, angels are pure intelligences (that is they have no physical bodies) and are among God’s first created beings (insofar as we can talk about creation being ordered or taking place in time). Angels are guiding principles of creation. Stratford Caldecott goes so far as to identify the kinds of animals mentioned in Genesis 1.24 (not each specific animal but the fact that God created them of, or according to, every kind) as angels. He writes:

“I am sure the Book of Genesis still contains many mysteries. We read the story of Adam naming the animals, and then we discover that at least one of the animals in the Garden is an angel. The serpent is that creature of God sometimes called the Archangel Lucifer. What if all the animals in the story were angels? In fact, what if the story is about the relationship of the archetypal Man with archetypal Angels: and the archetypal Animals are none other than the angels of tradition” (The Radiance of Being, 54).

(Angels in Creation: Reflections on Our “Older” Siblings for Michaelmas, 9?29/16, by David Russell Mosley)

Intelligence behind the manifestation of each thing.  A resignation of presence.

Circumstance graced.

words

In prison today many men share their thoughts with us about death of Rokie.

It doesn’t surprise.

It is our community.

Saskia’s first visit without the pup in over eight years.

The men were kind and empathetic.

That’s what happened.

Staff too, guards too.

Entering without him, leaving without him.

He is in the center doing his work.

hic, haec, hoc

If God is

What is

Coming to be —

Let’s make

What is

Here 

Ready 

To be

What is coming

throughout

Silence

monday, monday

Gift of those who opened the mountain

Gift of Japanese lantern

Gift of sweet Border Collie, Rokpa

Become mountain

Become light

as evening nears

Where
           once
                   was (...)


Is
    now (?)


Or
      ever
              (to continue)

sunday afternoon

From Lila, by Roberg Pirsig:

…They were all walking down the road … when one of those raggedy nondescript dogs that call Indian reservations home came onto the road and walked pleasantly in front of them … [the woman] asked John ‘What kind of dog is that?’. John thought about it and said, ‘That’s a good dog.’… The woman …wanted to know what genetic, substantive pigeonhole of canine classification this object walking before them could be placed in. But John Wooden Leg never understood the question. He wasn’t joking when he said ‘That’s a good dog’. He probably thought she was worried the dog might bite her … John had distinguished the dog according to it’s Quality, rather than according to its substance. That indicated he considered Quality more important...

https://medium.com/perspectiva-institute/thank-you-robert-pirsig-ad8605dc1607

sunday morning

three words

Listening to psalms, the prayer at end: Glory be to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

The thought occurs — of another wording.

A wording of the trinity that signifies originating, creating, and including.

Origination. (Father)

Creation.  (Son)

Inclusion.  (Holy Spirit)

Glory be to Origination, and to Creation, and to Inclusion — for all and in all time until eternal now becomes the wholeness of what is seen!

ready to walk mountain

A beautiful Saturday morning!

At practice, Richard Rohr and Sadhguru.

With Rokie on porch.

Resurrection, Not a One-Time Miracle
And

God is love? Dog is love! Sadhguru's fantastic explanation

Where will Rokie go when he goes beyond?

Rohr says there is only transformation.

He’ll most likely go from here to here.

Where he will find us, ready to walk mountain, step by step.

photo taken several days ago

And, as it is, tonight is Rokie’s last night with us.

His kidney failure, anemia, giving up eating, and inability to get up, collapsing when he does, subcutaneous infusion of fluids, have brought us to this final night.

Tomorrow noon a vet will be coming here.

What a sweet pup!

darkness into light

At prison:

God is 

what is 

coming 

to be

There is no future and no past.

There is only the immense present which is presence right here right now.

God's name is "I don't know "--and-- "I am here as what is here revealing itself."

This after reading the discourse of the Buddha on the four types of individuals, four types of life brought by one of the men.

The four of us.

Listening.

Learning about one

another.

9 1 9 1 9

So often what we see is an answer or response to a question we're unaware is being asked.

Some examples:

• Q: On a scale from 1 two 10, where are we with regard to the end of existence as we know it?   

A:  (9.  1.  9.  1.  9)  (The answer fluctuates according to the ability of the human being to understand the question.)

• Q: Are we as humans separate, alienated beings, so divided that there is no hope for unity?         

A: Nein, one; nein, one; nein! (The answer indicates both a definite response as well as a dyslexic misspelling.)

• Q: Is there any numerological significance to this/these numbers?    

          A: Well, there's always this -- Angel Numbers.

Washing machine is about to end its spin cycle. English muffin is ready to toast. Breakfast sausages nap in black skillet. Chai tea with chocolate milk in blue Maine cup sits on arm of futon bench.

Rokie is on sunporch consulted over by trusted women, one from flower nursery physically sitting near him, then later one by phone from rescue farm from whence he came 12 years ago. He's not getting up any more. He's very tired.

And loved.

there you are

In the film the doctor, say reviewers, was being asked to play god.

What does that mean?

I know.

God doesn’t know.

To play god is to remain unknowing before what shows itself rising up.

Ah, there you are

And here it arrives

So, what shall we think of this?

Be like god

Love to be unknown 

we have no time

Here:

The Present 

For the present there is just one moon,
though every level pond gives back another. 

But the bright disc shining in the black lagoon,
perceived by astrophysicist and lover, 

is milliseconds old. And even that light's
seven minutes older than its source. 

And the stars we think we see on moonless nights
are long extinguished. And, of course, 

this very moment, as you read this line,
is literally gone before you know it. 

Forget the here-and-now. We have no time
but this device of wantonness and wit. 

Make me this present then: your hand in mine,
and we'll live out our lives in it. 

(—Poem by Michael Donaghy,1954-2004)

There! 

ama nesciri

The question seems simple: What is good for us?

Is  what-is good for us?

The question is interminable: Is that which is for-us?

Are we in a hospitable reality? Is it good for us?

Or are we supposed to be battling reality so as to have emerge what is actually good?

If I eat a chicken sandwich am I incorporating that chicken into my humanity?

If I murder someone, is that person taken into me?

If life is a dream, is that so bad? Are thoughts dreams? Are ideas dreams?

Memories — are they dreams?

Are we meant to take our grandmother’s song to heart and simply row row row our boats gently down the stream?

And if life is a dream, is waking up a transcending of life?

Is death a refusal to wake up?

Is hell really other people?

Is God reality?

Is reality good?

after flu shot in conference room A

reading student papers,

harbor

boats, all sizes

demasting, trailering

slip

this ending season

ça va

You are not alone.

“Nobody can discover the world for anybody else. It is only after we have discovered it for ourselves that it becomes a common ground and a common bond, and we cease to be alone ...      (--Wendell Berry, A Place on Earth )  

And the world cannot be discovered by a journey of miles, no matter how long, but only by a spiritual journey, a journey of one inch, very arduous and humbling and joyful, by which we arrive at the ground at our feet, and learn to be at home.” (-- Wendell Berry, The Unforeseen Wilderness: Kentucky's Red River Gorge)

You are alone with the Alone.