Friday, February 13, 2026

divide-d'end

 man in prison today

convincing me this

good president exposes


corruption -- not only 

his own but that of all

the traders and traitors


in congress and the court --

the quiet revelation that

public office is a goldmine


picked and panned by clever

law-evaders pretending to be 

looking out for constituents


(he rubbed his tired eyes

his son walked in and out of room

this patrimony of sadness)


I listened to him, he knew

how it is done, how they 

manipulate, going to cash


while pointing fingers

and thumbs picking

pockets of saps and suckers

sweeping his simile into bin

 He wondered

What it’s like

To be his toaster


Concluding

He couldn’t

(There you are)


Not me, 

I am my toaster

Consciousness be damned


Give me bread

Lower that lever

Burn, baby, burn


Peanut butter

Strawberry jam

Cup of coffee


You see, consciousness

Has nothing to do

With you


It resides

As crumbs appearing

On cutting board


Just there

The way words are meant

To be, brushed, away

defeat, utterly, overcome

 I used to pray

Now prayer uses me —


I am

Overwhelmed

what happened to him

 Christ watches trump

Sees nothing there

Wonders

Thursday, February 12, 2026

called physiologoi in antiquity, (greek: φυσιολόγοι)

 I first heard the phrase reading psychiatrist Karl Stern who wrote, "All being is nuptial." It was in his book "The Flight from Woman", 1965.

Today, these references. First by Nicolai Berdyaev:

The freedom implicit in the exercise of knowledge receives its illumination from the Logos. But it is also related to Eros. To pursue knowledge without any consciousness of love, merely to seek power, is a form of demonism. It may therefore be affirmed that knowledge is essentially cosmogonic. It should consider reality carefully and examine it conscientiously; for moral pathos is the true inspiration and urge for our quest for truth. The subjective freedom thus generated by the Logos transfigures reality. The nature of knowledge is conjugal; it is both male and female, it is the conjunction of these two principles, the impregnation of the feminine element by virile meaning.” ~ Solitude and Society

The theological doctrine that God created man for His own glory and praise is degrading to man, and degrading to God also…. God as personality does not desire a man over whom He can rule, and who ought to praise Him, but man as personality who answers His call and with whom communion of love is possible.” ~ Slavery and Freedom

Consciousness which exteriorizes and alienates is always slavish consciousness. God the Master, man the slave; the church the master, man the slave; the family the master, man the slave; Nature the master, man the slave; object the master, man-subject the slave. The source of slavery is always objectification, that is to say exteriorization, alienation.” ~ Slavery and Freedom

Man can be a slave to public opinion, a slave to custom, to morals, to judgments and opinions which are imposed by society. It is difficult to overestimate the violence which is perpetrated by the press in our time. The average man of our day holds the opinions and forms the judgments of the newspaper which he reads every morning: it exercises psychological compulsion upon him. And in view of the falsehood and venality of the press, the effects are very terrible as seen in the enslavement of man and his deprivation of freedom of conscience and judgment.” ~ Slavery and Freedom


Men not only need the state and cannot do without the services it renders, but they are seduced by it, they are taken captive by the state, they connect their dreams of sovereignty with it. And there lies the chief evil and a source of human slavery.” ~ Slavery and Freedom

Then by Marguerite Porete:

Marguerite Porete, though she wrote around 700 years ago, has a completely different way of looking at the nuptial metaphor. In The Mirror of Simple Souls she draws a picture of a love relationship between the Soul and God that is completely mutual in both self-giving and satisfaction. In this work Porete creates a dialogue between the soul and a host of characters such as Lady Love, Reason, The Supreme Lady of Peace, and The Spouse of the Soul. In the middle of this dialogue, the Soul comes to Lady Love in utter despondency. She has thought that the love between herself and the Divine was without “Lordship” but has found that she has nothing and the Divine has all. This creates an imbalance in the relationship and the Soul is heartbroken to think that she has nothing to offer to the one she loves. 

Lady Love immediately reassures her that she herself is enough and that her lover is wholly satisfied with exactly what she has to give. In fact, the Divine is happy to give all of Godself in return for the soul’s gift of self. This is a totally different relationship from that which we see in the theology of recent popes and other theologians. In this relationship there are no set roles of “giver” or “receiver,” rather both have their turn in giving and receiving. This is a relationship that allows Marguerite to write of the soul, 

“She swims and flows in joy, without feeling any joy, for she dwells in Joy and Joy dwells in her. She is Joy itself…”

https://www.womensordination.org/blog/2020/03/07/a-mutual-nuptial/ 

We wonder about the soul.

We try to suss what union or unity means in our everyday meander through both solitude and communality. What are the borders? Are we separate? What intercourse or spontaneous generation emerges into itself-reality, what the rational intellect can only interpret as a dualistic cause and effect.

Active in the 6th and 5th centuries BCE, early Greek philosophers, called physiologoi in antiquity (Greek: φυσιολόγοι; in English, physical or natural philosophers), attempted to give natural explanations of phenomena that had previously been ascribed to the agency of the gods.[8] The physiologoi sought the material principle or arche (Greek: ἀρχή) of things, emphasizing the rational unity of the external world and rejecting theological or mythological explanations.[9] 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_generation

 Are we, as some suggest, mired in illusion fabricated by an anachronistic archaic consciousness that thrives on notions of division and separation? Or as a man in prison conversation said on Monday "We're addicted to divisiveness."

Can we imagine (like Berdyaev) a seeming interspersion, an advaitic non-twoness emerging as itself, not measurable as distinct or divided, but a fluidic swirling appearance of hardly recognizable reality?

In other words (my mother's favorite phrase) the appearance of non-appearance in its true nature, one and the same, within-itself/without-itself, of a piece, might we say, as peace?

Can we say we will never be at peace with the mind that drags us behind it?

Rather, to dwell within mind-itself is to abandon leading or following, resolving to dwell in what leather-worker philosopher from Ellsworth expressed as the true meaning of "anarchist?"

I wonder if he'd have agreed (annoyingly dying a few years ago) with the AI description:

Being an anarchist means believing in a society without rulers, hierarchies, or coercive authority, advocating instead for voluntary cooperation, mutual aid, and individual freedom, often through dismantling the state, capitalism, and other oppressive structures, though specific methods and focus (individual vs. collective) vary. It's a political philosophy opposing all forms of domination, envisioning a self-organized society based on free association and consensus. 
(--search, anarchist)

Nuptiality. Essentially and existentially -- two-become-one. Or, perhaps, one-not-become-two.

Of course wording wears its awkwardness.

Men and women, men and men, women and women, God and humanity, creation and creator, this and that, you and me.

What is there to see? And if wholeness is the sole reality, is there any seeing at all?

Perhaps that's the terror of death for many of us. 

No seeing. 

Nothing other to see. 

Just Being-Within.

As Itself.

Whole and impartial.

¿la verdad realmente libera?

 Lying isn’t new

Truth is difficult


If you want the truth

Embrace the difficult

honestly

Thanks, Abe

Born for

US, today

can of beings

 Withdrawing into

Silent solitude


The hobo fool

Finds odd comfort


Just this side

Of emptiness 

stop

 Lovely sun through window

Cat walks across chest

Western Union message

Open door, now, please

absence of justice

 Listening to attorney general

I cannot find any decency

Any willingness to serve

Anyone not her pal

attribute nothing to it

 I notice

Things 

Falling away


That

I no longer

Care


Falling

Into

Sleep

Wednesday, February 11, 2026

tell everyone just to remember their names

 Poem by William Stafford:

A Message from the Wanderer 

Today outside your prison I stand
and rattle my walking stick: Prisoners, listen;
you have relatives outside. And there are
thousands of ways to escape.

Years ago I bent my skill to keep my
cell locked, had chains smuggled to me in pies,
and shouted my plans to jailers;
but always new plans occurred to me,
or the new heavy locks bent hinges off,
or some stupid jailer would forget
and leave the keys.

Inside, I dreamed of constellations—
those feeding creatures outlined by stars,
their skeletons a darkness between jewels,
heroes that exist only where they are not.

Thus freedom always came nibbling my thought,
just as—often, in light, on the open hills—
you can pass an antelope and not know
and look back, and then—even before you see—
there is something wrong about the grass.
And then you see.

That’s the way everything in the world is waiting.

Now—these few more words, and then I’m
gone: Tell everyone just to remember
their names, and remind others, later, when we
find each other. Tell the little ones
to cry and then go to sleep, curled up
where they can. And if any of us get lost,
if any of us cannot come all the way—
remember: there will come a time when
all we have said and all we have hoped
will be all right.

There will be that form in the grass.

Copyright Credit: William Stafford, “A Message from the Wanderer” from The Way It Is: New & Selected Poems. Copyright © 1998