One year for Erica

A dime and a nickel for a cup of coffee. With a friend.

At dusk.

Eyes-on-nature; seeing ourselves as being seen intimately within nature.

First day of bird feeders. New kittens are spellbound.

I write to student:

Hi Doug, 

Here's what you said:"Philosophy works well without man's intervention." 

What immediately resonated with me about your phrasing was how I heard it, namely, the love of wisdom is not necessarily something 'we' love -- as if 'I', (subject), love 'it', wisdom (object). 

Rather your phrasing hit me as: the 'love' of wisdom is what is freely and unconditionally given by wisdom to any and all without discrimination. 'Man' will often either not appreciate, or try to manipulate wisdom to suit his egoistic intention, thus not allowing the true nature of the gift to be extended and made intimate. (We do this, similarly mistaken, in our human experience of love with other humans.) 

Our intervention into knowledge and wisdom often distorts and diverts from the course (Lao-tzu) the waters (of wisdom) wish to flow. 

Allowing philosophy to shape it's own way with us is to turn and enter the intimacy of inquiry and understanding as it is shaped in our very form and shape. 

Thanks for providing me this meditation, 

Bill

If we allow ourselves to be loved, there is no me and/or you.

Only love.

How difficult is it to remain just one person?

Milosz says poetry reminds us just how difficult.

Because we're not.

Just one person.

That's what poetry is for.

To remind us.

Of each other.

Who we are.

When flexible.

What is God?

God is any act engaged upon with care, compassion, love, concern, and creativity in service to life.

I have faith in God.

And only God.

With you.

Within us.

God is the continuity of Being in the world.

God is the compassion of being-there, of being-in-the-world, of being-here.

Nowhere else.

Everywhere.

Election Day

Well, that's over.

Tell me, asked the poet, what do you see?

Dreary cold day. Ends the drizzling dampness of election season. The cost of it. The nonsense.

"Crucified in stone
Still his blood is my own."
(--from song, Blessed to be a Witness, by Ben Harper)

Tomorrow will dawn.

All day votes will be cast. All day officials will attempt to deny the vote to citizens.

Maybe it was the man's death by tree yesterday, maybe the residual questions about JFK's assassination and the gaping holes in the story of 9/11 that darkens the mood, perhaps it is any unkind opinion that drips ego-venom into bloodstream -- but, today feels gloomy.

Rise Again

When the waves roll on over the waters
And the ocean cries
We look to our sons and daughters
To explain our lives
As if a child could tell us why 

That as sure as the sunrise
As sure as the sea
As sure as the wind in the trees
We rise again in the faces
of our children
We rise again in the voices of our song
We rise again in the waves out on the ocean
And then we rise again 

When the light goes dark with the forces of creation
Across a stormy sky
We look to reincarnation to explain our lives
As if a child could tell us why 

That as sure as the sunrise
As sure as the sea
As sure as the wind in the trees
We rise again in the faces
of our children
We rise again in the voices of our song
We rise again in the waves out on the ocean
And then we rise again 

We rise again in the faces
of our children
We rise again in the voices of our song
We rise again in the waves out on the ocean
And then we rise

(Lyrics, “Rise Again,” by Rankin Family)

Raylene Rankin died early October at 52 of cancer.

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned. 

(--from poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay, “Dirge Without Music” from Collected Poems © 1928, 1955)

On CBC.ca, a few months before her death, Raylene Rankin is quoted:

"I'm scared a lot and just it seems when you get to a place where you're not afraid then you're given a reason to be afraid again," said Rankin in a conversation with CBC in June. "But it's something that I'm working through. I'm reading one of these books that I'm trying to work with is you know it's about not having a fear of death, which is the ultimate fear I guess...I'm working on it."

What are we...

working on,

Witnessing?

Take it for a ride anytime, he said.

Bicycle to hospital to visit patients Sunday morning.

Wind blows through evening meditation practice.

Man we speak to often is felled by tree and dies.

I didn't get to show him my bicycle as he did me his.

How vulnerable this fragile life!