company for dark time

 candlelight listen-

ing to Being Peace by Thich 

Nhat Hanh -- such sweet words

shanah tovah

A good year to my brothers and sisters!

Health, prosperity, and a sane respectful and responsible world!

There, now for a bagel, cream cheese, and coffee after toeing in long green screws to anchor island end of reconstructed bridge over brook to base boards rooted by ancient cable when skidoos zigzagged mountainside many decades ago before we took over the place thirty-plus years ago.

With no electricity, to sit by window light and read A God That Could Be Real: Spirituality, Science, and the Future of Our Planet, by Nancy Ellen Abrams.

May all be safe!

augustine heard the sing-song voice we hear this morning

 there it goes, power

out, some tree gives up its limb

to send us to books --

"take my child -- tolle lege"

at root the tree bids us read

dawning

 The first thing you sense

is that you are still alive 

yet wondering why —

hermits mostly live alone

within and without others

early proclamation of aeolian primogeniture

And as it rains ground

saturated yard buttoned

storm is upon us

can’t have one without other

 In prison 

this morning

we wondered

Surrender, he said

and gave over

his relative self

Then, he wandered

here and there

absolutely lost

the cross

Hard to exalt 

an instrument of killing

But we’re alive

we’re nearly human

and the invitation 

to birth compassion 

requires, apparently, 

a lot of suffering.

good is nothing other

 God is good, 

Nothing other 

can be said

how are we appearing to be

 Rupert Spira & Tony Nader 

converse about illusion.

Illusions are real, 

they are saying,  

but illusions are not 

what they 

appear to be.

Ha!

stir a sad wind

 As strong stormwinds head to Maine, more dangerous destruction blusters from political mouths blowing nonsense seemingly intent on making uglier that which is already ugly in their vitriolic cynicism.

Truth is on the table. A hand is on the carving knife. Step back.

Cut in thirds, split in half,

How can truth be expressed?

Can one see beyond white clouds

With the naked eye?

The monks still have not come

Back from Mt. Kukkuapada.

The leaves of the sutra

Merely stir a sad wind.

        Daito (1282-1334)

Abandoned books on park benches. Folders of studies left in cafeterias. Reports of plans to rethink moribund trends are scattered along sidewalks in rainstorm. Someone sipping coffee looking out window cannot imagine the future.

There is a single light shrouded by metal shade hanging outside bookshed above overturned rowboat in dooryard.

At night, walking out from barn, it comforts.

The mountain is dark and slippery.

Fenced perimeter keep away porcupine and ancient smelly wandering raccoon.

Storm nears.

Blowing currents swirl over captive truth.

A thousand cuts.

No emergency vehicles approach.

A faint and weakening exhalation.

for us to see

 So many suffer —

fires, floods, earthquakes, invasion—

sorrow shows itself

god’s (true) story is seldom told

                (—a waka boxing up our future)

Leave me alone, I

Cannot abide postmodern

Rejection of truth—

I am leaving, I am leav-

ing but your lies will still remain

tiny mind tiny heart

 I knew a bully once

Big mouth, big ego, fat ass

Show off — you know him

a short story from brooklyn corner

In the news the Republican Speaker of the House says committees will commence inquiries into impeachment of President Joseph Biden. Because... yeah, Donald Trump. 

Like a Rabbi looking at a recalcitrant young Yeshiva student, I find my affect a yech shoulder shrug and disappointed eyebrow raise turning away to see if there's anything of any importance to attend to rather than yelling into the wind.

In Hebrew, the word conventionally translated as Egypt in the Haggadah is called mitzrayim. The name is derived from m’tzarim, meaning “narrow straits” (mi, “from”; tzar, “narrow” or “tight”): a place of constriction, tightness, limitation, or narrow-mindedness. Each of us lives, at least at times, in our own mitzrayim, the narrow straits of seeing few options, or being defined by someone else who has more power than we do in a situation, or feeling so unseen that we absorb someone’s projection so thoroughly we come perilously close to forgetting who we are.

(--from Real Life, by Sharon Salzberg)

Like the pedestrian on the curb just hit by errant driver jumping said curb, looking up from cement sidewalk to the worried faces of passers-by, all you can do is make the calculation whether there will be legs enough to stand you up, hands to brush off grit, and strength of will enough to say "I'm fine, I'll be on my way" to the frightened eyes following your incredible recovery.

This is America today. 

le ventriloque de dieu par contumace

Do you see me? No?

I am content to be looked 

for — not to be — found

difference not division

 In dust and breeze through

time and geography souls

drift through our bodies

reconstruction of reality is wisdom at work

 There is truth, (start there)

Then there is narrative told

From each perspective.

The skill is to listen care-

fully with thought discerning

their common towering courage

 Holding hands stepping

Out into new dimension

She and he fell free

thinking back to september eleven

Who knew, no one could

Before things happen before 

what’s good turns and stares

Before words shroud what we feel — 

no one could, nor any should

things that are hard to figure

 sixty years later

agent tells he found bullet

behind Kennedy

in car leather dispelling

odd magic bullet theory -- 

the canvas can do miracles

The zen view often comforts.

I have lived for more than fifty years,

Floating in the sea of birth and death

There is nothing to grasp.

Shin’etsu (1639-1696) dailyzen

Even when  — especially when — offering nothing

I look into my empty hands.

idea and reality walk into a bar

“And while the future’s there for anyone to change, still you know it’s seems, It would be easier sometimes to change the past.” —Jackson Browne 

Tomorrow I’ll  not

fly into tall towers be-

cause I am not whole

I will destroy idea

I carry about the world

if interested in un-koan, contemplate neither

 Some things can be known

Other things cannot be known —

Meditate on this

This cannot be known nor un-

known — only ask — What Is This?

it might be unusual, but

 It’s only numbers

I don't know what they mean, count

me out — ah, zero

rolling thunder mukta sutra antiphon

Rainy matins dog

plops down in doorway, exhales 

sweet prānāyāma —

brahmana to langhana

this inter-religious night