sitting in chapel
incense and candle
late afternoon silence
final bow, walk to house
Saturday, March 30, 2024
windward dooryard
junco on branch
red squirrel on cut wood
cat inside glass door
silence hears no thoughts
one undivided person
Long felt there’s more in this piece of writing than we have realized. A prolegomena of pleroma, an instantiation of inchoate incarnation of originary and transcendent consciousness.
So was conversation in prison Friday morning.
From an Ancient Homily for Holy Saturday (c.2nd century A.D.)
“Something strange is happening? Today there is a great silence over the earth, a great silence, and stillness, a great silence because the King sleeps; the earth was in terror and was still, because God slept in the flesh and raised up those who were sleeping from the ages. God has died in the flesh, and the underworld has trembled.
Truly he goes to seek out our first parent like a lost sheep; he wishes to visit those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death. He goes to free the prisoner Adam and his fellow-prisoner Eve from their pains, he who is God, and Adam’s son.
The Lord goes in to them holding his victorious weapon, his cross. When Adam, the first created man, sees him, he strikes his breast in terror and calls out to all: ‘My Lord be with you all.’ And Christ in reply says to Adam: ‘And with your spirit.’ And grasping his hand he raises him up, saying: ‘Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light.
‘I am your God, who for your sake became your son, who for you and your descendants now speak and command with authority those in prison: Come forth, and those in darkness: Have light, and those who sleep: Rise.
‘I command you: Awake, sleeper, I have not made you to be held a prisoner in the underworld. Arise from the dead; I am the life of the dead. Arise, O man, work of my hands, arise, you who were fashioned in my image. Rise, let us go hence; for you in me and I in you, together we are one undivided person.
‘For you, I your God became your son; for you, I the Master took on your form; that of slave; for you, I who am above the heavens came on earth and under the earth; for you, man, I became as a man without help, free among the dead; for you, who left a garden, I was handed over to Jews from a garden and crucified in a garden.
‘Look at the spittle on my face, which I received because of you, in order to restore you to that first divine inbreathing at creation. See the blows on my cheeks, which I accepted in order to refashion your distorted form to my own image.
‘See the scourging of my back, which I accepted in order to disperse the load of your sins which was laid upon your back. See my hands nailed to the tree for a good purpose, for you, who stretched out your hand to the tree for an evil one.
`I slept on the cross and a sword pierced my side, for you, who slept in paradise and brought forth Eve from your side. My side healed the pain of your side; my sleep will release you from your sleep in Hades; my sword has checked the sword which was turned against you.
‘But arise, let us go hence. The enemy brought you out of the land of paradise; I will reinstate you, no longer in paradise, but on the throne of heaven. I denied you the tree of life, which was a figure, but now I myself am united to you, I who am life. I posted the cherubim to guard you as they would slaves; now I make the cherubim worship you as they would God.
“The cherubim throne has been prepared, the bearers are ready and waiting, the bridal chamber is in order, the food is provided, the everlasting houses and rooms are in readiness; the treasures of good things have been opened; the kingdom of heaven has been prepared before the ages.”
https://www.liturgies.net/Liturgies/Catholic/loh/lent/holysaturdayor.htm
One of the men, just back and recovering from 5x heart bypass surgery, an Odinist (for the time being, as each is, glancing through a perspective, at this time/being here), reminded me that twenty years ago, in 2004, at a meetingbrook conversation, we spoke about not being wed to any belief. (What were we, then? What are we, now?)
Is there a continually new reality? Fondly attentive, respectfully responsive, companionable travelers, like Alice & Jack {cf. PBS}, a hypostasis, curiously in love, profoundly connected, but ur-wed in a singular différance?)
We sit together, still, courting awareness of revelatory and manifesting real reality as it moves through each living space changing itself changing us as we encircle, fondly, what is, presented, in our midst.
It was Good Friday morning.
Now, Holy Saturday, after days of rain, a whooshing wind through surprising sun.
Friday, March 29, 2024
into the dark night
I can't fathom
a thing.
Can you?
The wind howls
snow blows
trees sway.
They say
someone good
has died.
I don't
know what the
story means.
propter hoc, ergo, post hoc
All he had
to do
was live
All he had
to do
was die
All you have
to do
is live
All you have
to do
is die
It
Is
Good
Friday
Today
Look
At
Him at
Yourself
With
Kindness
Courage &
Compassion
After which
Because of
Which
Him/Yourself
No fallacy
Thursday, March 28, 2024
the danger of spiritual practice
Some people are half raised up: they practice one virtue but not
another. Some, ignoble by nature, covet riches. Others of a nobler
nature care nothing for possessions but are bent on honor.
German Sermon 25 *
today
bread is body
christ
wine is blood
tomorrow
body is dropped
human
mind falls away
afterward
walking through
nature
saying nothing more
. . .
* (cf. p.15, in Dangerous Mystic, Meister Eckhart's Path To The God Within, by Joel Harrington, c.2018)
at (no/mu) bottom
It is Holy Week
pause and reflect
can anyone become human
and if so experience god
today sit and eat with me
tomorrow stand and die with me
can you let go, can you let be
empty, empty, empty, empty
when one becomes oneself
falling through illusion and decoy
there is at (no/mu) bottom, source --
that which is love, truth, being, yes
opening day
Oil your glove
Tar your bat
Shine your spikes
Get mustard for the stadium dogs
Baseball season begins today
Take the first pitch
Wednesday, March 27, 2024
rain and wind, say our native brothers and sisters
Heraclitus said, “Nature rests by changing.”
How about that!
God is resting now.
cracked-open, heart, taking breath away
gray squirrel lifts seeds to mouth
cardinal on wood-walk surveys drop
bluejays arrive with attitude
eaves drip through muted afternoon
seeming silence sits on vacant chairs
I cannot imagine how we stay alive
the felony of peripetetic nomadic circles
as a university lecturer
I had nothing to say
nor did I say it well
so I stopped teaching
and just sit to converse
with community of nobodies
several times a week
in two prisons and boxy zooms
the rare joy of encircling grace
bright upon my face
With Ryonen:
In the autumn of my sixty sixth year,
I’ve already lived a long time
The intense moonlight
Is bright upon my face.
There’s no need to discuss
The principles of koan study;
Just listen carefully to the wind
Outside the pines and cedars.
Ryonen (1646-1711)
After Ryonen:
In the spring of my seventy ninth year
far, far longer than I could have imagined
The cold rainy morning
drips and drips on last week's snow.
There's no need to go to monastery
for Holy Week retreat with the Trappists;
Just walk through hermitage as if kinhin through
sleeping buddha snoozing christ reality itself.
--wfh (1944--anytime now)
If there are any questions, there will be a panel to hear them once we find out who's responsible for creating then clarifying mysteries both sacred and secular.
from all the borders of itself
He showed up in dream last night
The newly dead, I’m told, will do that
Walking through door to my left
Cheerful, disheveled, tousled
I walk over to him, welcoming
As if nothing has changed, recalling
Rilke: for here there is no place
that does not see you.
You must change
your life.
Tuesday, March 26, 2024
sparrows keep forty nine day mantras
Dog pees in dooryard snow
Fine drizzle falls on black truck
A pall over mountain sitting vigil
ji ji mu ge *
what do you mean resurrection?
don't ask
why not?
you don't want to know
in the gym in Bensonhurst
louie (nicknamed 'bird') only
five foot five
had more shots than all of us
what did he know
we didn't?
why do you ask?
because the opera
singer died, the guy
who lived over up the hill
and?
louie had this way about him
hooks and swoops, layups and feeds
the rest of us couldn't contain
and?
I don't know -- he came to mind
it was a small gym, a wall under hoop
we'd spend Saturday mornings there
and?
and, nothing, I guess --
just...
between one thing
and another thing
no barrier *
and?
la rivelazione
di sé stessi
Monday, March 25, 2024
who will mimic richard burton at the drop of a dime now
down the road
up from pond
up a ways, a house
where all is quiet
where Dean, basso profundo,
has died, a sudden silence
he will be, one said,
missed, he will be
watchful sorrow of dogs
lamenting still applause of
recollecting audiences
his working voice --
decrescendo . . .
diminuendo
lascia che il pensiero muoia
disproportionate justice
the lawyer says
he gets more privilege
than any of us
he is untouchable
he smiles
gets 3 to 6 billion bucks
from stupid social
platform merger sale --
some people are better
than others, he is better
than us, smarter, richer
more brazen, untouchable
more handsome, better golfer
prettier wife, more women
he's sexually assaulted
more indictments, more
court cases against him
they claim he is Jesus for
our times, here to save
himself from we the sinners
out to crucify him again
this Holy Week -- the poor
sap will have to rise again
dance with brides at his hotel
give long ridiculous sermons
on his victimhood, this saint
of lost decency, ascetic, holy
moley what a guy, we are
better for him, we learn a lot
all is all is all is all is all is
downright incomprehensible
Sunday, March 24, 2024
alienation or belonging
Something from Sunday Evening Practice:
But "communion" is another one of those inflated words today. The perfect community is one of the most alluring mirages in our time. Well, what concerns us here is rather a deep sense of belonging .We may have that sense of belonging without ever finding its external expression in a closely knit community. What matters is our awareness that we belong. We are not aliens, outcasts, orphans in this world.
Kabir, the great mystic poet says:
We sense that there is some sort of spirit that loves Birds and animals and the ants— Perhaps the same one who gave a radiance to you in your mother's womb. Is it logical you would be walking around entirely orphaned now?Remember your life in the womb. Something put you together; something fashioned you there; something brought you out; something saw you through. Is it possible that that one would leave you orphaned now? That is the mystical insight of belonging. Before anything else, you belong. Is it imaginable that you should no longer belong? Is it imaginable that you should really be orphaned now? When you ask yourself that question and at least begin to doubt that you should be orphaned now, then you are moving from alienation to belonging.
Belonging and alienation, that is the polarity about which we are talking. That polarity is the pivot of our spiritual life. One pole is alienation. We all know what that is. We know what it feels like: being cut off from everything, from ourselves, from anything that has meaning, from all others. And the opposite pole to alienation is belonging. All that ultimately matters in our life is movement from alienation to belonging, often with many setbacks. This has always been the essential struggle of spiritual life. But we need a vocabulary that makes sense to us today.
Alienation is our contemporary word for what has been called sin and, therefore, the contemporary word for salvation is belonging. Sin and salvation have become jargon words, and we may as well declare a moratorium on them. I am only referring to these terms because we do not want to lose the connection with the way people have been speaking about the same realities in the past. For us, "sin" is not a helpful word because our notion of sin has become limited to "do's and don'ts." Originally, the term referred to alienation from self, from others, from the divine reality within and beyond us. For us, today the word alienation conveys precisely what tradition calls "sin." And if you think of "belonging" in its ultimate, fullest sense, then you also know what "salvation" means. That is what we long for, namely, belonging, wholeness, communion with our own true self, with all others, with the divine.
(—David Steindl-Rast, from Thoughts on Mysticism as Frontier of Consciousness Evolution)
Reimagine history, theology, and mythology.
Relanguage reality.
Rediscover origin.
sub speciebus aeternitatis
What did jesus know
When did he know it
Let’s say he wasn’t god
No one is
Let’s look at the man
As snow and ice the earth
There’s no profit in prophet
Just arrival awaiting plow
Someone moving aside
What time would do of itself
The poet wrote “What’s wrong
will always be wrong”
The non-poet concluded
“But what’s right
is each time
created new”
Cold wind snaps
Icy limbs as birds
Happy for feeder seeds
Know nothing
But arrive, pick
Crack open and
Take
To air
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