calling hello to stars

A single candle

Under universe poster —

All my deceased loves

no way to say goodbye, panta rhei

I remember those years. 

Those were the years everyone changed shape,

painters squinted, poked their heads outside the frame.

(--from poem, "Shore Walks with Monk", by Betsy Sholl, in her book Late Psalm, 2004)

Everything became whatever it could be.

No matter the convention, no matter the expectation to remain what it was designed to be, no matter what you thought.

The Buddhists ruined everything by talking about anicca, impermanence. As did the Hindus. As did Heraclitus. 

"It's just the way it changes, like the shoreline and the sea." (Leonard Cohen)

Goodbye!

those who trust shall understand truth

Visit, streaming, childhood church, 61st and Bay Parkway. 

Like all distant thoughts, the vaporizing of feeling. 

Not only can't you go back home again, there is no home to go back to.

Like death, or the semblance of death, one has disappeared into unappearing presence.

This unappearing presence is what-is-called-God.

This from the readings at Mass:

WIS 3:1-9 

The souls of the just are in the hand of God,

and no torment shall touch them.

They seemed, in the view of the foolish, to be dead;

and their passing away was thought an affliction

and their going forth from us, utter destruction.

But they are in peace.

For if before men, indeed, they be punished,

yet is their hope full of immortality;

chastised a little, they shall be greatly blessed,

because God tried them

and found them worthy of himself.

As gold in the furnace, he proved them,

and as sacrificial offerings he took them to himself.

In the time of their visitation they shall shine,

and shall dart about as sparks through stubble;

they shall judge nations and rule over peoples,

and the LORD shall be their King forever.

Those who trust in him shall understand truth,

and the faithful shall abide with him in love:

because grace and mercy are with his holy ones,

and his care is with his elect.

Our elect will be chosen in three days, the traditional time of rising for the authentically dead.

..."[C]hastised a little" one only hopes a blessing will be signified. But hope is a dangling rope from an insurmountable height. It does not reach the outstretched hands extended and imploring.

Church was a good beginning back in Brooklyn. I learned. And left. A wandering cesura -- one phrase ending, another beginning -- one phase ending, another beginning.

Until, today, sitting in Maine, in wohnküche, chocolate donut consumed with appropriate reverence, day old coffee with chocolate milk reverently sipped, vigil candle and stick incense adorning room, pocket wood cross on red futon cover, the day unveils its mystery of desponding time, the lapsed awareness of our true nature meandering the sanctuary of earthen ground, something, someone, seeking the ruin of souls.

My soul shouts MU!

There -- my vote is cast.

Unfabricate that constructed and constricted meaning! Deconstruct that scripted ceremony of pantheonic adulation for deeply flawed and histrionic affirmation of desication and diseased non-consciousness we call the disturbing preference choice of the people. We are persuaded, propagandized, and provided palliative morphine for the profound pain of distorted and disruptively deviated democracy.

Don't misunderstand.

I love this earth, this cosmos, this indecipherable ambiance of angelic (or at least) disembodied presences. I love my brothers and sisters washing their faces and brushing their hair, looking out windows and recalling where they were yesterday and where they might be this afternoon. I love this country and all the countries I've not yet visited.  I love the invigorating nescience of uncertainty and the phrasing of contemporary sacred mantra --"I don't know what that means."

Like from some dressing room of a Good Will store, we are ready to walk out with valuable purchase:

because God tried them

and found them worthy of himself.

(--Wisdom, ibid)

In last evening's conversation, after brief fragmant from John Caputo's Cross and Cosmos: A Theology of Difficult Glory (2019), it occurred from the back and forth that, (our wording): 

"Love, like God, is inexistent presence."  

And that the (absurd) human task is to realize God and practice love. 

those calls leaving no message

 The dead are always with us 

Especially on All Souls, in dreams

Fingerprints on cups and glasses

Someone’s unpronounceable name

Slanted smile glancing upraised eyes

when pizza cost .15 cents a slice

I’m  misremembering my life

Lived over a poetry tavern

Sawdust on floor, brass spittoon 

Corner table folded newspaper

It was a good life, after school

Visiting bar with sixteen year olds

A few beers, leaving the dollar next to 

Empty glass topped with coaster

Subway station back to city back to

Borough walking past South Brooklyn

Savings Bank where I got a toaster

For account starter, nickels and dimes

There was an old wooden church

My job was to close and lock it at night

I’d sit in back pew in the dark, pre-knowing 

Zazen, red sanctuary candle way up front

bonne nuit ma soeur

              (—pour Jo-Ann, décédé 1nov2016)

Avec mon amour

depuis des années 

et des années 

et encore maintenant

the silence tolling after stars

  At prison today, we read Li-Young Lee:

Night Mirror

 

          BY LI-YOUNG LEE

 

 

Li-Young, don’t feel lonely

when you look up

into great night and find

yourself the far face peering

hugely out from between

a star and a star. All that space

the nighthawk plunges through,

homing, all that distance beyond embrace,

what is it but your own infinity.

 

And don’t be afraid

when, eyes closed, you look inside you

and find night is both

the silence tolling after stars

and the final word

that founds all beginning, find night,

 

abyss and shuttle,

a finished cloth

frayed by the years, then gathered

in the songs and games

mothers teach their children.

 

Look again

and find yourself changed

and changing, now the bewildered honey

 

fallen into your own hands,

now the immaculate fruit born of hunger.

Now the unequaled perfume of your dying.

And time? Time is the salty wake

of your stunned entrance upon

no name.

--Poem by Li-Young Lee 

 The enthusiasm for it.

all sky

 Out of view, moon travels behind earth’s curve. 

The mind is all sky,

The heart utterly empty,

And the perfect moon

Is completely transparent

Entering western mountains.     

—Saigyo

I realize how ridiculous my life has been. 

truth be told

I live here

No-where else

Right? Here

Alone

seeing us through

The saintly holiness of all beings is marvelous to consider.

Of course, some of us are sh*ts.

Apart from the sh*ts, life provides us with good-enough beings intent on living a wholesome productive and mostly compassionate life.

But those of us who are sh*ts, they (we) are troubling.

It is the eve of All Saints.

Cheers to you all.

To we all.

When we are as we are ably made to be, well then, things are good.

When not, then not.

I pray all might realize their saintliness.

I'll keep a look out.

To see us through.

infarction

 Feels like heart failure

This tired and odd country

Pretends it wants him

a noble premise

Whether they like it

Or not, oaf vows to protect

Women from themselves

noticing a pattern

 It is absurd, hate —

Insane people will vote hate

Will choose vile hatred

Will mouth so many lies, hate

Their own unredemptive hate

diminishing returns

 What election?

Just let the bastard move back in —

In a hundred years

Few will remember, or care

mais oui

Dodgers win

Brooklyn fans feel

une petite tristess

dark drama

 Wet ground, fogged trees

Dog waits til I pee — looking

Up through bare limbs … stars

simple joy of dog

 Jingles and Astra

Run with Ensō at snow bowl —

Drizzle no problem

the wave leaves no trace

Traceless we arrive. 

The bamboo’s shadow sweeps the yard,
But the dust doesn’t move.
Moonlight enters the sea,
But the wave leaves no trace.

--Jinkag Haesim (1178-1234)

Traceless we depart.

Blessed be the untraceable arrivals and departures, the appearances and disappearances, our ephemeral manifestation and obscuration.

We come to be and we go to be.

We approach the thin place -- the holy eve of saints and souls -- reflecting as a mirror reflects.

(As once we did):

Engaging Emptiness: Stepping into the Mirror

    A Thin Place Reflection, by Bill Halpin

    For Conversation in The Thin Place 

    “Between Organized Religion & Personal Expressions of the Sacred” (24Feb.2000)

love, set, match

He said he'd want to be cremated. Then ashes spread somewhere in Rangely Lakes area. He finds the whole matter of death filled with curiosity. He is cheered by this curiosity. 

His Parkinson's has slowed him down significantly. We'll probably not have a rematch to our last tennis game eleven or twelve years ago. He'll retain the win and go into the record book as victor.

I let him have the leftover chocolate croissant. He likes them. His speech has slowed. His walk is like a one-lunger make-and-break engine. He is not permitted to drive. He doesn't like that. He sometimes feels bullied. But will acknowledge his family does it for his own good. 

'It's what it's like to be eighty,' he says. He doesn't feel afraid of dying. He'd like to have the wherewithal to end his own life when the time seems right.

The last forkful of Thai noodles had been taken in, dishes washed and set in wood contraption for drying by sink beside southeast-facing kitchen window.

Just two old codgers talking about octogenarian issues. I say maybe I'm having a heart attack. He says 'You'd better hope it's a good and final one.' 

We exit the barn. We embrace as he gets in the passenger seat to head south. 

'We'll commiserate after the election on the sixth,' he says. Waves. And goes.

Just two old tennis balls leaning against fence scuffed and left on the court where dog and owner might come upon for a few tosses before snow flies and sagging nets have been taken down. 

do not step to the rear, please

I am not waiting for death

I am waiting with death --

Some say no-bus will come

How odd of God!

tired blood

Every once

In a while

Nothing seems

To matter

The body

Texts mind

To say

‘I’m leaving’

And door

Opens out

To never

Again

being one

 Dormition,

Death resembling

Falling asleep

The heart

Of contemplation

Doing

What

You are

Doing —

What is

Called 

Integration

Doing, being

Nothing other

Than

What

You 

Are —

If you 

want 

To be

A contemplative

Be

One

democracy does die in a dark political fear

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none are so blind

 The MAGA 

Absurdity:

“Give me death

Or we‘ll take

Your liberty.”

No one dares

Believe the 

Dangerous hatred

They spew —

Just good clean fun

(They do not

Listen

They

Do not

See)

fascists in madison penn square station garden

 a desperate 

philosophy

loading gun

sighting target

firing

we no 

longer care

for ideas

but for 

blood seeping

no ideas

but in slings

no poetry

but in-

valid words

when ideas

are run

out of, all

you have left

is bullets

ugly rhetoric

shoots from

hate-filled

mouths barreling 

lethal dumbdumbs

as if no

decency could

remain — they

choose to

eliminate all 

of US

the footsteps of the recluse

 Which room is he speaking about?

This room is so wide and empty

Every thought vanishes in it.

A narrow lane carved in rock,

A well sprung from a hole in a stone.

The bright moon hangs at the

End of the eaves,

And a cold gust shakes the valley.

Who can follow in the footsteps of the recluse

And, sitting quietly, learn true happiness?

--Deagam Tanyon (1070-1179) dailyzen

My room is a splay of too many shirts and jackets, shoes, books, and empty containers of medicines and matches. An unmade bed, tossed pillows, meditation beads, and scattered papers that once meant something I now forget. 

Candle holders and incense holders, reminders on wall of what my attention once wanted me to remember.

We the elderly, about to forget everything, salute you!

Oh friendly space where sleep and wisdom wander in and out, and a snoring dog keeps suspicious vigil over near door by bookcase!

procedamus

 I understand why trump is so popular. He is the shadow side of our contemporary cultural personality and character manifested in full for those reluctant to expose that jungian identification.

The sexism, racism, derogatory hostility, the “I don’t give a sh#t about you…I’m all and only about me and me alone.” The bragging, the lying, the threats, the insulting, the demand for unthinking loyalty, the mocking, the inability to feel, sympathize, empathize or commiserate.

He’s a genius of shadow recividism.

And he will win the election.

The American people want this raw obsessive self shadow disclosure full of resentment and mockery to be their masthead of unrepressed f*#k you, I’m the man, get over here babe, I’m the one, the one and only, fantasy man, fantastical cardboard poster, huckster salesman, no one can near to my unstoppable revelation of underside sea-slime magnificence.

And he will be out next president.

Of this I’m . . . resigned.

For Jung:

Shadow: The shadow archetype is the darker aspects of a person, the part that embraces what we view as frightening, hateful and even evil about ourselves.

https://www.harleytherapy.co.uk/counselling/carl-jung-introduction-jungian-psychology.htm#:~:text=The%20self%20provides%20the%20balance,and%20even%20evil%20about%20ourselves.

And,

Complementary to Jung’s idea of the persona, which is “what oneself as well as others thinks one is” [CW9 para 221], the “shadow is that hidden, repressed, for the most part inferior and guilt-laden personality whose ultimate ramifications reach back into the realm of our animal ancestors…If it has been believed hitherto that the human shadow was the source of evil, it can now be ascertained on closer investigation that the unconscious man, that is his shadow does not consist only of morally reprehensible tendencies, but also displays a number of good qualities, such as normal instincts, appropriate reactions, realistic insights, creative impulses etc “ [CW9 paras 422 & 423].

 https://www.thesap.org.uk/articles-on-jungian-psychology-2/about-analysis-and-therapy/the-shadow/

To recognize and come to know the shadow self is beneficial to understanding the whole of our psychological character and to moderate our presentation to the world. 

Not to know it is to be enslaved to its dark influence on our personality and to remain ignorant as to the mask we present to the world.

Wholeness or halfness.

These days this country loves the halfness that trump irradiates.

We smile and snarl allegiance to the unsuppressed arrogance and calculated insouciance of his demi-morbid proclamations of festering sores and cynical projections of his personality onto perceived enemies and critics.

He is gold ornamentation to a cardboard half-self.

We learn to live with our shadow self, to incorporate it and to utilize its necessary aspects completing our psychological health in the face of a radiant yet troubling world.

Without this integration we remain a halfness and a macabre presentation of charicatured noncompleteness — a proverbial sliced personality staggering forward with no understanding of the creature we present to those who see us.

This problem is reciprocal. Those looking on and experiencing such a half-human are themselves masking their wholeness and responding with diminished comprehension to the diminished halfness urging their halfness to merge with his halfness effectuating a diminishing vision of the nonwhole into figments and fragments of a newly splintered perception and view of this country as garbage and carnage and everyone being sh*ts.

And this will become our half-life going forward.

As halloween approaches, we divert from the sacred “holy eve” before the celebration of All Saints’ Day and we retreat to the ghoulish half-dead caricatures of terrifying incompleteness and half-life.

(For a deeper reflection on shadow, see  Spiritual Life and Our Shadow, by Anne Solomon.)

The old saw that “elections have consequences” is true as ever.

John Fowles’ opening line of his novel Daniel Martin remains my favorite:

“Whole sight; or all the rest is desolation.”

Andiamo! 

And—

(Oremus sum iniuriam!)