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!

Someone thinks truth is good for the soul

Egg Nog is back. So is daylight savings time -- or are we returning to standard? Either way, light and dark take a peculiar turn.

Who has taken the light?

 The Arrowhead 

The arrowhead,
which I found beside the river,
was glittering and pointed.
I picked it up, and said,
“Now, it’s mine.”
I thought of showing it to friends.
I thought of putting it—such an imposing trinket—
in a little box, on my desk.
Halfway home, past the cut fields,
the old ghost
stood under the hickories.
“I would rather drink the wind,” he said,
“I would rather eat mud and die
than steal as you steal,
than lie as you lie.”       

Poem by Mary Oliver

I confess.

I am a liar. (Or is it 'lier' -- waiting in ambush for a necessary discovery?)

The light is not mine.

I've hidden it within me.

See me through; please!

Moonlight before dawn

The difficulty many have is bland generalization or peculiar particularity.

Here is my current koan:

This is this,
That is that,
Thus is so!

Don't make two,
Don't make one,
Be thus and such --

See each as each
Feel all as all
Do what is to be done --

and go!

In prison today, remembering to apologize, to forgive, & to love

All hearts want peace. And rest.

Saints and souls wish for holiness to be wholeness.

You do. I do. We do.

Eternal rest.

Infinite compassion.

It is November.

There was (nor is there) no answer.

Feel anything yet? It's November. Saints and souls, spooks and sprites, along with desperate polling for presidential candidates.

Four Birds 

“Wake to the sun,” the rooster croaked,
First bird of the day. The world, light-flecked,
Chiselled its lineaments into form.
Where was all that fine light coming from? 

“Trance at the wonder,” the second sang.
Whose five dry notes urged the ongoing
Afternoon on. “Why wake and stir?”
It asked. And asked. There was no answer. 

“Live through the muddle.” That from the next one.
Not very helpful. It looked like rain,
Or fog in the offing. Twilight. Then
It sang again from an oak or pine. 

Silence. How I waited for the fourth!
Time was a negative dipped into its bath,
The dark a fixative that slowly made
For every windowpane its window shade. 

No messages arrived. No music bared
The soul for its penitence. Up the stairs
No hint of a footfall. The night passed.
“Croak by your hand,” said the crow at last. 

(Howard Moss, poem, “Four Birds” from New Selected Poems)

Someone thought no one would notice the absence of hope for the country.

I did.

And do.

No hope. Only faith. In what cannot be seen.

Mirror molecules feel not much more

There are not too many words left.

You can't imagine how useless words are in the possession of someone with nothing to say.

They won't stay.

They're going.

Apophatically.

With what once was called

God.

Rain

Rain.

Ra

i

n

As weather, ever-changing, comes to us...

May all find shelter from the storm

Meetingbrook's re-rendering of the Jesus prayer

Christ stillness of god
Emerge within us
Wisdom, kindness, and truth

...

Christ wisdom of god
Emerge within us
Stillness mercy and knowledge
...

Christ silence of god
Emerge within us
Mercy vision and service
...

Christ kindness of god
Emerge within us
Knowledge mercy and love
...

Christ vision of god
Emerge within us
Clarity kindness and sight

...

For we have forgotten our way...

Haiku, (for itself)

Moonlight in dooryard
No one asks: Do you trust it?
White glow on gravel

(wfh)

As it tumbles edge over edge

Mokugyo from Kyoto arrives with returning visitors to Japan.

Watch Iranian film after popcorn fire.

Adrienne Rich's poem 7/26/1968 drove the prison conversation today.

Alea jacta est!

Unconfining knowledge is itself holiness

We row the near empty outer harbor around Curtis Island with Rokie in bow of peapod.

Earlier we walk trails of Ragged Mountain engrossed with October rust, two dogs lumbering alongside.

At Thursday Evening Conversation talk of holiness and unconfined knowing.

I tell students for yesterday's midterms I'm not interested in them telling me what they know, but in their learning what they are thinking.

I'm grateful for those who massacre my egoistic fears.

I'm nearly alive when such gifts are extended.

Long, alternate voices

Wisdom via suffering -- the way of Greek tragedy.

And then Wednesday ends.

Nothing lasts forever

Insanity is temporary. Like words.

Now, love -- that's different.

It might be all there is, but many of us cannot see what is right before us.

Sometimes, insanity is what there is...for the moment.

When that is true, only the truth makes sense, even if insane.