Black.
Crime festered hoods, drug overlords, poverty punished ghettos,
HIV/AIDS ravaged cadavers, down-low deceivers, violent thug gangs ,
misogynistic populism, health disparities run amok, fissuring educational gaps, skyrocketing unemployment.
When that loud group of boys got on the bus how I recoiled in judgement.
The distance I tried to place between myself and that shadow
earned me a lifetime of imprisonment, stuck in my own foul reflection.
Black.
But now as I look, I see an primal energy, raw and irrepressible, a sacred strength
passed on through decades of hardship, in song, food, and fellowship
and the ability to endure the most nightmarish tempests
such will erase and transmute the jim crows and apartheids
because nothing less than love and truth are the alchemical agents
working to free us all at last.
Black.
I used to be afraid of the dark
but now I embrace it in wholeness.
When you sit alone in the true depths of darkness
you begin to be breathed by it and you realize
that chasing the light can be a distraction.
I celebrate the mystery of darkness
I surrender myself to the unknown
to discover in each shadowy moment
the inherent beauty of the night.
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
Friday, March 30, 2012
Adrienne’s Song
There is a cruel voice in everyone’s head.
Today mine is lip syncing that I should not
weep for the loss of a hero.
After all, technically, I did not know her.
We shared no heritage, we barely ever met.
But since when was it true that the only way
to know someone was by blood or proximity?
Some souls courageously write their lives in words
And thus teach us all how to be.
Their life is their art, as much as art is their life.
This is how we come to know them and ourselves.
a resonance of souls, connecting, harmonizing
a common language beyond words and form.
It is no dream.
They speak of something deep and dear
And when you are still enough or quiet enough
Their rhythm becomes a part of you and you joyfully dance.
My beloved Adrienne,
I wonder if you know how many souls you set in motion
How many bodies sway, gyrate, tap, swirl, and swing
to the music you elevated. The music you gifted us.
Though for many years your own crooked and pained frame
hobbled on hard paths, you set the world free,
indeed you birthed us all
and allowed us to begin dancing.
I owe you my world and for this I am eternally grateful.
This is why I weep for this loss.
And to the hardened voice that would disparage this feeling,
I offer this space, this dulcet silence,
this stillness, these salty tears
Whose phrasing you shaped AR, with your own powerful breath and
which can easily hold all, the cacophony, the immense depth of
my gratitude and my raw grief for losing a soul whose beautiful, haunting
and rousing music helped conduct the tempo and sweet melody of this life here.
An Ode to Adrienne Rich, Poet, Feminist, Author, Essayist – and one of my supreme heroes who died March 27, 2012
Today mine is lip syncing that I should not
weep for the loss of a hero.
After all, technically, I did not know her.
We shared no heritage, we barely ever met.
But since when was it true that the only way
to know someone was by blood or proximity?
Some souls courageously write their lives in words
And thus teach us all how to be.
Their life is their art, as much as art is their life.
This is how we come to know them and ourselves.
a resonance of souls, connecting, harmonizing
a common language beyond words and form.
It is no dream.
They speak of something deep and dear
And when you are still enough or quiet enough
Their rhythm becomes a part of you and you joyfully dance.
My beloved Adrienne,
I wonder if you know how many souls you set in motion
How many bodies sway, gyrate, tap, swirl, and swing
to the music you elevated. The music you gifted us.
Though for many years your own crooked and pained frame
hobbled on hard paths, you set the world free,
indeed you birthed us all
and allowed us to begin dancing.
I owe you my world and for this I am eternally grateful.
This is why I weep for this loss.
And to the hardened voice that would disparage this feeling,
I offer this space, this dulcet silence,
this stillness, these salty tears
Whose phrasing you shaped AR, with your own powerful breath and
which can easily hold all, the cacophony, the immense depth of
my gratitude and my raw grief for losing a soul whose beautiful, haunting
and rousing music helped conduct the tempo and sweet melody of this life here.
An Ode to Adrienne Rich, Poet, Feminist, Author, Essayist – and one of my supreme heroes who died March 27, 2012
Suffering - Part One
Some days my heart breaks. It simply breaks for all the suffering that exists. Even when I was young and still very mired in a fire and brimstone concept of hell, there was always a part of me that thought -- "Can there really be a hell?" What could be worse than what we have done to each other as humans? We have waged unspeakable horrors against each other. It saddens and breaks me. But the brokenness is like being broken open.
These days the existential questions of suffering, hell, heaven, etc. enter differently still. Who is this “other” that we perpetrate our crimes against? It is not so much -- what could be worse than what we have done to each other as what could be worse than what we do to ourselves? Taking the question in rather than holding at arm’s length makes it so much more tender and raw. It is easier to think that it’s those people over there who commit the crimes or horrors and thus feel better about myself. But who are they? What if we truly lived no separation? That question would at once rend us permanently. It feels like it would cut one wide open. It would break us open. Upon hearing of some horror in the world, (and most nightly newscasts can fulfill this role), one of the first thoughts that enters many people's minds at some level is “how could they” or “that cannot be” Our conditioning immediately tries to push away what is real and painful. We get angry or try to find a way to shut it out and escape. But all of these are ways of clothing the naked and beautiful. Those methods put a layer over reality. Listen carefully and with your whole heart. Find out for yourelf. Frequently those questions begin an argument. At some level there is a movement of “this should not be” or "those people are different than these people or I am different from them". They are all ways of trying to control that which feels beyond us. They are escapes. What if we did not escape? Freedom lies in the ever increasing ability to simply sit with what is.
Stay with the news story that you just heard about a teenage African- American boy fatally shot or the soldier gunned down, or grandmother who has just been beaten up. What if you truly believed you were the one who harmed these people? What happens if you are the one who harmed the "other" person? Who are you? What are you? Do you find yourself moving to justify, blame, deny, distance, excuse? Are you set on proving what I am saying is wrong? Why do you think that is? What would happen if you didn’t? Do you find yourself doling out love and compassion to some parts of the story and some characters but not others; perhaps the boy or the elderly woman, or the situation but not “yourself”/the perpetrator who committed the crime? Do you find yourself a little saddened, angered, or numbed, grieved?
Regardless of whether or not you believe what I am saying is true, about you being the perpetrator is there an inclination to move away? The mind will argue that it's not true. That you did not commit that act. (And of course on a certain relative level that is absolutely true) But what is going on? What is going on when we encounter something and want to move away? Even if from the above example you do not believe it is you, can you can you hold that notion without judging it? When are we inclined to separate? Often we are inclined to separate when "too much" pain is encountered. We often move to create an “us” and “them” We start to blame. It is in part, a way of feeling better about ourselves. It is a way of salving our wounds. But what if we didn’t seek the band aid or traverse the blame path? What would we have to feel if we did not move towards resolving the enormity of that hurt? What if on a cellular and molecular level we understood that "they" are us.
I think we would feel immense heartbreak but it would be a pure and complete heartbreak undistorted by a need to protect. What would we be protecting against? Rather than being a life-sucking heartbreak born of the dream state and yeilding paralysis and depression it might be the kind of heartbreak that is life-affirming and action inspiring. Compassion always opens to alleviate suffering. Pure love, like water, always moves towards the rough spots, the unawakened, the opaque parts. And if action occurs its signature need not be grandiose. Our existence itself is action of a supreme kind and the more we are aware of that the more we realize that that which we bring to action is more important in many ways than the actual action. Ideologies, governments, religions, science, none of these will “save” the world. Indeed it is our obsession that the world needs saving which creates the “problem” in the first place.
It requires a hefty and unbridled arrogance to believe we must be savioiurs. Perhaps this is what is meant when in Christianity the fall of Lucifer is spoken about. In thistory, one of God’s angels, his “top” angel in fact, becomes so prideful that he is banished from heaven. Is that not us? Perhaps in a sense it is pride which keeps us in hell? Pride in a sense says "I am special" which implies that someone else is not and thus creates tension and separation amidst wholeness. It creates that which is special and that which is not. Yet it is a flimsy house of cards, for at any moment, who we think we are can crumble when someone else comes along who is more "special" We cast ourselves out of heaven when we lock into self that is built upon others behavior or even our own behaviour. We set ourselves up for the fall when our self worth is hitched to being more than someone or something else. To do that is to miss who they essentially are and who we essentially are. We do not need anything to be whole. What if the world were perfect in its imperfection as were you?
Does this then mean that we should not be proud of accomplishments or that we become inactive. Does it mean that we avoid the homeless man on the street ? Does it mean that we should not work on solutions to our environmental crisis? Does it mean that we should not give to charities? Does it mean that we stop voting? Does it mean that we do not volunteer at the animal shelter or participate in that walkathon? What do you think? What does your heart say? What is it that would try to avoid the grittiness of life?
It seems to me that only a delusion would try to avoid anything. Love/truth/reality does not need or want to avoid anything so why would it avoid helping people or even having pride.
Interestingly, are we even inclined to call it "pride" in the same way if the accomplishment belongs to all. Similarly is it really “helping” when the hand scratches the itch on the leg or the ears hear something beautiful? If we are truly “helping” ourselves is it really helping in the conventional sense of the word? Perhaps it is just something that happens in that moment. Perhaps that is what surrender looks like. Part of how love can be seen is as that which embraces all and avoids nothing. That is love. Egos and minds believe that somehow an absolutist position such as do not do this or do not do that can contain the possibility of resolution. At a certain level some kinds of dictums do help mitigate the most egregious behaviours temporarily and they may even have been necessary in our past but today it is increasingly possible to be directed by a moment to moment flow that is outside our traditional prescriptions of good/evil, warm/cold, polite/rude. happy /sad dualism. It is the way of the Tao. Lest you think it is simply an eastern philosophy it really has different names in different times and cultures and religions but essentially they all point to the same thing and that "thing" is more close to you than anything you could ever imagine. It is able to hold all the suffering and like a beautifully discordant chord from a Mahler symphony transform it into magical music. In some ways that is the potential transformational power in suffering.
(Sta tuned for more on Suffering)
These days the existential questions of suffering, hell, heaven, etc. enter differently still. Who is this “other” that we perpetrate our crimes against? It is not so much -- what could be worse than what we have done to each other as what could be worse than what we do to ourselves? Taking the question in rather than holding at arm’s length makes it so much more tender and raw. It is easier to think that it’s those people over there who commit the crimes or horrors and thus feel better about myself. But who are they? What if we truly lived no separation? That question would at once rend us permanently. It feels like it would cut one wide open. It would break us open. Upon hearing of some horror in the world, (and most nightly newscasts can fulfill this role), one of the first thoughts that enters many people's minds at some level is “how could they” or “that cannot be” Our conditioning immediately tries to push away what is real and painful. We get angry or try to find a way to shut it out and escape. But all of these are ways of clothing the naked and beautiful. Those methods put a layer over reality. Listen carefully and with your whole heart. Find out for yourelf. Frequently those questions begin an argument. At some level there is a movement of “this should not be” or "those people are different than these people or I am different from them". They are all ways of trying to control that which feels beyond us. They are escapes. What if we did not escape? Freedom lies in the ever increasing ability to simply sit with what is.
Stay with the news story that you just heard about a teenage African- American boy fatally shot or the soldier gunned down, or grandmother who has just been beaten up. What if you truly believed you were the one who harmed these people? What happens if you are the one who harmed the "other" person? Who are you? What are you? Do you find yourself moving to justify, blame, deny, distance, excuse? Are you set on proving what I am saying is wrong? Why do you think that is? What would happen if you didn’t? Do you find yourself doling out love and compassion to some parts of the story and some characters but not others; perhaps the boy or the elderly woman, or the situation but not “yourself”/the perpetrator who committed the crime? Do you find yourself a little saddened, angered, or numbed, grieved?
Regardless of whether or not you believe what I am saying is true, about you being the perpetrator is there an inclination to move away? The mind will argue that it's not true. That you did not commit that act. (And of course on a certain relative level that is absolutely true) But what is going on? What is going on when we encounter something and want to move away? Even if from the above example you do not believe it is you, can you can you hold that notion without judging it? When are we inclined to separate? Often we are inclined to separate when "too much" pain is encountered. We often move to create an “us” and “them” We start to blame. It is in part, a way of feeling better about ourselves. It is a way of salving our wounds. But what if we didn’t seek the band aid or traverse the blame path? What would we have to feel if we did not move towards resolving the enormity of that hurt? What if on a cellular and molecular level we understood that "they" are us.
I think we would feel immense heartbreak but it would be a pure and complete heartbreak undistorted by a need to protect. What would we be protecting against? Rather than being a life-sucking heartbreak born of the dream state and yeilding paralysis and depression it might be the kind of heartbreak that is life-affirming and action inspiring. Compassion always opens to alleviate suffering. Pure love, like water, always moves towards the rough spots, the unawakened, the opaque parts. And if action occurs its signature need not be grandiose. Our existence itself is action of a supreme kind and the more we are aware of that the more we realize that that which we bring to action is more important in many ways than the actual action. Ideologies, governments, religions, science, none of these will “save” the world. Indeed it is our obsession that the world needs saving which creates the “problem” in the first place.
It requires a hefty and unbridled arrogance to believe we must be savioiurs. Perhaps this is what is meant when in Christianity the fall of Lucifer is spoken about. In thistory, one of God’s angels, his “top” angel in fact, becomes so prideful that he is banished from heaven. Is that not us? Perhaps in a sense it is pride which keeps us in hell? Pride in a sense says "I am special" which implies that someone else is not and thus creates tension and separation amidst wholeness. It creates that which is special and that which is not. Yet it is a flimsy house of cards, for at any moment, who we think we are can crumble when someone else comes along who is more "special" We cast ourselves out of heaven when we lock into self that is built upon others behavior or even our own behaviour. We set ourselves up for the fall when our self worth is hitched to being more than someone or something else. To do that is to miss who they essentially are and who we essentially are. We do not need anything to be whole. What if the world were perfect in its imperfection as were you?
Does this then mean that we should not be proud of accomplishments or that we become inactive. Does it mean that we avoid the homeless man on the street ? Does it mean that we should not work on solutions to our environmental crisis? Does it mean that we should not give to charities? Does it mean that we stop voting? Does it mean that we do not volunteer at the animal shelter or participate in that walkathon? What do you think? What does your heart say? What is it that would try to avoid the grittiness of life?
It seems to me that only a delusion would try to avoid anything. Love/truth/reality does not need or want to avoid anything so why would it avoid helping people or even having pride.
Interestingly, are we even inclined to call it "pride" in the same way if the accomplishment belongs to all. Similarly is it really “helping” when the hand scratches the itch on the leg or the ears hear something beautiful? If we are truly “helping” ourselves is it really helping in the conventional sense of the word? Perhaps it is just something that happens in that moment. Perhaps that is what surrender looks like. Part of how love can be seen is as that which embraces all and avoids nothing. That is love. Egos and minds believe that somehow an absolutist position such as do not do this or do not do that can contain the possibility of resolution. At a certain level some kinds of dictums do help mitigate the most egregious behaviours temporarily and they may even have been necessary in our past but today it is increasingly possible to be directed by a moment to moment flow that is outside our traditional prescriptions of good/evil, warm/cold, polite/rude. happy /sad dualism. It is the way of the Tao. Lest you think it is simply an eastern philosophy it really has different names in different times and cultures and religions but essentially they all point to the same thing and that "thing" is more close to you than anything you could ever imagine. It is able to hold all the suffering and like a beautifully discordant chord from a Mahler symphony transform it into magical music. In some ways that is the potential transformational power in suffering.
(Sta tuned for more on Suffering)
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
What Have You Done with Your Whole Heart Today?
What have you done today with your whole heart?
Was there even a brief moment
when your entire existence rode on some action or state of being,
as if you would be blinked out of existence afterwards.
Not that it mattered whether you succeeded or not,
but just simply that all of you was at hand in every fiber.
A pen stroke like this vs the routine mechanical glide
Is the difference between heaven and hell.
Too often desire gets a bad rap.
Desiring is mistaken for “unspiritual”
A cancer on our souls.
So we seek to eradicate it like
caked mud on the boots of our sacred spiritual journey.
But desire is gorgeous, it is beautiful.
It is a smile so wide it swallows the universe.
Our trouble is we close compassion’s door on desire
to let it rot and fester outside supposedly.
We even think our satisfaction lies in obtaining our object of desire
And sometimes it does for a little while
But if we look closely enough the desire and desired aren’t separate.
Truly what we are looking for is what is looking.
Follow desire down the rabbit hole and see what it wants.
What if it simply seeks to be acknowledged to its depth
Perhap you are afraid you will never climb back up.
You do not see that desire has wings and you will soar when you befriend it.
Is it not exquisite to want something with the entirety of your being?
Why then would we get rid of this?
The aching sweetness of yearning, longing.
It does not matter at all whether you get your desire.
Fall deeply into it.
Trouble emerges not
because you yearn
But because you
fault yourself for wanting it
ALL.
Was there even a brief moment
when your entire existence rode on some action or state of being,
as if you would be blinked out of existence afterwards.
Not that it mattered whether you succeeded or not,
but just simply that all of you was at hand in every fiber.
A pen stroke like this vs the routine mechanical glide
Is the difference between heaven and hell.
Too often desire gets a bad rap.
Desiring is mistaken for “unspiritual”
A cancer on our souls.
So we seek to eradicate it like
caked mud on the boots of our sacred spiritual journey.
But desire is gorgeous, it is beautiful.
It is a smile so wide it swallows the universe.
Our trouble is we close compassion’s door on desire
to let it rot and fester outside supposedly.
We even think our satisfaction lies in obtaining our object of desire
And sometimes it does for a little while
But if we look closely enough the desire and desired aren’t separate.
Truly what we are looking for is what is looking.
Follow desire down the rabbit hole and see what it wants.
What if it simply seeks to be acknowledged to its depth
Perhap you are afraid you will never climb back up.
You do not see that desire has wings and you will soar when you befriend it.
Is it not exquisite to want something with the entirety of your being?
Why then would we get rid of this?
The aching sweetness of yearning, longing.
It does not matter at all whether you get your desire.
Fall deeply into it.
Trouble emerges not
because you yearn
But because you
fault yourself for wanting it
ALL.
Friday, December 23, 2011
Stop
Stop.
I ask you to stop,
please, I implore you, stop.
Do not lean forward into that next
moment which will never give more
than what you have in this very one.
What you most desire in your
depths is an unflinching, steadfast partner.
Be still and feel. She,life, is always dancing you.
What is it that scares you so much about being here, now
that you are willing to bleed her away
in exchange for a false promise to the kingdom's keys,
in which you already live.
Stop.
You run away from the very one that would fulfill you.
Instead, allow her to seep into your marrow,
every cell, every fiber.
Let her grab hold of your heart and dazzle you with her beauty
the crunch-crackle of the breakfast cereal;
the slippery aromatic wetness of lathered soap and water;
the cold breath puffing like a billowy cloud from pursed lips;
common, crystal clear and magical communication to colleauges across vast global distances;
A night sky so capacious its starry limits unimaginable;
a heart pounding; a yellow flower; a brown apple core; a siren;
the broken, smelly trash bag spilling its contents on the rain soaked ground;
heaping pyramids of tires, discarded, used up, black, springy, round;
the drone of cafeteria voices afar;
the sturdiness and earthy pine of a wooden seat underneath.
a sadness, an elation, a squeeze.
It is all embraced by love, by life.
her miracles are myriad,
infinite in fact.
Just stop and
open your senses.
What is here right now
is so much more than enough.
Just
stop
for a
moment
and
listen to
her radiant
song.
I ask you to stop,
please, I implore you, stop.
Do not lean forward into that next
moment which will never give more
than what you have in this very one.
What you most desire in your
depths is an unflinching, steadfast partner.
Be still and feel. She,life, is always dancing you.
What is it that scares you so much about being here, now
that you are willing to bleed her away
in exchange for a false promise to the kingdom's keys,
in which you already live.
Stop.
You run away from the very one that would fulfill you.
Instead, allow her to seep into your marrow,
every cell, every fiber.
Let her grab hold of your heart and dazzle you with her beauty
the crunch-crackle of the breakfast cereal;
the slippery aromatic wetness of lathered soap and water;
the cold breath puffing like a billowy cloud from pursed lips;
common, crystal clear and magical communication to colleauges across vast global distances;
A night sky so capacious its starry limits unimaginable;
a heart pounding; a yellow flower; a brown apple core; a siren;
the broken, smelly trash bag spilling its contents on the rain soaked ground;
heaping pyramids of tires, discarded, used up, black, springy, round;
the drone of cafeteria voices afar;
the sturdiness and earthy pine of a wooden seat underneath.
a sadness, an elation, a squeeze.
It is all embraced by love, by life.
her miracles are myriad,
infinite in fact.
Just stop and
open your senses.
What is here right now
is so much more than enough.
Just
stop
for a
moment
and
listen to
her radiant
song.
Thursday, November 24, 2011
A Few Things For Which I am Grateful
My sister in law who makes tasty special vegetarian dishes just for me.
My own sister who I love with all my heart who lives so far away I often ache.
A world that is filled with staggering beauty.
Wonderful thanksgiving smells
A beautiful and smiling wife.
Night skys with stars so bountiful one is dizzied by space.
A Mom and Dad who love unabashedly
Leaping lizards - Geckos in this specific case.
Water, crystal clear pools, britta drinking, a canal with fish, hottubs
Beloved people who live in Seattle
A strong and vibrant father in law
Watching my son fish for the first time.
A friend in DC who I am hoping got a good meal and warm bed tonight.
The dearest college friends for whom I would do anything and who have seen my highs and lows
Misty dog, blackie dog, butchy dog, obi dog.
Aria, Coda, Tessie
A & T They are awesome.
Generosity itself and how it manifests in so many ways
My own sister who I love with all my heart who lives so far away I often ache.
A world that is filled with staggering beauty.
Wonderful thanksgiving smells
A beautiful and smiling wife.
Night skys with stars so bountiful one is dizzied by space.
A Mom and Dad who love unabashedly
Leaping lizards - Geckos in this specific case.
Water, crystal clear pools, britta drinking, a canal with fish, hottubs
Beloved people who live in Seattle
A strong and vibrant father in law
Watching my son fish for the first time.
A friend in DC who I am hoping got a good meal and warm bed tonight.
The dearest college friends for whom I would do anything and who have seen my highs and lows
Misty dog, blackie dog, butchy dog, obi dog.
Aria, Coda, Tessie
A & T They are awesome.
Generosity itself and how it manifests in so many ways
Friday, October 28, 2011
Who Am I ?
Who am I ?
What a delicious question.
I could savor it for a lifetime.
When I truly bite into it there is a deep satisfaction.
I am sated through and through.
Oh it’s not because the fibers of eden’s apple cling to my belly.
On the contrary the question creates an immense
unfathomable and unknowable void
But where I used to Fill that Void with the many practices that
constitute a life, and call that happy, now, the void fills the practices that constitute a life, and contentment girds my actions.
Nor does the question grip me because I rejoice in celebration of
some laudably (and bemusedly) formed abstraction of having arrived somewhere.
That would be too convenient, and leave out the whimsy of a wild journey.
A journey that never was about getting anywhere but here anyway.
I could list a thousand conditions that claim to be me and in a way they are.
For they certainly aren’t separate.
It’s just that if I try to answer who am I from the depths of my being
the sweetness of a question mark is much more compelling than
A period.
What a delicious question.
I could savor it for a lifetime.
When I truly bite into it there is a deep satisfaction.
I am sated through and through.
Oh it’s not because the fibers of eden’s apple cling to my belly.
On the contrary the question creates an immense
unfathomable and unknowable void
But where I used to Fill that Void with the many practices that
constitute a life, and call that happy, now, the void fills the practices that constitute a life, and contentment girds my actions.
Nor does the question grip me because I rejoice in celebration of
some laudably (and bemusedly) formed abstraction of having arrived somewhere.
That would be too convenient, and leave out the whimsy of a wild journey.
A journey that never was about getting anywhere but here anyway.
I could list a thousand conditions that claim to be me and in a way they are.
For they certainly aren’t separate.
It’s just that if I try to answer who am I from the depths of my being
the sweetness of a question mark is much more compelling than
A period.
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