Sidewalk thoughts Aug. 27.25

I will have a revolution within myself.  
I will overturn values that have been planted and grown inside me by other people and institutions.
I will learn to see the world as if for the first time.
My eyes will be those of a newborn infant, slow to categorize, label, judge.
I will listen to those around me better.
I will seek more moments of silent meditation.
I will grow something beautiful inside my heart.

when we were close

when we were close
i took those golden moments 
for granted,
when the sight of your face was
sunshine warming mine,
and now at the end of an age
you drift,
a whispering specter haunting 
everything.
like Odysseus i'd offer blood
to bring you back.
where have you gone?
can i trace this filament back to the
exact moment you became 
a ghost?
would i find my own fault there?
oh to turn the hands of time 

I just wanted to say...

She placed the freshly-picked flowers in a glass vase and said,  “I almost don't want to talk about the things I wish for because I'm afraid they won't come true, you know?”

In that moment I desperately needed her to be speaking of us.

“I didn't take you for a superstitious person,” I said with a smile, more teasing than anything else, trying to ignore the ache I felt in my heart.

“I'm not really superstitious,” she said, “I just feel like whenever I really want something and let other people know it, I end up not getting it.”

And in that moment I realized there was something deeper being expressed in those words. This was the expression of a sense of loss, of unfulfilled and frustrated hope repeated again and again. I suddenly felt deeply honoured she'd shared this with me.

Before I could say anything her friend came in from outside. Our conversation returned to the mundane world of work.

The next day we came together in the same place. Our eyes met and we held each other's gaze for a time. I was the first to speak:

“I've been thinking about what you said yesterday, about how you feel that telling your wishes to others might mean they won't come true.”

I waited for her reaction to gauge whether to keep speaking or change the subject. She gently nodded and I continued.

“I just wanted to say…”

membrana sacra

We are separated from the ineffable by the thinnest of membranes. Several times I've stood and seen its shimmering surface moving as if in a silent wind. Though often seen as the passage to sacred experiences, this liminal surface itself is a hierophany. This, I think, is often overlooked in descriptions of religious experience, especially in the west, though here the Catholic and Orthodox Christian churches have already produced some important thinkers dealing with the metaphysical status of things like icons. 

The trouble with these approaches is that they're often too narrow in scope, theologically limiting their understanding of the holy/sacred to a particular tradition. The actual experience is more universal in nature. It allows for interpretation from multiple viewpoints, none of which ultimately represent the meaning of the experience. It is a very human tendency to claim that my particular experience must be the only correct one and all the others are merely derivative or false. This kind of claim has a very old and illustrious history in the Church, where the Fathers once claimed the worship, miracles, and signs of others were in fact demons at work. 

We, the seekers and lovers of the earth, have no need to take this approach. We recognize our experience of the ineffable in those liminal spaces is open to interpretation and that universality is one of its marks. Arrogance, self-assured aloofness or elitism, should not be its outcome. 

ex ego

where there is a true word 

there is the meaning of life 

and my whole being in this world 

is not even the smallest breath 

in the hurricane of its saying

when i go away

when i go away

leaves will swirl around 

the bleached white sidewalk 

near my home 

as if i still walked there, 

and crows will still watch from rooftops. 

the black spotted dog and his 

sidekick chihuahua will still race 

along the fence to chase away my ghost. 

if you look through the branches of 

those flowering trees you'll see the 

bluest sky. 

i'm there between the petals 

in the part that goes on forever. 

In Nepal

in Nepal I saw a tear 

fall from the eye of a Buddha 

and splash upon the earth.

as I watched, a flower grew 

in that very spot. 

it was fragrant, like freshly 

opened lilac or hyacinth. 

the Buddha's gaze was 

unperturbed, serene. 

the flower danced in the 

cool Himalayan breeze.

i had witnessed a miracle, and 

yet… 

i felt no surprise as

the flower bent toward me. 

i leaned forward, until 

my forehead touched its petals. 

10,000 suns illuminated the sky 

and i fell to the earth blind. 

i heard a buzzing noise, 

like a giant cicada coming 

closer to my ears. 

when it reached a volume 

i could hardly bear, 

it vanished and the light 

shattered to thousands of pieces. 

quiet on the mountaintop. 

wind graced my hands and hair,

my eyes remained closed.

crunching on the gravel path behind me 

as a traveller up the trail 

made summit. 

but when I opened my eyes 

there was no Buddha, 

no flower. 

a woman, her dark hair shining in 

the mountain air. 

she took my face in her hands and 

touched her forehead to mine. 

she gave me water and I slowly drank. 

absence

the genie won't go back 

in the bottle, 

how tight the throttled 

vapors as they escape 

the chambered waiting, 

i will grant you all your wishes, 

all your papered wishes, 

and dissolve to nothing 

before your distracted 

presence. 

we will fall victim to your 

self-actualization,

memorialized by a 

mile high black obelisk 

with the words 

“ABSENCE” 

carved into its cold surface,

reflecting no light, 

invisible in the coming 

night. 

little bird

oh time you slip away
and i can't catch my breath
as i press against this autumn chill

when the lonely bird 
finds its evening tree
and the night wind sways the
branch it calls home
she blinks the stars above
from her tear-filled eyes
and like shooting stars
they fall to the ground below
she will pass unnoticed 
she will pass unnoticed
like a dry leaf blown from its 
withered twig 

my steps beneath the
cold dark trees
a collar to the coming
winter's wind
a movement catches my eye:
a small feather swirls around
the frosty ground and passes
into the night

if i could drown in you

if i could drown in you

i wouldn't hold my breath
or struggle
but close my eyes and
inhale every drop of you

the water is a crystal blue tonight

and upon its surface
float two blood red roses
how perfect their last moments
together

this is a mystery
so profound it leaves me
speechless

L'avenir n'est pas un souvenir

Pachebel's canon played the day 

I watched you down the aisle 

Your smile made stars seem dim 

And the world was all promise

Imagine then if we knew 

Life would split in a hundred ways 

If heaven itself would fall 

For one of us 

New Year's Day 2025

J'ai vécu plusieurs vies

Je ne sais pas si

Tu connais les noms 

De mes enfants

Dans notre enfance

Nous avons rêvé de ces choses

-Rembobine, réfléchis-

Le futur est aussi 

Réel que le passé

Mais l'un est parti

L'autre est une promesse

À réaliser

On the word OM

OM is fundamentally an orientation/position of profound gratitude.  

All living beings lose the essence of their life properties eventually: this is defined by the particular configuration of the atoms and molecules in their body and around them that enable life functioning.  Once this configuration (really configurations) is disrupted, the descending OM begins.

The beginning of the OM is of course the first moments of existence, i.e. the particular configuration manifested in the post-contact reality of egg and sperm, pollen and germ cell.  Note, this says absolutely nothing at all about the moral status of such a configuration, merely that this is the first utterance of the OM.  This is true of every living being.  

Taken from The Treatise on Other Spiritual Wisdom, Gilla Artenis

sleep beneath the foam blown waves

sleep beneath the

foam blown waves that 

crash against the ancient shore 

soon I'll be no more 

for by the ocean all things 

turn to mist and 

drift away 

no more day or

endless starry night

no more the lover’s

lamp beside the bed 

for I will shed this 

mortal flesh 

for truer sight and 

deepest night 

where even gods receive 

a perfect rest 

beneath the foam blown waves 

the devil is in the details

 The devil is in the details...

poor innocent E and A

they knew the rules and they did it anyway
they stole the thing that would have 
set them free
"we were misled!"
willfully self-directed
"we didn't know"
you were told with adamantium tongue and
impossibly clear crystalline words
the way of things

millions of consequences
billions of hurtling lives 
down the garbage shoot of a
trillion cities

these are the consequences liars!

I promised

I promised in the last life  

I'd find her in the next 

An age went by 

And cities fell 

While worlds were turned to ash 

Before she came and grew 

And I was born and knew 

The person standing there

was you 

Every death creates a veil 

Obscuring reborn sight 

Until the sacred moment 

(often late into the night) 

The inner eye is opened 

And you see things as they are 

How bright you've shone 

To reach this eye, 

How far…