Thought for the Day

In ancient times, in the "time of inspiration." the poet flew from

one world to another, "riding on dragons," as the Chinese said. 

Isaiah rode on those dragons, so did Li Po and Pindar.  They

dragged behind them long tails of dragon smoke.  Some of that 

dragon smoke still boils out of Beowulf. ...This dragon smoke 

means that a leap has taken place in the poem.

The associative paths... allow us to leap from one part of the brain

to another and lay out their contraries.  Moreover it's possible that

what we call "mythology" deals precisely with these abrupt juxtapositions...

using what Joseph Campbell called "mythological thinking," 

it moves the energy along a spectrum - either up or down. 

It can awaken the "lost music," walk on the sea, cross the 

river from instinct to spirit.

It is in the interval of the leap that "so much happens when no one is watching" and this is related to Richard Schechner's idea that certain rituals require "selective inattention."  He says: "Selective inattention allows patterns of the whole to be visible, patterns that otherwise would be burned out of the consciousness by a too intense concentration.

Robert Bly, In This World

A Promise

The Peep show

of the Moonlight Milkshake Stars

and the Bubble of Eternity in the Unborn Void

of Everything we love

means nothing but more and more

spicy, mind over matter surprises.

Don’t be fooled.

The milky juice of everything

is spilling over, door to door,

up and down, a madplay

of promise, spinning all of us

into one song of soft breathing.

And it’s very sunny

this snowy morning.

Thought for the Day

"People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within."

— Elisabeth Kubler-Ross 

Space Conjured

I wanted blue loops that heal,

like language, like love going everywhere

to be with you on a wide path bending

around an open center.

I wanted others to feel the radiant heat

when you pressed your head to mine.

But they only recalled us

and my diamond belief. They wept

when our emptiness had its own energy.

Thought for the Day

Alice laughed. "There's no use trying," she said
 "one can't believe impossible things." 

"I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen.
"When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. 
Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." 

(Through the Looking Glass) 

Lovingly Forever

We take the journey in the flesh

But fire burns us into here and now,

with the unlikely and impossible

toward a milkier life,

in the smallest things we do.

It’s all I have today.

Thought for the Day

"There are two ways through life: the way of nature and the way of grace. You have to choose which one you’ll follow. Grace doesn’t try to please itself. Accepts being slighted, forgotten, disliked. Accepts insults and injuries. Nature only wants to please itself. Get others to please it too. Likes to lord it over them. To have its own way. It finds reasons to be unhappy when all the world is shining around it. And love is smiling through all things. The nuns taught us that no one who loves the way of grace ever comes to a bad end."

—

Tree of Life

Knowing Full Well

I was actually snow this year,

for a while,

gray and blood cold.

Then like a wonder hunter

found the grand aerial

superstructure again.

Came back to praise

the vaster side of things:

aspens in the dreamfields

prayers in the snowfields

not a sorrow in the heart

Home

to the moonlight internal

like a soft winged bird

in rapture

falling out of time, out of time.

The veil lifted.

Grace descended.

I saw myself

as I stood

looking skyward

watching everything leave

just to arrive.

Thought for the Day

Happy are those who know:

Behind all words, the Unsayable stands;

And from that source alone, the Infinite

Crosses over to gladness, and us -

Free of our bridges

Built with the stone of distinctions;

So that always, within each delight,

We gaze at what is purely single and joined.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

Finish the Dream

Now
open crazy
between nothing and light
I say love.
Now, on the wild
divine chance
I say love.
Now, hearted by
mind over matter,
holding fast
to whatever happens,
Now, conceived in
wonder, reborn
in glittergold
brilliance
I say love.

Thought for the Day

There is something inside me. What is it?


Vincent Van Gogh

At Your Service

A poem

is never just a poem.

This one's a sky

where the heart explodes.

It does not seek shelter

from a distance.

It's scarred all over

with the sweetest music.

It doesn't exist 

without you,

from a read

to a key.

A heavy dawn,

a fall; it has no place to be,

no way to leave.

It's everything in transition,

nothing of permanence,

flicker and flame, 

center of the circle.

It was then

but is still now.

When the writer's gone

it reconstructs itself

into a fable, a rhythm

and a hunger.

An expanding inside

as we tumble;

carries us further

and farther than

we've ever gone;

it's the breath of

what's already blowing.

Thought for the Day

Unsophisticated teachers say that God is pure

being.  He is as high above being as the highest

angel is above a gnat.  I would be speaking as incorrectly

in calling God a being as if I called the sun pale or black.

God is neither this or that.

~ Meister Eckhart