Category Archives: roles

A Stand In As Myself or Something Else

I have sometimes written a poem without having to be aware of the writing

You see, the poem aside from its writing or typing is an entity of its
own. It is seen, heard, felt, paused,

And squeezed out from behind the corner of the eye, the eye that is not
an eye

.

One where seeing comes in a whole other spectrum than

The usual one –not one you can manufacture here –one that exists already

It comes of its own accord like twilight or dawn, nothing can stop it or begin it

.

When you pause in the words, you’ll see a whole shift of light

It can easily be blocked, consciously or unconsciously; but if you let it be, everything takes on a different tone

For that time when things look as they do in between

.

The poem appears, it comes into its own, and recedes as if it has breath

[those reading and writing access it equally yet different]

It cannot be said even which comes first, the one who reads or what writes

.

And being is like that, too –am I myself or something else

What moves this now, not such that it is a hall of mirrors

But the something else continuously speaks itself as if I were the pen and paper

Re: Point of Reference*

.

There comes a point

It’s coming into focus

Scanning it, seeing

What it is, might be

.

Reference points all

Around outside inside

Cascading the senses

What to measure or

.

Score

Nothing

No need

Or is there

.

There comes a point

When seeing is seeing

Not a tool to shape

Reality map-out frame

.

Barter coordinate banter

Store hold hand-hold

Tether tie keep

Sure secure free

.

Advantage to what

Who pays the piper

What lock to key

Surveyor’s level rod

.

There comes a point

When no point is

True measure in the

Long or the short of it

.

Seeing

Only

Only

Seeing

.

And as that reference

One to another as

Other to one

We are

.

Searching

The crosshairs

Behold beyond

That I Am

.

.

* new title and layout of an earlier poem

GO!

3338

(undercover)

/

Can’t stand it! 

So, sitting down now

with these spills

for fingering consistently

unlike pen and paper

\

Q  W  E  R  T  Y

some Jolly Roger

of our time, that

kind of decisiveness

laid wake –Argh!

\

Who’s pilot am I

in this Course of

Consternation re:

(F for Futile/Fluttering)

formation as lark

\

Those wings have

spread of their own

anytime anywhere

can take issue exitus

una cum omnia

\

But do they give

flight (or fight or flight)

where does the rest

(of us) find lift inconta-

minatum ex cogitatione

\

(Out with it!)

/

Only this week, Go! give Self

permission to angst, to voice

the angst of the fool the wizened

fool, the one who rides the wobble

of the world who wears the seatbelt,

the constraint of it all, to this existence

–not from fear of hurling through space.

Rather, in being with it all, that Ride-appeal

a tension of ‘not two’ but then what? What Is.

The body vehicle –check, awareness of the body

vehicle –check, the mind –check, absence of mind

–check! This angst –check; ballast ready for jettisoning.

Navigators –check; gross or subtle, oftentimes imperceptible.

Welcome/Valkommen

There is no question
Anymore even where
Once there were two,
Three, four, even more.
Resounding fathomless
Space time returning to
Itself prescient, unaltered.
Silence, in its knowing,
Visits without visiting
Sings without singing
Arrives without arriving.
After Where Life Resounds by Dag Hammarskjold

Upon Finding East Coker*

Here and now  is my beginning, not mattering
where I am or where I come from, my voice
of ash and cornstalk and leaf finds its ally.
With stones, this folly and forewarned failure
of words no longer tending that which once
tasted the palette of timelessness and seeing,
I return with those twenty years, also, that feel
wasted and yet not, steeping within which may,
just may resolve the quickened art of questions.
I will have this kind of conversation, however alone
it leaves me, But a lifetime burning in every moment
And not the lifetime of this woman only 
But of old stones that cannot be deciphered.
It is these stones that rise to meet me here, good company
yet uncompromising, as must be in folly, casting shadow
of experience haste and heavy and also humble.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.
My day, this time, this world where I traverse and scold
as a private affair, the interior tides occasionally spilling
sometimes tarnishing, but also giving possibility to the polisher.
When should I, if ‘should I’ is the way to say it, when is it to be
plain, as uncontrived as animals coming to greet and pose
as themselves, not how we might wish them to present
only to fulfill matters that are ours, when is it to be plain?
Something is held back, reserved, calculated to create
a hidden reserve with interest, interest in and of what?
Let the dark come upon you, thus the beginning of the unraveling
and there are those who are with me here, in that here and there
that does not matter gives rise to exploration, communion,
even desolation The sharp compassion of the healer’s art.
Thank you voice of voice recognized
Whether posing or not of one time and place
I find the ground of heart of heart synchronized
Mess of imprecision of feeling within this space
Fierce, monstrous, Love is most nearly itself, grace.
I’ve found something here of myself and of you
And found and lost again and again
It is that tarnish I now polish but seeing the hue
before the scour
For the pattern is new in every moment
And every moment is a new and shocking
Valuation of all we have been.
Having considered apology, I carry on
in my work of this day of words and all that I know little of.
 

note ~ In italicized bold are excerpts from:

East Coker by TS Eliot

Please consider reading East Coker in its entirety, if you are at all inspired!

Thank you Daniel Ari, TS Eliot, Kim Rosen, Jason Wheeler, Marna Hauk


 

Five Tails

Steady ground of multitudinous paws

with limitless capacity to reflect

I gaze through dog windows seeing

laying  there aspects of my self

true and false  whole as well as partial

muddied then still and clear

what a day of five tails telling

what might not otherwise be seen

a) Attentive

foundling shaped coddled softened

from the inside out Mystic Eye of

the Beholder tender and fierce

at times rapidly interchanging

hesitant yet braised in a longing

contained by eons of shadowing

supplicant of the human heart

when opened  vastly free

b) Bounding

naked nighttime new moon confab

juxtaposes playful boundless reverie

extremes of pursuit and contentment

don’t tie me down but keep me close

tender toothed kisses unfettered affection

I see my own innocence here glowing

even with misunderstandings speculation

and day rises again the bright clear sun

c) Chivalry

the heart that opens deeply softly

eyes eyes eyes seeing watching tasting

putting all aside ready to desire delight

transparency confluence of many worlds

easy traveler buoyant riding over surface

and depth his role clear certain allowing

leave it in his hands but paws and nose

return again and again ever welcoming

d) Dear

unsettled bashfully brazen welcoming

committee of one of anything needing

alerting exuberantly caught in her own skin

and grace melting icebergs in her sleep

where all previous proclivities disperse

just give me something soft to curl onto

something to gaze into calm me full

in these simple yet abiding nourishings

w) Exceptionally

no other steps in here in This Way

fraught with complexity and oh so

vulnerable would it could it be seen

only only only ready ready steady

bound within an unspoken allegiance

being everything and plus some to His

and yet what has been asked is more

than some could bear this bare note

• • •

And five tails told but only wagging

can tell what more is to be seen

dog windows to the soul of so many

internal worlds open space off leash

Interest and Identity and the 41st Codon

We start anew today, January 22nd, somewhat differently today than other days, as the Sun shifted into the 41st codon or hexagram at 7:19am pacific time. The Sun will stay within the 41st hexagram through this Friday, January 27th. Of course, we start anew each day, with each breath, and in each moment, as we are vibration and physical beings alike. In that, there is something unique to recognize about our DNA as genetic beings in physical form, that form and vibration have an essential relationship with what codes it, shapes it or as such, ‘interferes’ with it in some way.

The message or code of atg, which is the unique set of bases or building blocks that make up the start code, is carried by the 41st gate or gene key. Whether encountered from the outside or the inside, it is this start code that initiates a new cycle somewhere within the living vibration of form and innate intelligence. And yet there are so many kind of ‘starts’ and ‘stops’. What is it that perceives that which initiates the new cycle? And what gets in the way of that perception, if anything?

I carry this 41st start codon or initiator as my personality Sun. I’m speculating here, but I may serve unbeknownst to me to initiate a new cycle for those around me simply by sharing space in aura with others. I do know that I’ve often ‘tuned in’ to what is on its way or about to emerge and have too often gotten that seeing mixed up with my identity and personal interest: a very common presumption of the self that everything we perceive has something to do with ‘me’.  In a live satsang with Mooji that I attended via the internet, my attention was pointed to this as he spoke of the role of interest and identity in fueling the suffering of the self.

Similarly, The Genetic Wheel of Samsara is how Richard Rudd titles his discussion on the shadow aspect ~ Fantasy ~ of the 41st gene key. Carrying this gate/gene key in the way I do also has a very specific and deep life lesson for me. I am in the midst, now, of exploring and surrendering to this life labyrinth. I really have very little idea of how…

• • •

Now on January 26th, I see I left this post with a dangling sentence, an open ended phrase anticipating what was to come, perhaps. Anticipation is the gift that emerges out of the shadow of fantasy. Something needs to be open to what is yet to come to perceive what is in emergence. And what was coming for me upon writing this post was another example of how I experience the life process ‘exploring into’ what is coming, even when I am identified with confusion or not seeing clearly.

In other words, life seems to answer my own queries, my wondering towards or into something. Or is it that there is something that perceives what is before that perception, as it exists on the plane of relative consciousness? In the next few days from writing the earlier part of this post, I certainly was shown in a very clear way how Fantasy and it’s link to suffering in my life found an anchor into my matrix many, many years ago.

This post is not about the realization that ensued over the last few days, as I am not called to unfold that here now. I did wish to point to something, however. What I do feel is that there is a weaving in and out of many layers and currents of experience, awareness, and perception, which make up the tapestry or fabric of what might be called writing. I feel satisfaction in the process of writing, but often do not see the end product while writing or even if there is an end product, such that I could take it off my ‘loom’ and place it into a stream of shared consciousness.

I do sense that that role of weaving something of any number of different expressions is a natural role for me. While ‘identity’ and ‘interest in’ are in the mix, these expressions take on a different feel, the colors mixed, the shapes indistinct, the content confusing. I, likely, stay in a fantasy or belief in the self who suffers when I bring my unchecked identities such that the expression is weighed down by interest in the false self.

I have seen, even, how this capacity to feel into what is coming, what is emerging, has gotten tangled in my own notions and attachments of self as I was mentioning earlier, such that Clear Seeing seems to be clouded. Then separation into ‘self and other’ is fueled through identity with self/suffering and interest or stake in that separation becomes what is seen instead.

Yet Clear Seeing is always here/there, nothing can cloud it as it is, It Is All Things. Thus the dance of and the wrestle with self, self-identified and all, is Pure ultimately and can serve as the Teacher just in that truth. The Self holds all and is without conditions. Confusion released within the All is Illumination, fantasy of the self transmuted or released ‘back into’ Self and Self including all Emanates Self.

Here’s to the beginning of a new cycle and All that is held within it.

Pulling up through the skin of Identity

Self other other self wrestling under the veil of separateness and being

An arm emerges articulates and differentiates, but whose is it? And what directs it?

Discerning takes a lot of courage verve audacity and so easy to mis-take con-fuse.

The energy for this roughs its edges out of my skin like air through soapy water

forming misshapen bubbles until they find their integrity then quickly disperse.

This dance muscular innervating shattering to my semblance of what might hold me

falls like a paroxysm of self only to gratefully burst on the ground of consciousness itself.

Giving Homage

Surprised and stunned, almost, I am this morning as I contemplate something ‘that happened’ recently. Funny thing this, as everything is happening now simultaneously, the organization of reality, the way the brain and awareness join together to display this view before and all around me, including within me. And yet there is something I’ve so commonly accepted as real, something called the past and the ordering of the past. I stand in pause here in relationship to the nature of this emerging consciousness.

What is memory but a dancing of consciousness related to and organized in a way that somehow feels familiar in that moment? Can it be said that the past is memory? Can it be said that we can access the past, as if to measure something of the now against it? I found myself stepping into that field and recognized a Ticket Taker there, wanting a fee for passage, an agreement that how I remember something is reliable enough to exchange against, as if it were a store house that had every protection against any of the contents changing, diminishing, or perishing, as all tangible things do.

How often have I left something ‘behind’ me thinking, assuming, believing that it would still be there to lean into another time when I might need it again? Such is the nature of the conditioned mind. And isn’t a wonder that we rely so heavily on something that is completely unreliable?

I find I’m drawn to this image of the Ticket Taker. The word ‘ticket’ had some energy for me and I looked it up to find that it came originally from the word etiquette or ‘a list of ceremonial observances of a court’, such that a ticket is a ‘permit’ issued by some body or a set of measures to uphold. I’m intrigued how readily that this ticket taker archetype resonates with the feel of the conditioned mind. It’s as if there is a doorway into the conditioned mind that I could pay my ceremonial observances to in order to get entry or not. Thanks to the Ticket Taker today, I chose to pause and not to appease the court, this particular court of the recent past, leaving what is and what was to simply commingle in their mutual simultaneity.

Critical Thinking ~ The Trickster Within

I enjoy having a critical thinker in the house, my house, this house of flesh and bone and spirit. I especially enjoy it when there’s no pressure of anyone listening, or so it seems. I wonder what it would take to be a free thinker, sharing what I really think in a free way, as to say in an unencumbered way, energetically free, no blame, no posing one thing against another.

My computer powered down just when finishing that last sentence. Who or what had gotten into this house? In the pause, I reached over to the book, The Way We Lived, sitting on top of my book pile and opened the interlude pages for “Coyote and Spider” (that way that things just seem to magically happen ~ timing and juxtaposition at their best!) I settled in on these words of Malcolm Margolin about Coyote:

He is at the same time good and evil, crafty and foolish, godlike and scroungy. He is both the prankster and the dupe. He seems to exist in the free and wild area of the mind beyond duality–beyond the trick of intellect that divides things into good or bad, smart or stupid, winner or loser, allowable or forbidden. The trickster is everything at once. He dies, is dismembered, decays, and then is pulled back together again to continue his journey. He exists in an undifferentiated, boundless, intensely creative world.

Ah, I’d received a visitation. And what fertility there within! The realms of Coyote are both  relaxing and affirming to the deeply vexing parts of my being. It’s as if I’ve found a true ally in Coyote with my Design North Node in line 4 of the Gate of Confusion: Before Completion. Gate 64 is “Transition, like birth, requires a determined strength for the passage through.” And line 4, Conviction, is “Symbolized by its phases, the Moon is assured of transition convinced by its very process that it will triumph. The assuredness that confusion is a process that results in realization.” And then there is a classic Coyote in the detriment of the line: “Where force and energy alone cannot overcome doubt. Where the confusion is so energized, assuredness brings no relief.”

Where to begin? Right in the heart of confusion, no doubt. This kind of confusion, both the rich, fertile kind and the one that weakens me into a surrender of no where to go, is a kind of medicine. I found delight in reading that one of the names of the trickster is Sweet-Medicine. Ah… good to meet more fully both of these aspects of conviction today, as I’ve tasted both time and time again. Just as the heart can cry tears of deep grief and joy simultaneously, I find my journey in this blessed vehicle showing me the delicious nature of being myself, a portal to that free and wild area of the mind beyond duality.

Recognizing this aspect of self where doubt, confusion, and conviction play an essential role in my thinking, a natural role in the eco-system of my definition. Confusion, rich in trickster medicine, is a signpost in my story line. Without it, I don’t see what I am here to see. Even now, this writing has elements of confusion for me, yet I return to the page, I return to the thread and the visceral feel of the movement.

What brought me here earlier? The thinker in my house, Sweet-Medicine, the taste for the life that is uniquely my own ~ and that which calls to be shared, what may nourish and support those arriving here, too.