Someday I'll know

Beyond my sight there is a home.

Has anyone else seen it?

There’s calm waters, and large trees on the banks.

And ideas that only make sense to the moon.

And the stars and galaxies beyond them who listen late at night to the cigar smoke I exhale with exhaustion. 

Leaves and worries float in the breeze with sweet, august leisure.

And the willow trees hum so softly in the wind.

Can anyone see it but me?

It’s right there, at the tip of your eyelids as they fall heavy with the burdens from the day.

Beyond my reach there is a path in deeply wooded forest.

Have you seen it?

Where ancient branches sway

And whistle to both stranger and kin

A song lost to all who once heard its tune.

A rhythm that carried all the way to the river.

What river?

Is it clearer yet?

It’s so close now.

So close, at the end of probing fingers.

So close.

Close your eyes.

Open them wide.

Seek.

Stay.

Live.

Lose yourself.

Breathe for the first time.

Breathe for the last time

Just breathe.

Beyond my dreams  there is a warm home.

Have you seen this?

Where music is playing in jovial blessedness.

And lovers dwell in untouched fantasy.

Are there friends? Family?

Watch them fade.

The shadows fade.

So far, across their personal domain.

Do you miss them?

Can you see it?

Just there.

Right there.

After all this time?

Always there.

Always.

Always.

There must be something intentional about six adults living together through the good and bad weather.

There is something so perfect about sharing a meal.

Or stories about the night before.

Or hunting for easter eggs.

The scars they will heal.

You will be made whole again.

Don’t be afraid to get your fill.

To take in everything that there is to offer.

To join in on the games.

On the jokes.

On the bad decisions.

Don’t be afraid to feel.

To feel full, but stay hungry.

Hungry for another porch talk.

Or making a new friend.

Hungry for an unlocked door and what it may lead to.

A place to find new goals.

To feel good. 

To feel awful.

But to have a place to go.

When you just don’t know enough to say,

but are okay sitting and waiting.

Late at night, listening to the cold rain beat on the roof, recalling the past four years—
       Was it only a dream? Was I that young once?

The words I wrote ages ago
don’t belong to me anymore.

The person that wrote those lines
of despair and shame and utter honesty
has long been gone.

It’s almost as if he died from self-inflicted wounds
from too much booze and sin
From not giving a shit about anyone
or rowing
or forgetting to call old friends
on their birthday.

Reading page after page of the drivel
I want to tear them to pieces
but something inside me
won’t let it happen
because deep down I’m in love with the words
that used to bring me joy knowing my misery
was no different than yours.

I’ve walked on the outskirts

I’ve peered into walls

I’ve seen the city of angels

I’ve seen a glimpse of you

A face not mine

Worn wearily

Played differently

At every opportunity

You cannot really be too concerned with what people think of you. 
You’re on your own adventure of growth and discovery.
So it’s not always good to be who people think you are,
especially if you subscribe to it as well, which is easily done,
because then you don’t have to figure out who you are,
you just ask somebody else.

“Close some doors today. not because of pride, incapacity or arrogance, but simply because they lead you nowhere.” - Paul Coelho 

You can’t put value onto something

that is meaningless,

unless you find worth

in broken things.

Our soul, our true self, is the most mysterious, essential, and magical dimension of our being.  In fact, it is not a separate reality, as traditional Western thought views it, but the cohesive force that unites our body, heart, and mind.  It is not a ghost trapped somehow in the physical machinery of our body but the very essence of our being.

Each soul is unique, and we are called upon to break out of the minimum security prison of conformity and mediocrity to experience our soul’s true magic and power.  Like a plant it needs to be nurtured to grow and blossom, and to be freed from the entangling, obscuring weeds that tend to take over.  The soul is an artist.  Its nature is to create, and its natural expression is in the sacred architypical roles of the dancer, the singer, the actor and the healer.  Life is a caberet, and our challenge is to act out our essential self on the stage for the world.

Though the soul is not a thing, it is our beingness, that which gives us being.  So its presence and absence are visible.  Its presence manifests in being awake, attentive, energetic, alive.  It is the spark of life.  It is absent or dampened when we lack vitality, elan, energy.  It is the true self we are seeking in all our explorations, and yet it is not somewhere “out there” but right here now, underneath the false roles we’re always casting ourselves in.

Freeing the soul, freeing ourselves to be soulful, means empowering ourselves to really see what’s going on in ourselves, in others, in our lives.  This seeing is not the ordinary sort of looking we’re habituated to.  Looking operates on the surface; seeing probes beneath to discern the essence, the motion, the energy.  Looking is just a matter of regarding things things according to our preconceived, static ideas.  But as the new physics and biology have clearly shown, our surface impression of the nature of reality as static naively misses the truth of the constant motion and infinite space that truly constitute reality.

It is hard to view ones soul. Seeing implies detachment.  Looking implies attachment.  Looking is with the eyes.  Seeing is with the whole being.  Looking at myself in the mirror, I think that I am too skinny, my waist too slim, my hair too frustrating, my legs too long.  I judge.  I assess myself by some external criteria that have by now become part and parcel of how I look at people.  But if I stare into one eye in the mirror I see only a still, perfect little figure of myself in the midst of a deep pool of subtly changing reflections, probably an image much closer to the truth.  It is when I can see myself with interpretation that the magic of being, the pure wonder of existing is revealed.

LIfe is sacred.  Life is art.  Life is sacred art.  The art of sacred living means being a holy actor, acting from the soul rather than the ego.  The soul is out of space and time and hence always available, an ever-present potential of our being.  It is up to each of us to celebrate and actualize our being, and to turn each meal, conversation, outfit, letter, and so on, into art.  Every mundane activity is an opportunity for full, authentic self-exploration.  The soul is our artistic self, our capacity for transforming every dimension of our lives into art and theater.

If you are feeling disheartened, dispirited, or depressed, I propose four questions. 

When did you stop dancing? When did you stop singing? When did you stop being enchanted by stories? When did you stop finding comfort in the sweet territory of silence?

“Inverse Tree”

This is only a tree

I will not tell you

it has a beautiful spirit.

I advise you to believe

nature carries no importance.

It is impossible to say

We should not just build over the top of it.

It’s simply horrid.

Imagine a less natural world.

Imagine a place strictly man-made.

Beautiful, isn’t it?

It’s just a tree.