ram bull ewe cow (raos)

What is enlightenment but another brain state a place where light and pain converge and realign where signage glows and mind smiles slowly, burning through compost, rusty concepts like goals or dying ...

 

I am a non-duelist. It's not about at-one, but ever expanding diversity.

 

 

Tears, endless tears tiny droplets grief and fear all those wearing days all those dreams despaired running down a lane racing who knows where Electrical crashing and thunder caught lightning aware held in camera's gaze held in nature's snare Natural child Let her go wild Follow her there

 

Enjoy these humble Spring delights Softened days, enchanted nights Son of Spring's amazing heart Take up the beat to play your part

 

Under the Wesak Moon Where the Buddha crossed the quarters, graciously approached liminal wisdom Our Lady Goddess guides We who dance in shadow We who turn the Earth, bless the seed, feel awakened in darkness, feel the turning sacred, consecrated to the between air of transformation where enlightenment, eternal bliss encounter life

 

 

Burst of joy quietly encountered
Fly my eyes into such belief
Where sweet Earth heroically replies
to my pleas for splendorous relief

 

just over the border moving through the periphery pattern-seeking epicenter runs within swirling cosmos fire, flood, cerebral hemorrhage, tsunami herded into healing net

 

The love of love
The hope for blinding light that bathes all cares with caring

 

Morality is about living successfully in a world of others. Thus, it is not about absolutes, but relationships.

 

Relationships never really end, are always open to to reinterpretations, refining of feelings, redefining of motivations and nuances, even long after we have thought them dead and buried.

 

Frozen time
caught on camera
simplified plane
microscope glass

 

 

 

It had not occurred to me that poetry was more valued in other places. It feels sad to me that the American spirit of pragmatic Protestantism should overwhelm the spirit of awed naturalism and adventure I like to associate with the American mythology.

 

I suppose there is something to be said for the lack of common relevancy in many modern poetic practices. Surely, though, there are such effete practitioners everywhere, and many poets here who do communicate more accessibly. Perhaps it has to do with how poetry is taught in public education, or how thoughtful activities seem to attract bullying? Surely, however, there are strong voices in the American public with poetic sensibility and heroic bravery such as in Mexico or Iraq. Is it that they are not considered acceptable fare for tv infotainment? Is it that we have become too accustomed to sound-bite journalism and too nationally attention deficit to take the time to take in more? That's not me, or you here. What are the avenues in these other places that keep poetry an integral part of the mainstream?

 

 

Read, critically and for maximum enjoyment. Listen to the cadences of language of the voices all around. Feel the words gathering and interacting within you. Write. Read what you have said as if a total stranger. Rewrite in the light of greater understanding.
Once your words have said all they can to you, send them to find friends and feedback.

 

Art classes? Use your eyes, hands, heart, mind and discover what the sages knew. Everything you need to create your art is you. Keep refining your vision and expressive techniques. More importantly to sell, though, reach out to make connections through your art.

 

art lives, breathes, touches so surely
in the air, eye, mind of we who come to call

 

On reflection
certainties of youth
acquire a different truth
Re-direction
creates a different view
Reveal feelings new
to introspection
Not what you expected,
different cues
mix into different moods,
more from which to choose

 

The soundbite political philosophy which we take as normative needs to be countered with the long form.

 

 

Nobody should be brutally beaten, nor purposely hurt at all for no good reason. Unfortunately, that is not the prevalent message of our social milieu.

 

How does it respect, improve or protect our freedoms when we deny them to any of us?

 

 

Not only do we blame the victim, charge the victim, and generally disrespect the victim, our legal system is all about the perp; the victim gets victimized and the "people" get their entertainment.

 

 

Instead of "sharing the pain" why don't we share the pleasures of a country we can all take part in and be proud of?

 

It is so much more profitable to lock people up and let them rot than to educate or provide services to help them make a living.

 

 

Though corporations may be legal people, they are not moral people. Like the institutions of bureaucracy, money, mass media blitz, the corporation allows the people who work behind it to distance themselves from the realities of interpersonal living. "It was the fictitious person who did all that crap. I am just a humble, even horrified, servant."

 

 

What is the "Conservative" rationale or plan? Is it to destroy the US in order to make putting in their regime possible, some kind of uber-capitalist corporate state? I keep asking why if we need to have debt to pay for governmental programs we don't just sell it to Americans who will then reap the interest, pay the taxes, and keep the whole enterprise solvent? No one even replies. All this catastrophizing might be useful if it led to actually going through the budget, having every agency go through their budgets, and discover what is working as a matter of cost/benefit analysis. However, that does not seem to be happening. Rather, it is all political noisemaking.  It has obviously never been about the money, as such. It is about defining a culture which is bolstered with "appropriate" expenditure.

 

 

Let the Circus reign
Let the Great Orators
cast their voices
like molten gold
to flow and burn us all

 

Yet we now have Republican presidential candidate Gary Johnson who seems to be willing to look at the whole budget in terms of cost/benefit analysis without screaming, crying "socialism" or otherwise acting like a spoiled child -- could the political climate be changing into a more grown-up reaction to electorate anger?

It's past time to give up on Keynes and Smith and all the rest of the economic theorists and start thinking rationally about what actually works.

 

The problem with capitalism is not so much the capital as the ism. People combine their social visions and come up with some theory about distribution of resources because here they are for us to exploit (didn't the Bible tell us so?). Then, the theory displaces actual involvement in the real processes of life on planet. Don't get me started (well, not right now) on money and how the toady wizards of the powerful change math into manna. Point being, fine, people get together around an idea they believe will garner a good market share. This does not mean they have to discount the real costs of doing business, to the real resources. If we could allow ourselves the awareness to enjoy a market-based economy based on eco-friendly principles and win-win dynamics, why not?

 

 

Apart from being meanspirited and uninspiring, the Randian philosophy is too narrow to be useful to those it lauds. Giving the stipulation that the self is the seat of pleasure, that we live best by selfishness, they miss the fact that anything they want, any lifestyle they enjoy, any ability to engage in pleasurable projects, is dependent on the healthful participation of each and every member of the whole society and the histories on which it is based. No man is an island, not because it would be immoral, but because it would be impossible.

 

 

It's not so much that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, as the road to purgatory is paved with inattention.

 

Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine
Jesus cried, and somebody grinned -- don't whine
Jesus smiled his love on the least, scattered his manna
that the lowly might feast
All you remember is that slavering Beast
so remind me
why you find me
less than fine
for daring to share
a piece of mind
more about kindness
than Divine

 

 

 

One of my serious concerns with all these knee-jerk security measures is the plight of people with various mental/emotional sensitivities getting bullied beyond their ability to cope.

 

 

 

You know (of course you know, you'be been around a block or three) that it doesn't actually matter whether guns are safe or sane or personal property or dangerous or crazy or a threat to society. We have guns. We have people with different opinions about who should have them, how they should be used, what constitutes freedom. It's an ongoing discussion, as it ought to be in a democracy.

 

 

 

Moving through
each day older
wearing, weary, worn
from the day we're born
we choose
meek, or getting bolder
greeting another morn
meeting another walker
on the road
for conversation
until the turn

 

 

 

 

Look at the monkeys jumping up and down and shrieking at their oh so funny crap lying in the mud. Apparently the joke reflects the intellect of those who enjoy flinging mud.

 

You know what else is free speech? Calling idiots out on their idiocy rather than letting them think they are right

 

The only thing necessary for idiots to take over our world is sensible people saying nothing.

 

mutants for nukes!

 

 

 

Sorry is not the word for living
Take heart beyond simple forgiving
Take time to recognize the beautiful,
the fruit that's full of sun and rain and soil
Much better than respecting sorrow,
Discover joy to fill tomorrow

 

 

 

Searching the skies for eternity 
Opening upward, onward, out of words 
Yet still bound 
Sentience of form persists 
Feel the glory, 
the honor, 
the fear 
over eons emerge 
as bliss

 

 

 

Keep dreaming
It is all there is
to make of life
a wondrous dream

 

If you are not a Christian, the Christian mythology is just another mythology.

 

I watched a PBS show on The Jesus Prayer. The text of the prayer, which insists that the supplicant is a sinner in need of mercy, and the general context of the ancient monasteries and practices brought me to a realization. These people are living with a paradigm of a steady state Kingdom of God in which God's will is meant to be followed to insure safety. My understanding, though, is that we inhabit an expanding universe, that God has set us free upon this planet with free will to learn and interact with ongoing Creation.

 

 

Feelings are communications from your self. Feel them through and let them tell you their story. Better, dance them into a beautiful fantasy, expressing their power and grace.