Unicorn Supernova

Unicorn Supernova

Good words

Nice sentiments

Wrapped in resplendent nature

With a psychedelic bow

And perhaps a baby animal

Riding on the back of a unicorn

Are rather unsavory

To the tyrant in you

You cynically dismiss

Flower-child words

And shred petals

In the grinder of your mind

Bake them in hard science

Then bury them in the backyard

Oh, how the positive

Pisses you off

Look around you, dreamer

There’s no such room

Amongst forests plucked for greed

And waters poisoned for profit

Hard weapons that effortlessly

Deliver on the promise of death

Oh, contraire, my lovelies

The proof lies in the dismissal!

You wouldn’t feel so strongly

You wouldn’t feel like retching

At the mention of peace and love

If they weren’t hidden

In the core of your being

A supernova

Waiting to explode

Winding Through Ferns

Winding Through Ferns

The trail you walk curves through a landscape of ferns. You can see the thin line of bare earth cut gently through the plants and disappear over a rise. They seem ancient. So ancient that you think that’s probably how they looked millions of years ago after having settled from the ambulations of a dinosaur. The air is rich and moist and when you inhale through your nose it feels like you are participating in the forest’s essence, taking it deep within you and savoring it. The enormous trees rise from their bed of ferns like stately pillars charged with upholding the sky. The canopy is thick with billions of slender green needles, each a variation on an ancient form, shaped to gather fog so that the tree might drink. Your steps are silent on the spongy ground and it’s almost like you’re not even there, passing through the play of light and shadow, swaying around you on the dictates of cloud and wind. You feel part of the ecology of this place, aware of everything without having to focus on any of the details. This land has found a home in you and you smile as your legs take you, you know not where and this does not matter because each step you take is one into your heart and from this you will never stray.  

 

So Hard To Be Natural

So Hard To Be Natural

Why is it so hard to be natural?

It should be the easiest thing in the world

At some point in all of our lives

We were naturals

Never questioning

Just doing

But then gradually this was eroded

As we were encoded with dictums

Told how to be

In ways which were against our being

Then to escape the conflict

The tension created

By dogma and blind belief

Escape in all the fleeting pleasures

Even in the ruddy orange of sunsets

If you count on beauty

It will fail you

Take it in the moment

As it comes

And be glad when it’s gone

Because it can’t last forever

But you can

If you don’t escape

You know the chains around you?

The ones that cut your flesh if you move

Or struggle against them?

Get to know them

Stay put

And understand there is no escape

Live in the moment

And you will see

There is every such thing as eternity

And no such thing as the chains

You forged link by link

In the crucible of your mind

Awaken With The Dawn

Awaken With The Dawn

The morning is newly awakened in your eyes. Dawn reaches above the tree line in gathering shades of pink and pale blue. You can hear bird calls of several different species intertwine in the crisp air around you and you feel free and healthy. You bring the fragrant air deep into your lungs and exhale a fine mist just as the sun rises above the horizon. You can feel the sky expand as it blows through your hair, warmed by the gentle ball of fire. You feel a harmony within yourself. The boulders seem perfectly positioned to catch the quickening light, the moss clinging to the large arcs of stone has a slow and irrefutable purpose, trees balance light and shade in constant interchange with the wind, creating a dynamic pattern which the wild grass in the meadow you stand in resonates with until the air seems to hum around you. You’ve never seen a morning like this, an awakening that mirrors a slow gathering of love in the basket of your heart.

Just For A Moment

Just For A Moment

Just for a moment dear one

Just a moment

Give yourself

A break

Stop trying to prove

How clever you are

It’s a given

Because cleverness

Is acrobatics

Executed in virtual reality

And you are spinning

Like a top

Just calm down long enough

To let go

And fall

Into the waiting net

Of the Earth

To Know Without Knowing

To Know Without Knowing

You see a flower

At the moment of unfolding

The last purple petal spreads

Like silk over your eyes

And you stare in wonder

How could such beauty exist?

The yellow belly button

At the center of the bloom

Yells yellow at your eyes

Till you think of the sun above

Your heart leaps for love

Reminding you of something you’d nearly forgotten

You walk over and snap the green stem

The umbilical cord to the Earth severed

The petal now swings like a pendulum in your hands

As you begin to think of other things

And the colors will never match that moment

The petals won’t even try

They know without knowing

They can’t trace a direct line

To the magma center of their home

From the vase on your coffee table

A Prayer For A Sunday

A Prayer For A Sunday

There is a cure for our sickness

This cure need not be administered with prayer

It does not require faith in a higher being

It does not require a strong foundation of belief

It can be administered by the scientific method

A method some would say caused this sickness to begin with

Fighting poison with poison

The cure is simply said

But momentous to execute

A revolution would flow in its wake

Do what is good for the Earth

What is good for all other forms of life

Including the rocks and the water that rushes over them

For they have souls too

Do this, say no to destruction and waste

And yes to balance

Yes to helping all life flourish

We should grow up

And be the stewards we were made to be

Then everything will be a prayer

Faith will be unquestioned

Because it will be a seed

Sprouted from each individual’s heart

As they tend the Earth with their love

And sow it with belief

 

To Beat The Birds

To Beat The Birds

I wore a face that was not my face

The muscles tensed and gripped

In ways they were not designed for

Long hours of frowning in front of a computer

Too many times smiling when nothing was funny

Or the worst, curling the lips at the corners

To sign approval of an act I found despicable

These muscles were meant to express

Love

Hunger

Rage

Kindness

Hilarity

Grief
Wonder

The molds my face understands

And for far too long this face has slipped

Between the deep grooves of Being

And skated along the shallows of conformity

No more

For I no longer recognize the rudimentary lines

And weak boundaries I have been asked to force my face into

It takes too much energy to be nothing, to be subservient, to follow the program

For I am too strong to hold myself down

I give my face permission to act as it will, say what it wants

Take the forms it finds comfortable

And laugh to beat the birds

The Self Drops Free

The Self Drops Free

You relieved me of thoughts of the Self

I held the concept out trembling in my hands

Like a sickly bird that could not fly

For I did not want to let it go

It was everything

This quest for the True Self

Which had become deeply rooted in my mind

Bounding who I am within the confines of mere idea

And ideas don’t exist

They haunt the mind

Taunt it in a whirlwind of whispers

In Your presence

Overwhelmed in the light of wholeness

My hands shook with fear

And I persisted in this fear

As all humans must for change to happen

And my ideas of the Self dropped free

Like brown leaves from a great tree

That serve it no more

Remember

 

Remember

Remember Son. Remember Daughter

The ground upon which you stand

Is not just ground

It is Earth

Connected to Earth

Until it meets the Sea

And then it ends

But only for your feet

The Earth continues

Downward

Through the fathoms

Under the deepest depths

To support the waters

And hold them up

Cradled in the loving palm of Earth

All that water

Remember Son. Remember Daughter

This is the place from which you came

From which all life began

The Earth is unbroken

The continuity of seasons

Can be traced to the time

Before seasons

And this Time too has a Mother and a Father

Just like you Son. Just like you Daughter

You are unbroken

You are whole

And you came from the Sea

 

Nature

Nature

Everything is vibration...Everything is song

Kushi Uni

Kushi Uni

I drink a cup of balance
A cup of wholeness
And like oil and water
The inner muck gets pushed out
I hang the dirty laundry
In my private garden
And watch the soiled garments
Swing in the breeze
I water them with clear, warm tears
Until they’re drenched
Dripping down to slake the thirst of the grass

I can see what keeps me from You
I note the shapes, the cuts of fabric, the stitching
The worst are the ones with words woven into them
Like barbed fences and high guard towers
The tattered ones too, so old
Since I’ve had them since childhood
And somehow they’ve grown with me
Keeping pace with my growing body
Always maintaining a snug fit
And never losing stiffness or the hundreds of needles
Pointed inward and outward

Relieved of this branding
I see that I have chosen all of my garments
Not that I made them
But that I accepted them
And dress myself in the mirror with these same clothes every day

I’m naked and I close my eyes and turn my head to the sky
I can see patterns of veins illumined by the sun’s warmth
And I drape myself in their latticework
Regal and pulsing with the dignity of my being
I am a node, clean and open to the great vibrations of Your heart
Your rhythm, Green Mother, becomes my rhythm
And we dance in harmony as my voice erupts in song
The notes of which spring feathers and I rise into the brilliant blue
Out of my private garden
And see all boundaries are artificial
And that there is only You

Offering

 Offering

I made a furrow in the dirt with the tip of my finger and gave you an offering of tobacco. I asked if I could spend some time with you and you said yes without hesitation. I could tell you thought this request strange, as the birds never felt the need to ask.

I settled my back against your trunk, Grandfather, wise with the passing of time, your skin wrinkled and grey like an elephant’s. I took in your oak strength, exchanged breath with you in symbiotic communion, our most ancient vow, our deepest entanglement. I opened my heart because I knew you would accept anything I offered. It is not in your nature to deny. I pleaded for your wisdom and guidance. What should I do? How should I proceed? I stared into your beautiful canopy of sinuous branches, rippling like snakes frozen in time. Your net of verdant spring leaves ensnared my eyes and you spoke into my rapt attention.

You want to know, you want to be sure and have your guarantees but the heart’s path is not one of surety. See how my limbs curve toward the sun, molded by the seasons? I could not know what was to come, drought, storm or sun. I took what came and grew according to my nature. The path of the heart is like a strong wind. You do not fully know your heart yet. You have stepped into the current’s edge where you feel slight breezes and occasional gusts. Go deeper into the wind, follow your intuition, go where the air quickens, ever go towards that, using all your body to feel the source. One day you will enter the mighty flow, the main artery of wind and you will unfurl your heart and use it as a sail and you will not travel according to plan nor to a set of coordinates but according to a higher plan that has already been laid out for you, the magnetic north of your being. Do not seek the knowable way. Do not seek the safety of the clear path. If you can see the result and work towards the result than you are already at the end and there can be no journey. There will only be the passage of time. Be afraid and go with your heart, cling to it as your center for where it leads is where you are meant to be.

The net released, vision faded and I traced your skin with the swirls of my fingertips and gave thanks.

Wild Beast

Wild Beast

You’re being stalked by a wild beast

If you stop and listen in the stillness

You can hear it sniffing the air

For your scent

When this beast catches your essence on the wind

Mingled with moss and trees

And the feathers of birds

It knows it will surely devour you

Don’t fight the inevitable

If you keep running

And trying to lose yourself in images

And the flickering desires they kindle within

You’ll only make it worse

The beast will flay you with such exquisite mastery

You won’t even feel it

And one day you’ll wake up and realize

You have no skin

And you’ll wonder how you managed to continue

Perhaps the heart isn’t subject to gravity

And it just keeps going in the direction it was set

The spirit is a master oarsman

Change direction

Get it over with

Follow the musty scent and low growl and

Throw yourself at your doom

Be torn to shreds by its great claws

Listen to the wisdom of its roar as you suffer

The ancient pains of dismemberment

And know it is your mind that cares

When it’s all over and the beast has done its work

Ask yourself

How can it be that I am still here?

I am no longer running because

I no longer have anything to protect

I am an empty vessel filled with bottomless love

Then you see the beast wears a mark

And this mark is your name

You come to understand this beast is your savior and ally

Because it only hungers for that which need not be

 

My Heart Radiates Desire In Waves

My Heart Radiates Desire In Waves

My heart radiates desire in waves that

Beat ripples of time

Filling the air with lines of energy

Don’t tangle!

Be strong and true

Like the arrows

Shot from a huntsman’s bow

Help me find my way to you

Help me hear your clear call

Through the obfuscating noise of

Confusion

Woven into the fabric of this Earth by

Minds enthralled by stories

Learned sitting at the feet of fear

Under the cold and insufferable

Light of reason

Blow through this tangled web we weave

Like a gentle breeze

Traveling through branches

Unhindered and free like water

Fill this humble sail

Made from scraps gathered from

True moments I’ve lived

Stitched together with sinew and time

Send me to you

So that I may drown myself

In your siren call

In Your Hands

In Your Hands

I placed myself in your hands
And didn’t even know it
Looking back
I realize
Your great hands rose up from the ground
And scooped me up
In your cornucopian fingers
Like a gardener does a small plant
Roots and earth and all

I walked a path
Through one of your untouched old places
The vibrations of trees pulsing in my chest
And rising up through my throat
The energy transformed by my being into song
I was so utterly taken
By the great woody beings
Who had stood through countless seasons
Over thousands of years
Adding ring upon ring of wisdom
To the great knobbed fingers

I, a mote to their sense of time
A passing shade flitting within their shadows
Found a quiet place and sat
And sang to you for love
And the woods bore witness
To the rushing of air
As I was swept up in your arms

The Best Health Insurance

The Best Health Insurance

The best health insurance known to humanity is to be in balance with yourself and your environment.

Edge The Brightblue Sky

Edge The Brightblue Sky

Standing at the edge the brightblue sky wanting to make its home within the confines of my skull a place to winter to echo all the stored birdsong bent across cranial walls I must leap am about to the intention proceeds the meaning once in air I will know what all that was about the shedding of old energy like stripping away the layers of a silent cocoon nothing around me freedom of unbound direction and I leave the sky behind because my home is not its home and it gives chase and my laughter is encapsulated within the great blue ocean a counterpoint to birds.

 

The Discarded University

The Discarded University

It is a human birthright to live in a state of connection and grace. We are born with an innate ability to communicate and receive messages from our Creator. Some call it the Great Spirit, God, Nature, Buddha-thought, Gaea, Pachamamma…this energy, this all knowing and all loving energy is called by many names but all cultures agree as to where this energy resides and this place is in nature, untouched by human hands. This is rather obvious. Prophets and sages and seekers do not go into the canyons of Manhattan to commune with their Maker, they go out to the wilds, the old places where canopies have overspread the plants beneath and provided the wisdom of shade for thousands of years. This is where a direct line of communication can be established, where messages can be received, if the instrument is ready and sensitive enough. Pachamamma communicates through Her children, through the other life forms we share this Earth with. She sends messages through the plants and whispers to us through the sighing of trees, through the wind in leaves. Those of us who live in cities have been almost entirely cut off from communicating with our Creator. She has no messengers to send. The imprint of the human mind is everywhere. Hard asphalt covers dirt, buildings made in the image of the human mind with all of its shortcomings and constraints, boxy, inelegant, wasteful, crowd upon the eye and fill it to brimming with half-truths and blatant lies. The city as designed for buying and selling, growing rampant with the fertilizer of ego and greed and dire misunderstanding. Pachamamma has been driven out by the hubris of the ego, the false state of the mind that mistakes creation for its own. There isn’t a one of us that doesn’t know there is something drastically wrong. Not one of us is free from the nagging feeling the world we live in is terribly and catastrophically out of balance. We don’t need to do most of what we are doing. We need alignment and healing, we need the loving song of our Mother to bring us back, to reawaken us to what we are. Sacred, holy creatures put here in the ocean of time to learn, to experience and take our place in the great construct that is the expression of the Creator, the web of life. We are here to learn a single lesson and this is all. And how are we to learn if we’ve discarded the university? We’ve surrounded ourselves with a leaded box and are cannibalizing one another with the nightmares we’ve come to believe are true. For many, nightmares have become their birthright. This is false. We need to go back to the old, powerful places, open our senses, let go our false desires and fears, generated by this one-sided construct of the mind and go back to the multifaceted and energetic construct which was made for us. Our home. Our true place. It fills me with a sadness too deep and too hurtful for words to think we can not receive the messages intended for us. There is much to be learned from the singing of birds and the harvesting of fruit. Our true text is the book of nature. Our cousins are the plants and in many ways our progenitors for without them there would be no oxygen to breathe. And what insanity that we cut the trees down for profit. Truly they are our lungs, we are utterly dependent upon them for breath…and we cut them down. What dangerous self-destruction. What is truly frightening is that the Creator, Pachamamma will not be put aside, will not lick Her wounds in the last untouched places, no, She will resort to other means of communication to get through to us. Disaster, flood, famine, pestilence, suffering and war…these are all the products of not being in alignment, of cutting ourselves off from our teacher and savior, cutting ourselves off from the energy that loves us absolutely and made us perfect.