Alive

Do you see the truth in those trees?
That branch, the leaves waving.
Shouting "Alive" "Alive."
You are that.
See the water running over the stones?
The frothy form jumps into being, like you.
Alive, Alive.
Even the sound of cars rushing by,
skateboard wheels on the sidewalk,
the silence of a dog sitting on the lawn watching the sunrise.
The sparks of color rushing up from fallen leaves.
Where are you not?
Even lost in daydreams, endlessly rolling movies,
you are.
But the real joy is in this world, where
time hints at the edges of now and
the sun peeking over the trees is
the only thing that exists.

OwnWisdom

Put away your books.
Stand up from your meditations.
Skip holy gatherings this week.
Lay aside your music.

Put your attention on the scene before you.
Notice it's touch.
Breathe in the smell.
Feel your body vibrating under the skin.
Hear your own heart beating.

Don't wait for wisdom from more hallowed sources.
Let the awareness of pure noticing guide you.
A splash of color is your source. Birdsong.
That little spider in the corner of the room,
is the same as you. 

Generation

The generation roundabout.
Three drops of blood.
The first draws a circle around today's kin.
Mother, father, children and friends.
The second circles the globe for the tribal wanderers
who left home and made a wider path over time.
The third drop pulls in flora and fauna,
with gratitude for sustaining the whole thing.

Everything is included, yet over time nothing remains.
Universe breathes and generations come into being.
Universe sweeps an impartial hand
and generations fly back into dust.
Primordial forces stage the whole.

No words exist for its accomplishments.
Good and evil are child's words
when taken to mean mere preference.
Neither things nor nothing escapes scrutiny.
All is known, to exist.
Rejoice! You are created by a blink.

Fullness of Life

Why wait to ask all the important questions of life until you are ready to leave it?
You need not go out like the flaming leaves of autumn,
saving your richest hues for the end.
Let your next breath be a song of gratitude for the very presence of knowing this life, this fullness.

You need not know who lives this life to live it.
It lives.
And you have the option of participating with full love,
full acceptance, full out.

That is all you need to know. 

Fortifications

How much damage is done by the refusal to steep in our own emotions?  By distracting ourselves from our own body consciousness, we minute by minute lose the opportunity to steady ourselves and navigate the arising feelings, the ghosts of misty voices. As children, we learned to fortify ourselves against these inner visitors which, if met, would strengthen our very breath. Anxiety, overeating, overspending, overlooking the ordinary, over basking in spiritual studies -- these are all fortifications against the common sensibilities of the heart.

It takes the courage of warriors and the attention of the tight rope walker to go beyond. To move, slide back to a child's mind before life had suffering. Bare attention to the smallest details of life is your way out. Drink tea and see its color.  Look at and taste the food you are eating. Look into the eyes of the one with whom you speak.  Do the dishes one drop of soapy water at a time. Notice whether you are phoning this one just so you can quickly get to the other three things you should have done by now.

Hug like it's your last one. Lift your own hand before your eyes and notice the beautiful lines, the size, its strength. Are you really hell bent on racing through your entire life?  The miracle of everyday living is no small thing. If quiet life had a voice instead, it would thunder sweetly.

Seamlessness

The seamlessess of life is not a future view
of ethereal cords and binding.
Its trails are your trails.
Your steps are its life.

Without turning each tight focus
into an object assured,
the edge of you and the edge of me,
slide together across a thin stream of light.

Your hand weaves across my view,
and the trees sway to the musical wind.
The name library provides a string of sounds.
Be attuned to the inner words.

It believes it is the label, then not.
At once the noticing is on top and the scene is amused.
Bring forth every laughter or sorrow before this audience.
No lines will be erased.

The play will go on and it may or may not,
be replayed in another day or town.
The seer enjoys the play
without begging for more.

Cell Stories

Have you noticed the trails running through your cells?
Featuring uprightness, certainty, and love of a good tale.
Under some chords, they hum with sympathetic vibration.
And release an unknown substance growing white tendrils in the dark.
When a surprise trigger removes the cover, just a crack,
those roots reach out into the light of the ordinary day.

Don't you feel their trembling?
Their job has been to tell tales of long gone fights and slights.
Silence has not diminished their telling.
Admit it. The story is more interesting than the event.

This is not a call to reject this flow,
but to allow it to live without living as it.
The event arises and calls, not for embrace,
but acceptance. Know the difference.

An ordinary mind can learn to love freedom,
even in the midst of civil war.
Stand up to the cyclone which ensues
whenever ancient roots are brought to life.

Freedom blossoms for the courageous and attentive.

The Backaway Heart

The crazy heart keeps rushing headlong into full disclosure.
Wanting to jump into the well and see what is really down there.
But thoughts circle the heart like ropes,
and pull it back to neutral, saying:
"Don't be wild.
You don't really want to know answers to deep questions!"

Sensible friends will advise you to leave that insane
digging around to archeologists.
Take the nice path of accountants and grocers.
Reliable. Steady. Seasonal.

Avoidance comes from the tug of war between what's hidden and revealed.
Between what you long to know and what you are afraid is true.
Haven't you heard by now that your own careful measures can be undone?
Tigers wait in bushes all over the world.

Surely, you have cried over one or two.
Your whole body longs to be reset to factory default.
When you feel the urge to suppress - lean in.
To acknowledge a form does not mean to indulge it.

Imagine the day when your own dear heart breaks free!

One Line Poem #10

If you hold the reins of the endlessly fascinating mind with a light touch, it captivates, but never meets you.   

A Tidy Life?

Let the storm of everyday doing swirl around you, inside and out.
You are the eye, the calm center, even when your mind is racing.

You see that, therefore, you are before that.
Let the racing live its useful life.

Your life holds the energy of it, the meaning, and the
slow fading of all thought forms, leaving nothing.
You see that, so you know, you come before.

Tired, tired, tired, of trying to catch the 10,000 things
and bring them into orderliness?
Where did you get the idea for that?

Put those magazines, books, and web pages aside.
In every moment, something lives, but not the poor you.
You are bereft of nothing.
Value it. Rejoice in it.
You, the calm spindle, and life, the playful dancer.

Common Horse

Why are we standing facing away from the sweetness of life,
when the river of delight flows in our direction?
Don't put your money on every horse in the race except the winner.
The winner is so common, so lacking in enticing high spirits,
you are sure to think he can never pull you through.
Look again.
Spend your every last dollar on the one who can not lose.
Leave the well-muscled, snorting powerhouses
to those who never venture far from them.
Take the quiet one in the corner.
The one who is munching lazily, with a welcoming eye.
That eye is your cue.
That one.

The Between Times

The hardest time is the in between.
Between jobs, meals, and joy.
Between energy, projects or spring.
Between joining, outright loving, bliss.

That quiet strengthening time seems full.
Bringing wondering, fears and dark possibilities.
While awaiting  flow of action, fresh liftoff.
Spiraling sensations merge with smoky whispers.

It pulls you down, doubts you, casts you off.
This is where tired meets worried.
Don't go there, says a friend. Don't take it on.
The bringer of highs brings lows too.

Fling away all hope of making this your show.
Can you feel the sweetness of that?
The release of all sense that the burden is yours.
You are not the author, the rainmaker, the creator.

Don't expect the wind to stop blowing.
Don't try to solve the problem of abandonment
by creating new dramas,
and assigning your demons to someone else.

Sit outside and let the sun shine on your skin.
Call a friend and talk for hours.
Remember the Love that brought you this far,
is still breathing you.

The Seed

To search for Oneness seems so natural.
To find it, guaranteed.
Not on your timeframe or secret spiritual goals.
But in the sweetness of life, when ready.
Forget the search and just live. Live!
It's in you and the trees.
The seed has the blueprint, as do you.
You will turn out to be always,
the start point, and the end.

Facebook Dance

Facebook life is a microcosm.
A dance of words, set to photos.
Threads of electrons stream by
making you laugh out loud or mad.
The mind spins, connections sparked.

Individual words form links by links.
Does it please you to be liked?
Why not. Your pleasure is no more than a post.
Your abandonment no less.

Bring on the social forces streaming nets.
Bathe in the attention and seeming joust.
In the end, flesh to flesh is still sweeter
than yesterday's string of texts.

Don't put your faith in hasty one liners.
Or adopt a belief that others' busyness
suggests an inadequacy of yours.
Make haste,
let everyone know you are out and about.
Do it for the fun, not sustenance.

Bring out the one line army.
Let the words fly.
Don't forget that flesh is needed
for even one word.
At night, you don't lay your head on your computer.
But exist, notice by notice, in every word.

One Line Poem #9

Behind, between, and within the time space vision, ...Untouchable.

Soft Spots

The softest spot in life is the understanding of what you are.
It absents power. Before feminine, this knowing.
Takes nothing. Gives nothing. Withstands all scrutiny.
More receded than background, more cherished.
The most vulnerable place in thinking.
The world's end, the last book.
Nothing stands before it, nor after it.
How can you still rage at the day's doings?
Bask in your own glory - poor sweet thing.
Relying on your principles,
those weak links in your armor.
You could get swept away by anything.
Yet, this melted place pulls you back with longing.

One Line Poem #8

Open your hands; open your arms; open your whole heart; and drink in the night sky, star by star.

Greatest Good

Is it cynical to say that the greatest good is not what is happening here?
That dreams and daydreams are massed attachments.
Where is it written that I get what I want?
It is a fearful thought that the outcome must please me.
Whatever positive spin I put on "what is,"
it refuses the faithful interpretation.
Of course everything is for the greatest good, if good is defined as what unfolds.
Dream your dreams, and wish on stars, if you must.
There is comfort in knowing that the energy that creates this life,
drives it, interprets it, and finally, lays it down, on time, for its own reasons.

Awareness as the Unity of Life

Some use their thinking to release their bodies. Others use body sensations to release a hold on the mind or use their feelings as a pointer to what is true. If your personality type is such that your thoughts predominate, they may tend to override body signals or minimize body signals. If you are a heart type, your feelings may override thinking.Whichever type you are, this is not a thing to be fixed. The Openess that you are, allows each to have it proportional share of focus. But it may happen in the seeker that a shift occurs that eases the attachment and focus on the predominant and allows the other modalities to have their say.

A common Advaita pointer is that life is non-dual, not two. This points back to the common garden-variety awareness illumining your life. This is the container for all experiences of any kind. Thus, you are a head, body, heart, thinking, sensing, feeling, naming, doing, analyzing, kind of thing. One thing. Not a thing at all, really, but one has to use words.  Nothing has, or ever will,  occur outside that awareness. Awareness is the basic unit of life. In the overall scheme of things, heart, body and mind are not separate. In the one seamless totality, thought appears. Sensations appear. Emotions appear. Even the body is an appearance in awareness.

In referencing the material world, we have come to say that a chair is separate from a table. The body is separate from the chair. But what you are, is aware of it all. There is no dividing line in awareness.  There is no dividing line in you.