The Fourth Sign of the Zodiac (Part 3)

I know, you never intended to be in this world.
But you're in it all the same.

So why not get started immediately.

I mean, belonging to it.
There is so much to admire, to weep over.

And to write music or poems about.

Bless the feet that take you to and fro.
Bless the eyes and the listening ears.
Bless the tongue, the marvel of taste.
Bless touching.

You could live a hundred years, it's happened.
Or not.
I am speaking from the fortunate platform
of many years,

Blessing

May you learn to welcome both joy and sorrow
as guests bearing gifts.

May you cherish all voices within you and know
each holds a place for your wholeness

May you never hide from wonder and
curiosity's enlivening dance within you

May you feel the love of your ancestors
watching over you and let your heart seek their
guidance

May you awaken to ever widening circles of
Truth

May you know the deep interconnection of all
beings and hold reverence for the planet that
sustains you

The Avowal

As swimmers dare
to lie face to the sky
and water bears them,
as hawks rest upon air
and air sustains them,
so would I learn to attain
freefall, and float
into Creator Spirit's deep embrace,
knowing no effort earns
that all-surrounding grace.

A summertime truth

Here is a summertime truth: abundance is a communal act, the joint creation of an incredibly complex ecology in which each part functions on behalf of the whole and, in return, is sustained by the whole. Community not only creates abundance — community is abundance. If we could learn that equation from the world of nature, the human world might be transformed.

Total Breakdown

"She's having a total breakdown,"
one put together
and very self-satisfied seed
with no cracks in it
whispered to another
about a third seed who had begun
to germinate.

"She's completely falling apart—
her life is a mess!"

They gazed superiorly
at the smooth, intact facade
of their shells
so perfectly upholding
expectations of the status quo.
Clearly, compared to that wild,
sprouting seed
disrupting the peace,
they were doing something right...right?

Center of the Universe

Please try to go
to hell frequently
because you will
find the light there

yes yes — please
try to kiss the ideas
that you find there
yes yes — please

try to get that
it is the center
of the universe
yes yes — please

try to help yourself
by kissing the hot hot
hot life that is born
there yes yes — please

try to yell in hell
yes yes — please
try to free yourself
by pouring yourself
into the gutter all
guttural guttural yell

The soul of the whole

... within [us] is the soul of the whole; the wise silence; the universal beauty, to which every part and particle is equally related... When it breathes through [our] intellect, it is genius; when it breathes through [our] will, it is virtue; when it flows through [our] affection, it is love.

East Coker

To arrive where you are,
to get from where you are not,
You must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy.
In order to arrive at what you do not know
You must go by a way
which is the way of ignorance.
In order to possess what you do not possess
You must go by the way of dispossession.
In order to arrive at what you are not
You must go by the way in which you are not.
And what you do not know
is the only thing you know
And what you own is what you do not own
And where you are is where you are not.

Faith

Even now, I am becoming
wind, something less flesh, more
movement, more current, less
here, more everywhere. Though
the moment I think I know this truth,
the knowing re-solids me,
makes me into clay that pretends it is wind.
But becoming clay again, I am destined
to crumble, disintegrate, until
I am dust and once again one
with the wind. How to trust anything
then, except this infinite becoming and
rebecoming—and whatever
it is that is alive inside it all.
That. I put my faith in that.