a room

.

.

A room does not turn its back on grief.

Anger does not excite it.

Before desire, it neither responds

nor draws back in fear.

Without changing expression,

it takes

and gives back;

not a tuft in the mattress alters.

Windowsills evenly welcome

both heat and cold.

Radiators speak or fall silent as they must.

Doors are not equivocal,

floorboards do not hesitate or startle.

Impatience does not stir the curtains,

a bed is neither irritable nor rapacious.

Whatever disquiet we sense in a room

we have brought there.

And so I instruct my ribs each morning,

pointing to hinge and plaster and wood -

You are matter, as they are.

See how perfectly it can be done.

Hold, one day more, what is asked.

~ Jane Hirshfield

from The Lives of the Heart
art by Pierre Bonnard

The gate of heaven is everywhere.

~ Thomas Merton

Dissolver of sugar, dissolve me

.

Dissolver of sugar, dissolve me,

if this is the time.

Do it gently with a touch of a hand,  or a look.

Every morning I wait at dawn.  That's when

it's happened before.  Or do it suddenly

like an execution.  How else

can I get ready for death?

...

~ Rumi

.

Effortlessly

.

.

Effortlessly,

Love flows from God to man,

Like a bird

Who rivers the air

Without moving her wings.

Thus we move in His world

One in body and soul,

Though outwardly separate in form.

As the Source strikes the note,

Humanity sings -

The Holy Spirit is our harpist,

And all the strings

Which are touched in Love

Must sound.

.

~ Mechtild of Magdeburg
(1210-1282)

.

I Am But a Traveler In This Land & Know Little of Its Ways

.

Is everything a field of energy caused

by human projection? From the crib bars

hang the teething tools. Above the finger-drummed 

desk, a bit lip. The cyclone fence of buts

.

surrounds the soccer field of what if.

Sometimes it seems like a world where no one 

knows what he or she is doing, eight lanes 

both directions. How about a polymer

.

that contracts in response to electrical

charge? A swimming pool on the 18th floor? 

King Lear done by sock puppets? Anyone

who has traveled here knows the discrepancies

.

between idea and fact. The idea is the worm 

in the tequila and the next day is the fact. 

In between may be the sacred—real blood 

from the wooden virgin’s eyes, and the hoax—

.

landing sites in cornfields. Maybe ideas

are best sprung from actions like the children 

of Zeus. One gives us elastic and the omelette, 

another nightmares and SUVs. There’s considerable

.

wobble in the system, and the fan belt screams, 

waking the baby. Swaying in the darkened 

nursery, kissing the baby-smelling head: 

good idea! But also sadness looking at the sea.

.

The stranded whale, guided out of the cove 

by tugboats, turns and swims back in. 

The violinist will not let go her violin 

which is 200 years old and still on the train

.

thus she is dragged down the track. 

By what manner is the soul joined to the body? 

Answer: an arm connecting a violin

to a violinist. According to Freud,

.

there are no accidents. Astrologists

and Presbyterians agree for different reasons. 

You fall down the stairs with a birthday cake. 

You try to fit a blunderbuss into a laptop.

.

Human consciousness: is it the projector

or the screen? They come in orange jumpsuits 

and spray the grass so everything dies

but the grass. It is too late to ask Kafka

.

what he thinks. Sometimes they give you 

a box of ash, a handshake, and the rest 

is your problem. In one version,

the beggar turns out to be a king and grants

.

the poor couple a castle and a moat and two 

silver horses said to be sired by the wind.

That was before dentistry, which might have been 

a better gift. You did not want to get sick 

in the 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th or 18th centuries.

.

So too the 19th and 20th were to be avoided

but the doctor coming to bleed you is the master 

of the short story. After the kiss from whom 

he will never know, the lieutenant, going home,

.

touches a bush in which birds are singing.

.

~ Dean Young

from Skid

.

As you may know, Dean is in need of a heart transplant.

Over the past 10 or 15 years, Dean has lived with a degenerative heart condition--congestive heart failure due to idiopathic hypotropic cardiomyopathy. After periods of more-or-less remission, in which his heart was stabilized and improved with the help of medications, the function of his heart has worsened. Now, radically.

.

a video by D.J. Dolack of the recent benefit reading for dean Young at the National Arts Club in Manhattan.

Readers include Robert N. Casper, Joe Di Prisco, Matthea Harvey, Edward Hirsch, Mary Karr, Matthew Rohrer, Gerald Stern and Dara Wier.

.

...and Dean Young on the telephone.

To make an online donation, please visit Dean Young's page at the National Foundation for Transplants.

thanks to Rebel Girl for the update

.

returning to the source is tranquility

If you can empty your mind of all thoughts

your heart will embrace the tranquility of peace.

Watch the workings of all of creation,

but contemplate their return to the source.

All creatures in the universe

return to the point where they began.

Returning to the source is tranquility

because we submit to Heaven's mandate.

Returning to Heaven's mandate is called being constant.

Knowing the constant is called 'enlightenment'.

Not knowing the constant is the source of evil deeds

because we have no roots.

By knowing the constant we can accept things as they are.

By accepting things as they are, we become impartial.

By being impartial, we become one with Heaven.

By being one with Heaven, we become one with Tao.

Being one with Tao, we are no longer concerned about

losing our life because we know the Tao is constant

and we are one with Tao.

~ Lao Tzu

from the Tao Te Ching

translated by j. h. mcdonald

cave art: chauvet-pont-d'arc

.

Unto this Darkness

.

.

Unto this Darkness which is

beyond Light

we pray that we may come, and 

may attain unto vision through

the loss of sight and knowledge,

and that in ceasing thus to see or

to know

we may learn to know that which 

is beyond all perception and 

understanding

(for this emptying of

our faculties

is true sight and knowledge).

.

~ Pseudo-Dionysius

Dionysius the Areopagite called Pseudo - to differentiate him from the Dionysius mentioned by Paul in Acts.  He lived in the 6th Century and has had a profound impact on Christian mystics.

.

.

desert places

.

.

Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast

In a field I looked into going past,

And the ground almost covered smooth in snow,

But a few weeds and stubble showing last.

.

The woods around it have it--it is theirs.

All animals are smothered in their lairs.

I am too absent-spirited to count;

The loneliness includes me unawares.

.

And lonely as it is that loneliness

Will be more lonely ere it will be less--

A blanker whiteness of benighted snow

With no expression, nothing to express.

.

They cannot scare me with their empty spaces

Between stars--on stars where no human race is.

I have it in me so much nearer home

To scare myself with my own desert places.

.

~ Robert Frost

via http://themarkonthewall.blogspot.com/

.

walk in the dark

If a man

wishes to be sure

of the road he travels on,

he must close his eyes 

and walk in the dark.

~ Saint John of the Cross

seeing for oneself, the value and the limitations of the knowing, and understanding of the mind 

can allow the faith to step boldly into the unknowing of silence, of darkness,
 and find ourselves within the unspeakable.

daydreaming

I believe that the root of evil,

in everybody perhaps,

but, certainly in those whom

affliction has touched,

is daydreaming.

It is the sole consolation,

the unique resource of the afflicted;

the one solace that helps them bear

the fearful burden to time;

and a very innocent one,

besides being indispensable.

So how could it be possible to renounce it?

It has only one disadvantage,

which is that it is unreal.

To renounce it for the love of truth

is really to abandon all one's possessions

in a mad excess of love and follow Him

who is the personification of Truth.

And it is really to bear the cross;

because time is the cross.

In all its forms without exception,

daydreaming is falsehood.

It excludes love. Love is real.

~ Simone Weil

from for lovers of god everywhere

poems of the Christian mystics

by roger housden

art by picasso

.

  Daydreaming - not the activity of having thoughts, 
but allowing one's attention to get lost in them -
 is an obstacle to presence, an obstacle to love 
which exists only in presence, an obstacle to
 our embrace of the fullness of life,  and to 
contemplative practices in all traditions..

.

When we are weak

.

.

When we are weak, we are

strong.  When our eyes close

on the world, then somewhere

within us the bush

burns.  When we are poor

and aware of the inadequacy

of our table, it is to that 

uninvited the guest comes.

.

~ R. S. Thomas

.

I am blind

.

I am blind and do not see the things of this world; 

but when the Light comes from above, it enlightens my Heart, 

and I can see, for the Eye of my Heart sees everything.

The Heart is a sanctuary of the Center in which there is a little space 

wherein the Great Spirit dwells, and this is the Eye. 

This is the Eye of Wakentaka by which he sees all things,

and through which we see Him.

.

~  Black Elk

.

The Night Abraham Called to the Stars

.

Do you remember the night Abraham first saw

The stars? He cried to Saturn: "You are my Lord!"

How happy he was! When he saw the Dawn Star,

.

He cried, ""You are my Lord!" How destroyed he was

When he watched them set. Friends, he is like us:

We take as our Lord the stars that go down.

.

We are faithful companions to the unfaithful stars.

We are diggers, like badgers; we love to feel

The dirt flying out from behind our back claws.

.

And no one can convince us that mud is not 

Beautiful. It is our badger soul that thinks so.

We are ready to spend the rest of our life

.

Walking with muddy shoes in the wet fields.

We resemble exiles in the kingdom of the serpent.

We stand in the onion fields looking up at the night.

.

My heart is a calm potato by day, and a weeping

Abandoned woman by night. Friend, tell me what to do,

Since I am a man in love with the setting stars.

.

~ Robert Bly

.

a turtle's pace

.

Consider the turtle.  A whole summer - June, July, and August - is not too good nor too much to hatch a turtle in.  Perchance you have worried yourself, despaired of the world, meditated the end of life, and all things seemed rushing to destruction; but nature has steadily and serenely advanced with a turtle's pace.

.

~ Henry David Thoreau

from a journal entry, 1856

art by Roderick Maclver

.

still playing

.

.

Mind and body dropped off; 

dropped off mind and body!

This state should be experienced by everyone;

it is like piling fruit into a basket without a bottom,

like pouring water into a bowl With a pierced hole;

However much you may pile or pour you cannot fill it up.

When this is realized the pail bottom is broken through.

But while there is still a trace of conceptualizations

which makes you say ‘I have this understanding’

or ‘I have that realization’,

you are still playing with unrealities.

.

~ Dogen Zenji
.

Dogen was born about 1200 in Kyoto, Japan,

 he was drawn to the teachings of silent meditation. 

He established his own school of zen. 

.

unsafe rafts

.

.

...rituals are unsafe rafts for crossing

the sea of samsara, of birth and death.

Doomed to shipwreck are those who try to cross

the sea of samsara on these poor rafts.

Ignorant of their ignorance, yet wise 

in their own esteem, these deluded ones

proud of their learning go round and round

like the blind led by the blind.

.

Living in darkness, immature, unaware

of any higher good or goal, they fall

again and again into the sea.

...

...

The eye cannot see it; mind cannot grasp it.

The deathless Self has neither caste nor race,

neither eyes nor ears nor hands nor feet.

... 

As the web issues out of the spider

and is withdrawn, as plants sprout from the earth.

as hair grows from the body, even so,

the sages say, this universe springs from

the deathless Self, the source of life.

.

The deathless Self meditated upon 

Himself and projected the universe

As evolutionary energy.

From this energy developed life, mind,

the elements, and the world of karma,

which is enchained by cause and effect.

.

The lord of Love is the one Self of all.

He is detached work, spiritual wisdom,

and immortality.  Realize the Self

hidden in the heart, and cut asunder

the knot of ignorance here and now.

.

~ the Mundaka Upanishad

translated by Eknath Easwaran

.

when I detect a beauty

.

.

When I detect a beauty in any of the recesses of nature, 

I am reminded by the serene and retired spirit in which it requires to be contemplated, 

of the inexpressible privacy of life - how silent and unambitious it is.  

The beauty there in mosses will have to be considered from the holiest, quietest nook.

.

My truest, serenest moments are too still for emotion; they have woolen feet.  

In all our lives we live under the hill, and if we are not gone we live there still. 

....

To be calm, to be serene!  

There is the calmness of the lake when there is not a breath of wind;

there is the calmness of a stagnant ditch.  So is it with us.  

Sometimes we are clarified and calmed healthily, as we never were before in our lives, 

not by an opiate, but by some unconscious obedience to the all-just laws, 

so that we become like a still lake of purest crystal 

and without an effort our depths are revealed to ourselves.  

.

I awoke into a music which no one by me heard.

Whom shall I thank for it?  I feel my Maker blessing me.

To the sane man the world is a musical instrument.

The very touch affords an exquisite pleasure.

.

~ Henry David Thoreau

taken from a journal entry, June 22,1851

.

water lily

.

.

My whole life is mine, but whoever says so

will deprive me, for it is infinite.

The ripple of water, the shade of the sky

are mine; it is still the same, my life.

No desire opens me: I am full,

I never close myself with refusal-

in the rhythm of my daily soul

I do not desire-I am moved;

by being moved I exert my empire,

making the dreams of night real:

into my body at the bottom of the water

I attract the beyonds of mirrors...

.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke 

translated by A. Poulin 

.

you, darkness

You, darkness, that I come from

I love you more than all the fires

that fence in the world, 

for the fire makes a circle of light for everyone

and then no one outside learns of you. 

But the darkness pulls in everything-

shapes and fires, animals and myself, 

how easily it gathers them! -

powers and people-

and it is possible a great presence is moving near me. 

I have faith in nights. 

~ Rainer Maria Rilke


.

nurture the darkness of your soul

.

Nurture the darkness of your soul

until you become whole.

Can you do this and not fail?

Can you focus your life-breath until you become

supple as a newborn child?

While you cleanse your inner vision

will you be found without fault?

Can you love people and lead them

without forcing your will on them?

When Heaven gives and takes away

can you be content with the outcome?

When you understand all things

can you step back from your own understanding?

.

Giving birth and nourishing,

making without possessing,

expecting nothing in return.

To grow, yet not to control:

This is the mysterious virtue.

.

~ Tao Te Ching

translation by j. h. mcdonald

.

vulnerability

.

.

Sensitivity implies being vulnerable. 

One is sensitive to one's reactions, to one's hurts, one's beleaguered existence: 

that is, one is sensitive about oneself and in this vulnerable state there is really self-interest 

and therefore the capability of being hurt, of becoming neurotic. 

.

It is a form of resistance which is essentially concentrated on the self. 

.

The strength of vulnerability is not self-centred. 

It is like the young spring leaf that can withstand strong winds and flourish. 

This vulnerability is incapable of being hurt, whatever the circumstances. 

Vulnerability is without centre as the self. 

It has an extraordinary strength, vitality and beauty.

.

J. Krishnamurti

from Letters to the Schools Vol. 2

photo by albert koetsier

.

.

bees

.

In every instant, two gates. One opens to fragrant paradise, one to hell.

Mostly we go through neither.

.

Mostly we nod to our neighbor,

lean down to pick up the paper,

go back into the house.

.

But the faint cries—ecstasy? horror?

Or did you think it the sound

of distant bees,

making only the thick honey of this good life?

.

~ Jane Hirshfield

.

to prose

.

.

Whatever you may say

whatever you pretend

you do not begin or end

when the stories do

the ones that you repeat

later starting again

or when the days that you tell

all those that never

themselves said a word

have long been utterly still

and yet you were there 

when they were 

you were heard

commenting in the unmetered

service of understanding

your description

remains current for some time

after the face has gone

even if not written down

but you are different

from what you recount

and although we know 

only scattered fragments of you

glimpses of birds in bushes

gestures in car windows 

of which we forget

at once almost everything 

you define us

we are the ones who need you

we can no longer tell

whether we believe

anything without you

or whether we can hear

all that you are not

O web of answer

sea of forgetting is it true

that you remember

.

~ W.S. Merwin

from Present Company

.

to the sorrow string

You invisible one

resounding on your own

whatever the others 

happen to be playing

source of a note

not there in the score

under whatever key

unphrased continuo

gut stretched between

the beginning and the end

what would the music

be without you

since even through

the chorus of pure joy

the tears hear you

and nothing can restrain them

~ W.S. Merwin