in transition

for WCW

I wish I understood the beauty

in leaves falling. To whom

are we beautiful

as we go?

I lie in the field

still, absorbing the stars

and silently throwing off

their presence. Silently

I breathe and die

by turns.

He was ripe

and fell to the ground

from a bough

out where the wind

is free

of the branches 

~ David Ignatow (1914-1997)

from Against the Evidence: selected poems 

...

Attempting To Answer David Ignatow’s Question

I wish I understood the beauty

in leaves falling. To whom

are we beautiful

as we go?

We are beautiful to the Mother as we go.

There are mysterious roads in jade that

Old men follow,

Routes that migratory birds walk on,

The circle dances

Iron filings do,

The things we cannot say.

Salmon find their way to old beds;

Sleeping bodies are not alone.

~ Robert Bly 

 from Holes That Crickets Have Eaten in Blankets

photo by Eliot Porter

a world full of noise

Silence is essential. We need silence just as much as we need air,

 just as much as plants need light. If our minds are crowded

 with words and thoughts, there is no space for us.


Our need to be filled with one thing after another 

and another all the time is a collective disease 

of all human beings; let’s work to cure it.


Nonstop thinking plagues us.

 People do not seem to be able to live without the “Sound Track.” 

As soon as they’re alone or even with their coworkers

 or their loved ones right in front of them

—they try to fill up the tiniest bit of open mind space right away.


When confronted with suffering we must:
Recognize → Embrace→ Transform
Reminiscent of a type of cognitive reappraisal, 

our suffering must be identified, accepted and modified. 

When modified, we either, eliminate, 

change, or accept the suffering.

If we NEVER suffer, there is no basis or impetus 

for developing understanding and compassion. 

Suffering is very important. We have to learn to recognize

 and even embrace suffering as our awareness of it helps us grow

—the experience is imperative.

Goals are great. We can have wishes, hopes, and aim

—none of this is counter to the Buddha’s teaching. 

But we shouldn’t allow it to become something that prevents 

us from living happily right here, right now.

Find your quiet space. Your first priority should be to find your own

quiet space inside so you can learn more about yourself; 

broaden the understanding of your suffering.

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

excerpts from Silence : the power of quiet in a world full of noise

unnoticed

There are many going afar to marvel at the heights of mountains, 

the mighty waves of the sea, the long courses of great rivers, 

the vastness of the ocean, the movements of the stars, 

yet they leave themselves unnoticed! 

~ Saint Augustine

the force of friendship

A sea-cow, a dugong, finds a special pearl

and brings it up on land at night. By the light it gives off

the dugong can graze on hyacinths and lilies.

The excrement of the dugong is precious ambergris

because it eats such beauty.  Anyone who feeds on Majesty

becomes eloquent.  The bee, from mystic inspiration,

fills the rooms with honey.

So the dugong grazes at night in the pearl-glow.

Presently, a merchant comes and drops black loam 

over the pearl, then hides behind a tree to watch.

The dugong surges about the meadow like a blind bull.

Twenty times it rushes at nothing, passing the mound

where the pearl is.

So Satan couldn't see

the spirit inside Adam.

God says, Descend,

and a huge pearl from Aden gets buried under dirt. 

The merchant knows,

but the dugong doesn't.

Every clay-pile with a pearl inside

loves to be near any other clay-pile with a pearl,

but those without pearls cannot stand to be near

the hidden companionship.

Remember the mouse on the riverbank?

There's a love-string stretching into the water

hoping for the frog.

Suddenly a raven grips the mouse

and flies off, The frog too, from the riverbottom,

with one foot tangled in invisible string,

follows, suspended in the air.

Amazed faces ask,

When did a raven ever go underwater

and catch a frog?

The frog answers,

"This is the force of Friendship."

What draws Friends together 

does not conform to Laws of Nature. 

Form doesn't know about spiritual closeness.

If a grain of barley approaches a grain of wheat,

an ant must be carrying it.  A black ant on black felt.

You can't see it, but if grains go toward each other,

it's there.

A hand shifts our birdcages around.

Some are brought closer, Some move apart.

Do not try to reason it out, Be conscious

of who draws you and who not.

Gabriel was always there with Jesus, lifting him

above the dark-blue vault, the night-fortress world,

just as the raven of longing carries the flying frog.

~ Rumi

translated by Coleman Barks

found here in The Soul is here for its own Joy:

Sacred Poems from Many Cultures

edited by Robert Bly

 

frontiers of language

But before we come to that which is unspeakable and unthinkable, 

the spirit hovers on the frontiers of language, 

wondering whether or not to stay on its own side of the border, 

in order to have something to bring back to other men. 

This is the test of those who wish to cross the frontier. 

If they are not ready to leave their own ideas 

and their own words behind them, 

they cannot travel further. 

~ Thomas Merton

from No Man is an Island

what language can't reach

The deep parts of my life pour onward,

as if the river shores were opening out.

It seems that things are more like me now,

that I can see farther into paintings.

I feel closer to what language can’t reach.

With my sense, as with birds, I climb

into the windy heaven, out of the oak,

and in the ponds broken off from the sky

my feeling sinks, as if standing on fishes.

~  Rainer Maria Rilke

translation by Robert Bly

half-knowledge

Four frogs sat upon a log that lay floating on the edge of a river. 
 Suddenly the log was caught by the current and swept slowly down the stream.  
The frogs were delighted and absorbed, for never before had they sailed.

At length the first frog spoke, and said, "This is indeed 
a most marvelous log.  It moves as if alive.  
No such log was ever known before."

Then the second frog spoke, and said, "Nay, my friend, 
the log is like other logs, and does not move. 
 It is the river, that is walking to the sea, and carries us and the log with it."

And the third frog spoke, and said, " It is neither the log 
nor the river that moves.  The moving is in our thinking.  
For without thought nothing moves."

And the three frogs began to wrangle about what was really moving.  
The quarrel grew hotter and louder, but they could not agree.

Then they turned to the fourth frog, who up to this time had been listening 
attentively but holding his peace, and they asked his opinion.

And the fourth frog said, "Each of you is right, and none of you is wrong.  
The moving is in the log and the water and our thinking also."

And the three frogs became very angry, for none of them 
was willing to admit that his was not the whole truth,
 and that the other two were not wholly wrong.

Then the strange thing happened.  The three frogs got together 
and pushed the fourth frog off the log into the river.

~ Kahlil Gibran

from Poems, Parables and Drawings

the single, wholly mutual core

Happy are those who know
behind all words, the Unsayable stands,
and from that source, the Infinite
crosses over to gladness, and us.

Free of those bridges we raise
with constructed distinctions;
so that always, in each separate joy,
we gaze at the single, wholly mutual core.





~ Rainer Maria Rilke
art by Megan Duncanson

a human can

be light.

as minerals in the ground rise inside trees
and become tree,
as plant faces an animal
and enters the animal,

so a human
can put down the heavy
body baggage and be light.

~ Rumi
Coleman Barks version

 

the self we share

Thirst is angry with water. Hunger bitter
with bread.The cave wants nothing to do

with the sun. This is dumb, the self-
defeating way we've been. A gold mine is

calling us into its temple. Instead, we
bend and keep picking up rocks from the

ground. Every thing has a shine like gold,
but we should turn to the source! The

origin is what we truly are. I add a little
vinegar to the honey I give. The bite of

scolding makes ecstasy more familiar. But
look, fish, you're already in the ocean:

just swimming there makes you friends with
glory. What are these grudges about? You

are Benjamin. Joseph has put a gold cup
in your grain sack and accused you of being

a thief. Now he draws you aside and says,
"You are my brother. I am a prayer. You're

the amen." We move in eternal regions, yet
worry about property here. This is the

prayer of each: You are the source of my
life. You separate essence from mud. You

honor my soul. You bring rivers from the
mountain springs. You brighten my eyes. The

wine you offer takes me out of myself into
the self we share. Doing that is religion.

~ Rumi
from The Glance
by Coleman Barks

another unity

Spring overall. But inside us
there's another unity.

Behind each eye here,
one glowing weather.

Every forest branch moves differently
in the breeze, but as they sway
they connect at the roots.




~ Rumi
art by Christi Belcourt

nothing except what he is

Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life.

A tree says: A kernel is hidden in me, a spark, a thought, I am life from eternal life. The attempt and the risk that the eternal mother took with me is unique, unique the form and veins of my skin, unique the smallest play of leaves in my branches and the smallest scar on my bark. I was made to form and reveal the eternal in my smallest special detail.

A tree says: My strength is trust. I know nothing about my fathers, I know nothing about the thousand children that every year spring out of me. I live out the secret of my seed to the very end, and I care for nothing else. I trust that God is in me. I trust that my labor is holy. Out of this trust I live.

When we are stricken and cannot bear our lives any longer, then a tree has something to say to us: Be still! Be still! Look at me! Life is not easy, life is not difficult. Those are childish thoughts. . . . Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all.

A longing to wander tears my heart when I hear trees rustling in the wind at evening. If one listens to them silently for a long time, this longing reveals its kernel, its meaning. It is not so much a matter of escaping from one’s suffering, though it may seem to be so. It is a longing for home, for a memory of the mother, for new metaphors for life. It leads home. Every path leads homeward, every step is birth, every step is death, every grave is mother.

So the tree rustles in the evening, when we stand uneasy before our own childish thoughts: Trees have long thoughts, long-breathing and restful, just as they have longer lives than ours. They are wiser than we are, as long as we do not listen to them. But when we have learned how to listen to trees, then the brevity and the quickness and the childlike hastiness of our thoughts achieve an incomparable joy. Whoever has learned how to listen to trees no longer wants to be a tree. He wants to be nothing except what he is. That is home. That is happiness. 

~ Hermann Hesse

from  Trees: Reflections and Poems

beyond my solitude

Beyond my solitude is another solitude, 
and to him who dwells therein, 
my aloneness is a crowded market-place and my silence a confusion of sounds.

Too young am I and too restless to seek that above-solitude.  
The voices of yonder valley still hold my ears, 
and its shadows bar my way and I cannot go.

Beyond these hills is a grove of enchantment and to him who dwells therein, 
my peace is but a whirlwind and my enchantment an illusion.

To young am I and too riotous to seek that sacred grove.  
The taste of blood is clinging in my mouth, 
and the bow and the arrows of my fathers yet linger in my hand and I cannot go.

Beyond this burdened self lives my freer self; and to him, 
my dreams are a battle fought in twilight and my desires, the rattling of bones.

Too young am I and too outraged to be my freer self.

And how shall I become my freer self unless I slay my burdened selves, 
or unless all men become free?

How shall my leaves fly singing upon the wind unless my roots shall wither in the dark?

How shall the eagle in me soar against the sun until my fledglings leave the nest 
which I with my own beak have built for them?

~ Kahlil Gibran

from Poems, Parables and Drawings

two poem by Rumi

I would love to kiss you.

The price of kissing is your life.

Now my loving is running toward my life shouting,

What a bargain, Let's buy it.

 .....

When I am with you, we stay up all night.

When you're not here, I can't go to sleep.

Praise God for these two insomnias!

And the difference between them.

~ Rumi

translation by Coleman Barks

 

in praise of Sophia

Friend, don't be angry at the Teacher's discipline,

nor lose your taste for his rebukes,

for the Teacher only corrects those whom he loves, 

as a mother watches constantly her favorite son.

The man who finds the ecstatic mother is a joyful man,

and the man who gains consciousness from her,

for the gain from her is better than gain from silver,

and the profit from that acquisition better than gold.

She is more precious than jewels,

and nothing you desire can compare with her.

She has long life in her right hand,

and riches and reputation in her left.

Along her path there is much pleasure,

and her path goes through the places of peace.

She is a tree of life for those who bring her inside,

those who hold her firmly inside are called happy.

The Secret One through the ecstatic mother founded the earth,

through consciousness he made the skies go around,

by secret knowledge the oceans broke open,

and the clouds let the dew down.

~ from Proverbs: 3:11-20

translated by Aaron Blon