ask much

.

.

Ask much, the voice suggested, and I startled.

Feeling my body like the trembling body of a horse

tied to its tree while the strange noise

passes over its ears.

I who in extremity had always wanted less,

even of eating, of sleeping.

Agile, the voice did not speak again, but waited.

"Want more" -

a cure for longing I had not thought of.

But that is how it is with wells.

Whatever is taken refills to the steady level.

The voice agreed, though softly, to quiet the feet of the horse:

A cup taken out, a cup reappears; a bucketful taken, a bucket.

.

~ Jane Hirshfield

from After

.

the bell zygmunt

.

.

For fertility, a new bride is lifted to touch it with her left hand,

or possibly kiss it.

The sound close in, my friend told me later, is almost silent.

.

At ten kilometers, even those who have never heard it know what it is.

.

If you stand near during thunder, she said,

you will hear a reply.

.

She who cooked lamb and loved wine and wild-mushroom pastas.

She who when I saw her last was silent as the great Zygmunt mostly is,

a ventilator's clapper between her dry lips.

.

Because I could, I spoke.  She laid her palm on my cheek to answer.

And soon again, to say it was time to leave.

.

I put my lips near the place a tube went into

the back of one hand.

The kiss - as if it knew what I did not yet - both full and formal.

.

As one would kiss the ring of a cardinal, or the rim

of that cold iron bell, whose speech can mean "Great joy,"

or - equally - "The city is burning. Come."

.

~ Jane Hirshfield

from After

.

eternity

.

Exultation is the going

Of an inland soul to sea,

Past the houses - past the headlands -

into deep Eternity -

.

Bred as we, among the mountains,

Can the sailor understand

The divine intoxication

Of the first league out from land?

.

~ Emily Dickinson

.

who has looked long on naked beauty may never return to the world

.

.

I thought that there were two rules in life— 

never count the cost and

 never do anything unless you can do it wholeheartedly. 

.

Now is the time to live.

.

.

~ Everett Ruess

with thanks once again to rebel girl

photo of Everett by Dorothea Lange
art by the author
song by Dave Alvin

.

Beauty isolated is terrible and unbearable, 

and the unclouded sight other kills the beholder. 

His only refuge is in insignificant things, 

in labor that keeps the mind from thought, 

and in companionship that gives back to the ego some of its former virility. 
.

But he who has looked long 

on naked beauty may never return to the world, 

and though he should try, he will find 

its occupation empty and vain, 

and human intercourse purposeless and futile. 

Alone and lost, he must die on the altar of beauty.

.

.

unapproachable by any path

.

.

I maintain that Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect. That is my point of view, and I adhere to that absolutely and unconditionally. Truth, being limitless, unconditioned, unapproachable by any path whatsoever, cannot be organized; nor should any organization be formed to lead or to coerce people along any particular path. If you first understand that, then you will see how impossible it is to organize a belief. A belief is purely an individual matter, and you cannot and must not organize it. If you do, it becomes dead, crystallized; it becomes a creed, a sect, a religion, to be imposed on others. This is what everyone throughout the world is attempting to do. Truth is narrowed down and made a plaything for those who are weak, for those who are only momentarily discontented. Truth cannot be brought down, rather the individual must make the effort to ascend to it. You cannot bring the mountain-top to the valley. If you would attain to the mountain-top you must pass through the valley, climb the steeps, unafraid of the dangerous precipices. You must climb towards the Truth, it cannot be "stepped down" or organized for you. Interest in ideas is mainly sustained by organizations, but organizations only awaken interest from without. Interest, which is not born out of love of Truth for its own sake, but aroused by an organization, is of no value. The organization becomes a framework into which its members can conveniently fit. They no longer strive after Truth or the mountain-top, but rather carve for themselves a convenient niche in which they put themselves, or let the organization place them, and consider that the organization will thereby lead them to Truth.

.

~ J. Krishnamurti

from a talk given in 1929, 

when he dissolved the Order of the Star of the East

.

taking up the pilgrim's staff

.

.

There will be no rest in the houses:

the stir

of departure -

someone being carried to his grave,

and another, taking up the pilgrim's staff,

to ask in unknown places for the path

where he knows you are waiting.

.

So many are drawn now to move toward you,

the roads are never empty.

There are so many 

we can't make out their faces

or know their names,

and when they finally reach you

they are tired.

.

I have seen them moving like a tide.

Since then, I think the winds themselves

are stirred by the blowing of their cloaks,

and subside again when they lie down,

.

so great is their going across the plains.

.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

from The Book of Pilgrimage, II,27

.

a walk

.

My eyes already touch the sunny hill,

going far ahead of the road I have begun.

So we are grasped by what we cannot grasp;

it has its inner light, even from a distance –

and changes us, even if we do not reach it,

into something else, which, hardly sensing it, we already are;

a gesture waves us on, answering our own wave …

but what we feel is the wind in our faces.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

translated by Robert Bly

.

be still, it is the wind that sings

.

.

I am a pipe the wind blows through,

Be still, it is the wind that sings.

The course of my life and the things that I do

And the seeming false and the seeming true

Are the tune of the wind that neither knows

Good and ill, nor joys and woes.

But the ultimate awe is deeper yet

Than song or pipe or storm;

For pipe and tune are the formless wind

That seemed for a while to take form.

And words are good to escape from words

And strife to escape from strife,

But silence drinks in all the waves

Of song and death and life


.

~ Arthur Osborne
with thanks to  noornalini  via It's like this

.

passion without motive

In this torn desert world there is no love because pleasure and desire play the greatest roles, yet without love your daily life has no meaning.  And you cannot have love if there is no beauty.  Beauty is not something you see - not a beautiful tree, a beautiful picture, a beautiful building or a beautiful woman.  There is beauty only when your heart and mind know what love is.  Without love and that sense of beauty there is no virtue, and you know very well that, do what you will, improve society, feed the poor, you will only be creating more mischief, for without love there is only ugliness and poverty in your own heart and mind.  But when there is love and beauty, whatever you do is right, whatever you do is in order.  If you know how to love, then you can do what you like because it will solve all other problems.

So we reach a point:  can the mind come upon love without discipline, without thought, without enforcement, without any book, any teacher or leader - come upon it as one comes upon a lovely sunset?  

It seem to me that one thing is absolutely necessary and that is passion without motive - passion that is not the result of some commitment or attachment, passion that is not lust.  A man who does not know what passion is will never know love because love can come into being only when there is total self-abandonment.

~ J. Krishnamurti

from Freedom from the Known

yes

All night I could not sleep

because of the moonlight on my bed.

I kept hearing a voice calling:

Out of Nowhere, Nothing answered "yes."

~ Zi Ye (Tzu Yeh),  (6th - 3rd c.B.C.E.)

from a collection of popular Chinese folk songs

translation by Arthur Waley

.









.

this too

.

.

Something is dying

Something is being born

.

The shedding

of the old

skin

is but the birth

of a new one…

.

The void

is

the falling

and flying

simultaneously

.

but we can only

grasp

one

side of the coin

at a time.

.

The silence

in between

breaths

.

whispers

the ephemeral nature

of all:

.

Peace is in the eye of the storm.

.
~ noornalini
photo by edward weston


.

being in love

The capacity to be alone is the capacity to love. 

It may look paradoxical to you, but it is not. 

It is an existential truth: 

only those people who are capable of being alone are capable of love, 

of sharing, of going into the deepest core of the other person - 

without possessing the other, without becoming dependent on the other, 

without reducing the other to a thing, and without becoming addicted to the other. 

They allow the other absolute freedom, 

because they know that if the other leaves, 

they will be as happy as they are now. 

Their happiness cannot be taken by the other, 

because it is not given by the other.

~  Osho

photo by edward weston

a message from Coleman Barks

.

.

A message from Coleman Barks:

Trying to explain my silence, and my inability, maybe, to say poems in public for an indeterminate while. Please forgive this group emailing. Last Sunday morning (Feb. 27, 2011) I had a stroke. I was talking on the truck Onstar phone to my love Lisa Starr. I began to slur words, and then became completely inarticulate, then fairly coherent, then not, then back to some clarity. Driving down Milledge, I turned left on Springdale and drove myself to the St. Mary's Emergency room (a Gold Plus Stroke Center). They immediately put me on TPA. So I have been tremendously lucky, actually. In three months, my neurologist doctor (Van Morris!) says (by early June), we will see 80% of what improvement (in my half-smile and my speech) is possible. I plan to work with speech therapists, hypnotists, and whoever else, to get better. Larry Dossey and Fran Quinn say prayer is also a big help.Grace and practice. So there is my challenge for the short run. I am mostly sleeping as much as I can (grace) and listening to recordings of my old voice in my kitchen and talking along (practice). I am not answering the phone or the door, or emails (only a few). Please forgive me these reclusive measures. Think of me as an old dormant bear, healing. Lisa is here. Benjamin and Cole and Briny are close by always. Plenty of helpers. I should also tell you too that my cognition is working. I can read and write just fine, and no motor functions are impaired. Arms and legs active and strong. It is really just a slightly droopy right eyelid and my having only half a smile. Speech is, to me, the big problem. It radically comes and goes with its effectiveness. Hopefully, the brain will re-route itself back to normal.Love to all, Coleman

(Please forward this to anyone who might be interested.)

.

moses and the shepherd

.

.

Moses heard a shepherd on the road praying. 

"God, where are you? I want to help you, to fix your shoes 

and comb your hair. I want to wash your clothes 

and pick the lice off. I want to bring you milk 

and kiss your little hands and feet when it's time

for you to go to bed. I want to sweep your room

and keep it neat. God, my sheep and goats are yours. 

All I can say remembering you is aaayyyyy

and aaahhhhhhhhhhhh."

.

Moses could stand it no longer. 

"Who are you talking to?"

"The one who made us and made

the earth and made the sky."

.

"Don't talk about shoes 

and socks with God! And what's this with your little

hands? Such blasphemous familiarity sounds like

you're chatting with your uncles. Only something 

that grows needs milk. Only someone with feet 

needs shoes. Not God!" 

.

The shepherd repented

and tore his clothes and wandered out into 

the desert. A sudden revelation came then to Moses:

.

You have separated me from one of my own. 

Did you come as a prophet to unite or to sever?

I have given each being a separate and unique way

of seeing and knowing and saying that knowledge.

.

What seems wrong to you is right for him. 

What is poison to one is honey to someone else. 

Purity and impurity, sloth and diligence in worship,

these mean nothing to me. I am apart from all that. 

.

Ways of worshiping are not to be ranked as better 

or worse. Hindus do Hindu things. The Dravidian

Muslims in India do what they do. It's all praise, 

and it's all right. I am not glorified in acts

.

of worship. It's the worshipers! I don't hear 

the words they say. I look inside at the humility.

That broken-open lowliness is the reality. Forget

phraseology! I want burning, burning. Be friends

.

with your burning. Those who pay attention to ways

of behaving and speaking are one sort. Lovers who

burn are another. Don't impose a property tax

on a burned-out village. Don't scold the lover. 

.

The "wrong" way he talks is better than a hundred

"right" ways of others. 

Inside the Kaaba

it doesn't matter which way you point 

your prayer rug!

The ocean diver doesn't need snowshoes!

The love-religion has no code or doctrine. 

Only God. 

So the ruby has nothing engraved on it!

It doesn't need markings. 

.

God began speaking

deeper mysteries to Moses, vision and words, 

which cannot be recorded here. Moses left himself

and came back. He went to eternity and came 

back here. Many times this happened. 

.

It's foolish of me 

to try and say this. If I did say it, 

it would uproot human intelligence. 

.

Moses ran after the shepherd, following the bewildered 

footprints, 

in one place moving like a castle

across a chessboard. In another, sideways, 

like a bishop. 

Now surging like a wave cresting,

now sliding down like a fish, 

with always his feet

making geomancy symbols in the sand, 

recording his

wandering state. 

.

Moses finally caught up with him. 

"I was wrong. God has revealed to me that there are

no rules for worship. Say whatever and however

your loving tells you to. 

Your sweetest blasphemy

is the truest devotion. Through you a whole world

is freed. 

Loosen your tongue and don't worry 

what comes out. It's all the light of the spirit."

.

The shepherd replied, "Moses, Moses, 

I've gone beyond even that.

You applied the whip, 

and my horse shied and jumped out of itself.

The divine nature and my human nature came together. 

Bless your scolding hand.

.

I can't say what has happened.

What I'm saying now is not my real condition.

It can't be said."

.

The shepherd grew quiet.

When you look in a mirror, you see yourself, 

not the state of the mirror. 

The flute player

gives breath into a flute, and who makes the music?

The flute player!

Whenever you speak praise

or thanksgiving to God, it's always like

this dear shepherd's simplicity.

.

~ Rumi

translation by Coleman Barks

.