This morning, coffee on the porch is bitter. Dreams roiled, my attention given to something I don’t want to give power to. I’ve unbalanced me. The scales tip over and the problem weighs more than the solution simply because of the tonnage of my focus.
Line of sight weighs a lot.
The problem of the selfishness of others and how greed, gluttony, lust, envy, pride and simple obtuse ignorance destroys peace, connection, well being, livelihood, the planet – it weighs a ton this morning. The solution – to live harmoniously and happily, connected and compassionate, loving and being loved – is light as a feather, a wisp in the wind, transparent mist, my eye passes through it.
Who Makes These Changes?
Who makes these changes?
I shoot an arrow right. It lands left.
I ride after a deer and find myself chased by a hog.
I plot to get what I want and end up in prison.
I dig pits to trap others and fall in.
I should be suspicious of what I want.
And I am suspicious of what I want, it’s the very thing that leads me into this trap … I know who makes these changes. It’s me. It’s what I choose to see, what I choose to think and focus on. Yet I seem caught between two kinds of seeing, two kinds of thinking.
Two Kinds of Intelligence
There are two kinds of intelligence: one acquired,
as a child in school memorizes facts and concepts
from books and from what the teacher says,
collecting information from the traditional sciences
as well as from the new sciences.
With such intelligence you rise in the world.
You get ranked ahead or behind others
in regard to your competence in retaining
information. You stroll with this intelligence
in and out of fields of knowledge, getting always more
marks on your preserving tablets.
There is another kind of tablet, one
already completed and preserved inside you.
A spring overflowing its springbox. A freshness
in the center of the chest. This other intelligence
does not turn yellow or stagnate. It’s fluid,
and it doesn’t move from outside to inside
through conduits of plumbing-learning.
This second knowing is a fountainhead
from within you, moving out.
And so I make the first step. I remember who I really am, remember what I really know. I remember what I’ve lost in this imbalance, and I remember what I really want.
The Zombie Employee
If you want what visible reality
can give, you’re an employee.
If you want the unseen world,
you’re not living your truth.
Both wishes are foolish,
but you’ll be forgiven for forgetting
that what you really want is
love’s confusing joy.
And then I know.
The Self We Share
“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.
Out Beyond
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right-doing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
The Rumi-inspired reflections herein are just that- reflections, not translations. The formal reflector’s poetic voice is that of Coleman Barks.
The Cascadian Wanderer 