“Longing, we say, because desire is full
of endless distances.”

09 May 2008


Bright Idea #14: Bow to the divinity in all things.
"If we really have to confront wildness, solitude, and serenity, both the fierceness and compassionate nature of the land, then we ultimately have to confront it in ourselves." Glorious. Late morning reverie chicken man cameo gone grey told me i was beautiful in kitchen chaos dishes bottles a purple kimono the counter cleared the coffee made nice with aluminum mule deep perfect earth making faerie ring with garden rocks motherwort speedwell wild garlic starflower considering cross-referencing mapping like a new country keeping families together the roots crucifers nightshade greens little patches of light radish to mark the rows a borage for joy roses lavender sage a garden this years garden a little more for melon and squash a pumpkin patch some rows of corn is all that makes sense to me anymore. talking buddha with #3 sitting just listening saw an oriole robin sparrow chickadee my lines arent straight maybe next years garden and still far to go till tomato pepper sunflower daisy time moving toward the high summer garden the morning sun strawberry the lilac hedge picking blueberries peas the smell of tomato plants i started from seed reds and oranges i dug bricks out from under the outhouse to make a home for the hollyhocks.
"And if the question were asked: What is more real, the mundane or the sublime? most would hesitate before they gave an answer. On the one side, details: say, the aftermath of a breakfast, dirty chipped plates in the sink, their rims encrusted with egg yolk. Against this, the unnameable: small aching heart with boasts, what can you know? Outside the cage of everything we ever heard or saw, beyond, outside, above, there lies the real, hiding as long as we shall live, there stretch and trail the millions of names of God burning across the eons. When all through this our end will come before we even know the names of us.

For many the egg yolk prevails." -L.M.

"Love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well." -V.V.G.

"The perfection of the Absolute where all Becoming stops and pure Being, immutable, timeless, unchanging, hangs forever like a ripe peach upon the bough." -E.A.

"...and the whole incident was incredibly frazzling and angst-rod and filled almost a whole mead notebook and is here recounted in only its barest psycho-skeletal outline." -D.F.W.

"At the top of the mountain, we are all snow leopards." -H.S.T.

"Only when we are no longer afraid do we begin to live." -D.T.
"Cometh a voice: My children, hear; From the crowded street and the close-packed mart I call you back with my message clear, back to my lap and my loving heart. Long have ye left me, journeying on by range and river and grassy plain, to the teeming towns where the rest have gone - come back, come back to my arms again. So shall ye lose the foolish needs that gnaw your souls; and my touch shall serve to heal the fretted nerve. Treading the turf that ye once loved well, instead of the stones of the city's street, ye shall hear nor din nor drunken yell, but the wind that croons in the ripening wheat. I that am old have seen long since ruin of palaces made with hands for the soldier-king and the priest and prince whose cities crumble in desert sands. But still the furrow in many a clime yields softly under the ploughman's feet; still there is seeding and harvest time, and the wind still croons in the ripening wheat. The works of man are but little worth; for a time they stand, for a space endure; but turn once more to your mother - Earth, my gifts are gracious, my works are sure. Instead of the strife and pain I give you peace, with its blessing sweet. Come back, come back to my arms again, for the wind still croons in the ripening wheat."
-John Sandes, The Earth-Mother (excerpt, 1918)