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

16 May 2008


Bright Idea #19: Choose Real.
“It is not down in any map; true places never are.” Great Goddess glorious morning sparkling open blue sheet of sky flapping in may breeze sit on side bench sitting smiling breathing in sun blessing breeze smelling of green and water and fruit wood fire. #4 barefoot on creek path brandishing magick staff beheading evil dandelion minions before him faithful striped mouse companion flying above the fray. i am getting old and lifting my weight in mulch is no longer an option. brought lilacs into the fold erected green pea cucumber bottle gourd webwork trellis sat in the sun eating cold organic mac-n-cheese from a blue bowl with #2 and the irrational rage of our Others. things settle down it rains it shines it rains the aluminum mule betrays me the bathtub receives me he picked up the sofa he called to explain its more good coffee and donuts into evening to parse the abacus align the stars plan for breakfast tomorrow it was salt and patchouli the garden looked like boot hill borage goddess with zinnia stock the sunflowers will go there the pumpkins there i planted the folks-glove you gave me we work together he she we chemistry biology frequency this fog wont lift my core drags behind me like an atrophied tail but angels send memos and Bright moments and i understand where the wisteria will go the infinite usages of latticework the garden starts to smell like a garden look like a garden green spirits rise from their resting places i planted holy french marigold on the carp cleome and hollyhock for the roses maybe this time somewhere my mother approves.
"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)