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

30 June 2008


Bright Idea #47: Do Nothing.
"Be kind to each other. It is better to commit faults with gentleness than to work miracles with unkindness." Bright morning morning pages good coffee dogs little one running through backpack sidekick conquering. gave the garden bible to neighbor picked up mail tinderbox and switch puttering walking the wet rows ive decided to give up shoes and shaving my legs see how it goes its little steps toward something like pilgrims a step a bow a prostration a rising a step toward the Center. the cat sleeps on the table and what can be done? it gets on the table a thousand times you take it off the table a thousand and one impromptu play-date i glue a guinea hen feather into my book and contemplate the universe people make me so uneasy as if i should be someone else or elsewhere. cook dinner no one eats i have garden greens and rice in one bowl some cheese he sits for cheese with me a banana a hug still good still golden whatever the weather both of them all of them unconditionally All One All One and i wont worry and i read the book like the movie that mesmerized the tragic anti-hero the imperfect god. and thats what we grapple with we wrestle with the angel we are waves of love crashing retreating pulverizing dissolving smoothing carrying toward away washing purifying blessing incessantly since the beginning today i picked up a rock from the rubble of reconstruction it was red the exact size and shape of my heart.

29 June 2008


Bright Idea #46: Read.
"Reluctantly, we learned to move together, touch, let go." Full life. Bike rides trampoline chalk marathons backyard bonfires strawberries and cream deep sleep with portentious dreams in which i receive a call from Laura on the 3rd Planet who implores me to stay with Sheba. Good coffee and blue sky growing garden and a BFF beautiful boy and maybe a greater understanding. out in the world today everyone seemed like caricatures of themselves weather beaten garish and grotesque. i laugh loud and people turn to look where could all that happiness be coming from? everyone humid and beaten into their sunday best the mushrooms were not what they claimed to be and the ice cream was made of shortening. no wonder i stay home where things make sense and people are real and not plastic flesh toned automatons false whatnots with credit cards. i just dont get out anymore and the world as it is is galloping away from me people stumbling into the night by the tv light of cell phones i like the darkness and the uncertainty its more real than what hides in the light. so good to come home to the animal smell and the array reconnect with the dishwater and the clothes dryer these altars i tend i am a Woman of the Hearth i dont travel lightly. cup of tea in the ticking quiet man and boy upstairs asleep with love in their hearts for me. What more could i need?

28 June 2008


Bright Idea #45: Follow the Path of the Moon.
"When you listen generously to people they can hear the truth in themselves, often for the first time." I want to listen more. Sitting in the car driving turning stopping listening it was liberating i was free to listen to listen is free peaceful opening communing bringing someone into your heart and mind saying there is a place for you here. sometimes talking is too much of an offensive tactic. a battering ram of sound and ideas that you might not even own. talk just to fill the space sacred silence stillness where in everything actually dwells sometimes talk heals and carries us forward the crash of a wave but mostly it just cuts through the lines and were shouting at eachother at arms length. the more you listen the more you realize how little there is to say. say what you mean. tell the truth. otherwise youre just talking like mindless eating opening closing the mouth to no good end no purpose no illumination no moving forward that much closer to the light. music speaks the eyes speak the hands the body lets dance our words compost those unnecessary sounds into a garden that feeds us our bodies and spirits a garden that keeps its mouth closed and reaches out at arms length to say isnt that something here we are how shall we celebrate our life our time together what is there to say?

26 June 2008


Bright Idea #44: Ride your Bike.
"I pledge allegiance to the soil of Turtle Island, and to the beings who thereon dwell one ecosystem in diversity under the sun / With joyful interpenetration for all." Walked talked with neighbor pink roses the hundred names of oswego tea fellowship in christ and what i thought of men who say theyre the only way to god and then i said goodbye ill read up on the sharp stumps of butterfly bush came back with cookies and a small regret at truthtelling and her kid came out with corn chips and some cheese dip with hot peppers and wanted her to hold the bowl and the bag and she already was holding a baby on her hip the way women do the way weve done forever our hips wide and ready and i said your mothers arms are full and she looked shocked and i thought oh no thisll warrant brownies and she said thank you no one ever stands up for me and i thought this is what comes of convincing women that the only way to god is through a man. weeded, pulling clover and purslane and grass and dandelion out of the clay and everythings strong and growing and the sweat was in my eyes and it felt good and safe there in the garden with the dogs and the cleomes impossible pink the smell of heliotrope that always undoes the scapular knots tiny pea pods with tiny peas the miraculous lettuce leaves and the tomato plants like russian women strong stalked and smelling of earth i evicted last years ill-got coriander and the smell clung to my hands like blood and it was dreadful truly. corn in rows i should almost not step over a dinner of cereal and chips the evening glow of sci-fi and i tie the sails down for a calm night on the water of fresh sheets and a shower for tomorrows opportunities to open my heart a little wider walk a little more lightly talk in prayers of peace and true fellowship that does not exclude the non-believers of men who say that women are a curse and a weight and a convenient receptacle of impotent fury and foam.

25 June 2008


Bright Idea #43: We are All in this Together.
"The great enemy of clear language is insincerity." I have become a woman who thinks to herself Ah the Delphinium are Blooming. each morning out with the dogs to see whats up whats over whats through to peek and see if the bergamot are blooming if the elecampane has sent up a stalk of fairy flag if the joe pye has grown if the butterfly bush has bloomed if the rose leaves are still green if im still gently woven into this place its rhythms tides there are empty patches i dont rush to fill but let sit empty like the Heart Sutra says sit and wait for the tree root flower leaf to take its perfect place and exhale. she came in with a ladybug blown glass pomegranate seed perfect little hello how does monday sound? death and drama and dunderheads but here its quiet and undemanding as long as you can stand the smell. the crush of humanity smiled today loved my outfit loved my politics loved my interest in their health insurance drama loved my open heart the blank slate of my face the open palm of my time and thats so alright let me be the light let me be light let me be. last day of school this year went so fast past us everyday should absolutely be honored rolled in the mouth like wine sitting quiet peaceful in the silent space Form is Emptiness Emptiness Form Om Shanti Shanti Shanti All One.

24 June 2008


Bright Idea #42: Read Poetry.
"What good does it do to lie all day in the sun loving what is easy?" Two years. another brilliant day on the water life together in a canoe and how differently we see things but here we are in the same place at the same time in the same canoe hello my name is your wife lets have a rest some cheese and biscuit some fresh water the water lilies rise up from among enormous leaping bottom feeders little turtles regarding us like old women on their front porches blue herons red winged black birds butter yellow wild iris one ruby dog rose cattail two years in the same canoe that flew off the back of a pick up patched up holds its own wandering way down the stream across from where the First People said Let This Be Our Home and thats what we say to each other, you will be my home country my little sod cabin in the misty glade where the sweet chimney smoke rises in a line calling for fine weather. the new cat eats dog food in front of the dogs and the dogs look away. cats always make me think of Atlantis the first space colony the twelve magicks connect with BFF about love responsibility strength trust and see you soon. half wild cat in odd proportions got a call from an old friend the other weird sister was leaving and would i say goodbye but there wasnt much to say i was there when they werent and then they came to fill the space i went back to my hedge and my eddies but old friend ill come and say hello sit in the yard and consider how time has been kind. two years. the kind of people that live lifetimes in hours and histories in days. the time line would be this river shoreless unfurling the surprise of sunken cypress and golden lotus and the times we move forward together in a beautiful line.

23 June 2008


Bright Idea #41: Draw what you See.
"I will not be driven to the edge of Iowa by the urgent melancholy of cellos after all." The power went out this morning and i thought about people thrown into panic for lack of juice and im scribbling morning pages in an already dim kitchen hot coffee purple kimono wandering toward the house that always somehow deflects me to school the kids stood on stage and realized it isnt all that easy to give yourself away i got to play with other womens babies and i connected easy deep with women im getting so beautiful good at it letting it move through me im loving my way through my life she said if you live by your heart youll never harbor any regret and the love will not leave any room for fear and i felt good in my pink oxford and blue jeans and a box of academic detritus and i punched out and slid away from the teachers lounge and walked out the back door and drove off hoping something gives next year. BFF on cell after non-dinner with coffee and dogs in sweet side yard hummingbird visit broken by ballistic unnatural report of vast american ego engine i breathe i told her id give her my body to save her life the luminous yolk in a dark garden the cosmic egg let it grow until i could lay it in her arms and say this is how much i love you.

21 June 2008


Bright Idea #40:See the Inner Nobility and Beauty of All.
"People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone." Meeting her was like living in a strange land for years where you never managed to pick up the language and someone walks in and says Hey, Hello. and then youre dumbstruck and you have one hour to say what can be said in one hour and they go out through the door they came in and you question yourself your feelings your experience and its a strange swirly feeling like trying to remember music in a dream. i live quietly. after a lifetime of theatre i settle on the fringe of Elsewhere and tend to my knitting. the Revolution starts here my Radiant Soul Seed planted peaceful and deep in the name of all that is dancing toward the Light. Etta Baker background soundtrack banana bread good coffee fresh laundry the smile of a dog that knows its name. sunday early evening wandering the cool empty house smell banana bread hear etta baker taste good water feel old flannel flag of forgiveness see the green growing all around me my heroine the Earth Herself everything i needed to know i learned from shutting up and sitting still on a Hill on the edge of Everywhere. that Hill is gone from me now but it was there i first heard the voice i could understand and that filled me with such foreign fullness i laughed. and i hope that i laugh again and again until i climb that Hill again and see the world from higher than ever where the boundaries pixilate and fly like lightning bugs into the rest of forever.

Bright Idea #39: Live in Wonder.
"Those who have one foot in the canoe, and one foot in the boat, are going to fall into the river." Last night driving like old times through the dusk and the smell of pollen and earth to see JP and the mad thespians us on the bench seat eleveated transcending painted toenails green sweater gypsy clatter he abides in wayfarers the white like old bloodstains in his beard a 1940 royal between us stuffed with roses chocolate mint thyme and rosemary for remembrance. i stood on the stage and knit awhile drank my small batch wine bottle belgian ale spread boo on corn chips shaped like flower crowns in the last light i watched the silhouette of a nest little poking heads open beaks stretching toward the mother how brave mothers are how we simply assume all will be well while simultaneously keeping one eye on all that threatens. woman as web-weaver matrix means mother i settle even deeper into the matrix mystery we remember how the Celt said everything the irish couldnt explain they called mystical unlike so many others who called it wrong. back home buttered popcorn and the five-act shakespearian drama that was the wild west up to bed beautiful white bed in quiet night together slipping sweet and easy into sleep slept until noon today gentle coffee cup loving cup guidebooks at the post office for entering my own wilderness camping out in the boreal forest of my soul and getting to know what lives there the flora and fauna the songs and stories the culture of my spirit inheritance that got paved over somewhere along the way. the anthropologist of my resurrection.

18 June 2008


Bright Idea #38: Empower your Right Hemisphere.
“There’s this idea that if you really recognize how bad things are you have to go around being miserable all the time. But the truth is I’m really happy, and I am full of rage and sorrow and joy and happiness and contentment and discontent. I’m full of all those things. It’s okay to feel more than one thing at the same time.” Wet. I could use some Dong Quai Vitex Dark Chocolate Deep Stretch. Made banana bread and attended to the media piles, read a little, Stealing Horses House of Mirth. Brilliant morning covers over and it rains. My carrots and radishes are spotty but the purple pole beans are coming up strong the zinnia cosmos the relocated roses are doing their best everything is doing its best where it is with what it has. White Bed afternoon negotiations come and go with ever decreasing drama and maybe even closer understanding. after all this rain we could use a week of hot and dry the Big Dog hunts the Little Dog with her new smell her new fruit flower bloom seed Billy Bragg always makes sense when its raining i leaned across the table listening to a woman talk about her falling apart and the illumination released from the cracks. And i go through my day more or less swinging from a birch tree planted along the avenue between hemispheres from One to only me and i like the One i want the One the boundaries and definitions made of sugar and clouds that melt and pass away letting the Light in the Light the Light let the Light in i want it to say All One because its so close to alone.

Bright Idea #37: Bend.
"Everyone is burning at the edge and beyond, so the unexplored may be illuminated." Safe travels there and back a goose feather a navajo blanket the parking lot was littered in plastic debris broken glass the people were wading through it i stood in the driving rain and watched the woman lean against the chain-link fence occasionally letting her rope go slack there was so little to her the smell of dying around her of something drowning clutching her phone everywhere people were clutching their phones not feeling what was there above beneath around just the little screen and key pad to prove that theyre alive she was a ghost against the fence in the rain the refuse collecting around her people taking places as predator and prey the slick boys let BFF under their umbrella for free. Today back to Guru and sitting with stillness and how It Is What It Is is the new Whatever. Todays word was Significant. as in, its okay to want to be Significant. #3 had award for history and reading, fancy that. the secret life of my children. worn out from late night damp cold driving gorging on organic blue corn chips tropical fruit and boo. today i washed the sheets again poodles need a trim skys been watering the garden post office ladies like the way i . smell. the band last night was tight and hot the sound was like an animal the musicians beseeching invoking the sound pounding just like waves on the ocean shore and the stillness i dwell in just like the ocean floor.

16 June 2008


Bright Idea #36: Listen.
"Back from the river, over by a thick forest, you feel the tide of wild honey flooding your plans, flooding the hours till they waver forward looking back. They can’t return; that river divides more than two sides of your life. The only way is farther, breathing that country, becoming wise in its flavor, a native of the sun." Maybe that will be my resolution for the year XXXVI. to listen. a little time in my parallel universe and im fine, got a a call this morning to bat second-string pinch-hitter for BFF when her plans go aglay. send belated bloomsday greetings to the Celt, pluck pigweed and volunteer tomatoes from the garden. peat moss im thinking because its like growing in wet adobe but so early in the evolution of abandoned arable each year a small step a leap a better carrot an earlier pea. the world pressed yesterday against my chest like heat and tonight ill get tossed into anonymous crush to be liberated from the obligations of personality to be one more adoring face breathing in the damp night moving connecting to vibrations and frequencies something farther back than lyrics and melodies all of us i cant imagine the weight of all that attention sunday dinner hard enough the energy zooming in jets and standing in eddies he said stay with it breathe with it my aversion is as much a habit as anything else and i can stay the habit reverse it slowly with mindfulness and compassion for myself the energy a partner to dance with an art to admire. Grace is a wind on the water and what i need to learn is how to set my sail to work together with the world around me to move forward with the confidence my Spirit affords me to do what my Soul requires. Books and Dogs Good Coffee and Sleep in a White Bed in a Small Town in an Infinite Universe. such a short time to be here and a long time gone.

Bright Idea #35: Love Unconditionally.
"Be contented with what you possess in life; be thankful for what does not belong to you, for it is so much care the less; but try to obtain what you need in life, and make the best of every moment of your life." Love All, Serve All. Investigate the origins of that. BFF heart trouble knocked around sleepless lonesome needs space she needs some space from needing. Mister Lincoln rose offers its scent freely in afternoon kitchen cross-breeze simple household tasks that bind one to ones place and raise the vibration i dont care for it too clean magazine clean its not in me but a little better than neglected leaves my people at ease. i grew up in a mausoleum and live on a farm. a little farm little garden little dogs little lessons everyday in living letting go loving unconditionally. been short of breath been trying to seem worth it but im worth it already with nothing to begin with. things need doing but were human beings like she said not human doings and i notice that if i dont get time to be i get ragged. i am solitary and people drag my battery dry. people are beautiful. people are precious twists of flesh around a shining soul. but my true lovers are the wind and rain the sun and moon the green spirits and the trees. these things i see in my other lovers and for which i love them. i love them all. before i know it ill be sifting in the wind around the compost pile. right now now today now i want to love unconditionally want to sing and smile and be alright. i want to connect commune create i want to be a Light Force i want to raise the vibration so people can sing and smile and connect with their own shining Light and be alright.

11 June 2008


Bright Idea #34: Grow a Garden
“You need to resign yourself to the awkwardness of life. Only if you find peace within yourself will you find true connection with others.” Thought about the Holocaust today there were at least eighty thousand jews from my country that were murdered and i saw a photo of Gypsy children little bundles looking forward and they were smothered incinerated murdered two weeks later in another country and i had to put that book down years ago at the part where they were throwing the newborn babies out the window onto waiting bayonetes where the little boy was found hiding in the offal and thats how he saved his own life. its inconceivable. purity is not a human condition. it should not be strived for in any respect save consciousness and even that is only an ideal to strive for not a reality to be attained. not here at least. we are a glorious amalgam of everything. all the colors mixed together are brown. the brown earth the brown rabbit the brown tree trunk the brown bread the brown rice in a blue bowl. we are all different and all the same. we are here to love and be loved and continue in the Beautiful Experiment in Love. we are not here to divide and hate and exterminate our brothers and sisters mothers fathers family friends not here to succumb to the illusion of separation. i am ruminating on the banner to read One Love or All is One or maybe Love All Serve All in latin even though thats the hard rock mantra ive always loved it and taken it for my own. i cannot bring back the mothers daughters sons brothers. i cannot take back the pain grief fear the hands that played violin or made a birthday cake the lips that kissed so perfectly the eyes that saw birth and sunrise and the hearts that felt purity of Hope Love Joy. i can only deserve my own blessed life by living toward my own ideal. living in honor of those that were led away from their lives so peacefully who believed their peace would win their breath back again.

Bright Idea #33: See Things for the First Time.
"Most of us look at our ideals, say how far we are from them, and get depressed. But it is heroic simply to say, 'Here are my ideals,' state them before the world, and then spend your life trying to live up to them." In my dream i sang Willin' with a Latino truck driver and the whole arena started to sing along. Beautiful cool morning i open my heart to the sun and please, Charlotte, theyre my only pair of shoes. I was the electric lunch lady and on break went home to get my friend a mccartney rose and some clean water in a non-plastic bottle and it wasnt so hot today and i told my friend to call the doctor and it was the right thing to do and the dogs kept to the fence and the hummingbird went up the hill no problem and i watered and weeded and theres an army of tomato volunteers bivouacked under the pea trellis and tonight ill sort books and finish the little shrine for my mccartney friend and see if theres anything i can cross off my to-do list. do dishes set up thursdays coffee the burdock has to go. gave foxglove the shade and rudbeckia the sun the corn is up in rows so peaceful and powerful the lettuce peaceful being lettuce beet greens turnip seedlings carrot feathers impromptu parsley convention the smell of heliotrope everywhere. moon and star melon leaves have moons and stars to know them by. did the dill get washed away by rain, carted away by ants, blown away by winds? theres one or two i see braving the life of summer here the garden behind the house before the evergreen whips also growing beside the roses and the peonies the coneflowers and cleomes the gaura and the lilacs in an undulating hedge into next summer as things find their place and settle into themselves and that goes for me also.

10 June 2008


Bright Idea #32: Allow yourself to be Genuine.
"People from a planet without flowers would think we must be mad with joy the whole time to have such good things about us." Do you see the spiral starfish centers in the winsome little pelargonium? everything so particular not shoddy or neglected about the way a leaf unfurls or how something is colored. a billion years of intelligence has brought me this flower this evening sunlight this day. a billion years of thinking about everything. everything growing toward the light toward its Great Natural Perfection. tired. little one sick last night so green and brave but a better day by little bites and it got so dark and stormy and he ventured forth up stairs alone in the storm to close the windows for us all. more cleaning inspired by humidity and energy eddy blockage madness. books and art supplies, where are my german glass dusting beads? books and art supplies, little bottle caps everywhere. a fairy-find anklet with three moons and sunny days blue skies organic lemonade a summer charm for happiness and good tidings of great joy peace on earth and a big to-do in the fall a heart with wings and a circle of hearts in which to weave my own ribbon of spirit leaf concord and vine a fire they came home early and the sun came out awhile to greet their open faces surprised by joy by the unexpected liberation of their arms legs and attentions. their attention is wide focus is a learned thing an acceptance of superimposed priority and the surrender to things lost that might better have been found. blessed cool evening a handful of greens and compost feed toes in the wet grass were all together breathing and not everyone can say that.

09 June 2008


Bright Idea #31: Be with what is instead of projecting your idea of it onto it.
"And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything." Hot. She came to sit with me at lunch and we scuttled room to room seeking cool and quiet. #4 gets nomination for good deed and i weep to think it might make me worthy. every day a little more a pocket of clean and orderly i try to be so good and i get cranky and just a little and its not good enough and i aspire i aspire and somedays i should be happy with inhale exhale repeat happy with keeping the diamond in my mind and that is the lesson that is the gift being happy with now and what is. heat makes the garden grow the prayer flags the green rabbit she kept saying thank you and my brain is a river in the heat deep and still dark blue and green with reflections of the trees some quiet glorious revelation around the reedy bend.

08 June 2008


Bright Idea #30: Shine your Light.
"Most of us look at our ideals, say how far we are from them, and get depressed. But it is heroic simply to say, 'Here are my ideals,' state them before the world, and then spend your life trying to live up to them." Hot. Sun against the house made it a hundred i hid inside and cleaned under the sink changed the pellets in the cat box repotted the aloe made potato salad tried to be useful cleared a path for myself down the side yard took the air in small dense wedges of humidity it was the maiden voyage of the hummingbird and back to town retrieving #4 and back for summer supper in kitchen heat bowls of food a feast with the boys i always want to hold hands and be silent for awhile but this is a free house free of spiritual obligation free of group think and really all it is is acknowledging were all here together now and look theres bowls of food we like to eat. but i defer to the individual prerogative. hot. trying to shake them a little lower on the apron strings, trying not to push expectations because i push the others buttons too ask a lot of my housemates the lack of fashion not a thread at times whatever the psychedelic lean the deep desire for us to hold hands and be kind to one another which seems more and more in the world an entirely alien and somehow subversive impulse. revolutionary. and at eight of a sunday evening im butter spread over too much bread and im tired of the things i dont believe in i just want my quiet, to recharge into Divinity and remember what it was to keep the Sabbath holy. i just want to be me. why, the poet said, was that so very difficult? because who i know myself to be does not slide along so well in the machinery weve made to make this world. and i am not strong enough to say this is what i need. ive never made demands. ive never made myself out to be important enough what i want or need important enough. convinced myself that the way is no way that not having desires or expectations is liberation. i cant even participate as an activist and advocate in my own life. is that the change i want to see in the world? and what i want does not lead inevitably to the ruin of what i have now. but my spirit strains to see change within and without. sometimes i feel lonesome. on my own. alone on the red road walking toward a rising horizon and over that next hill maybe my soul wont be lonesome anymore.

07 June 2008


Bright Idea #29: Have Compassion for yourself, also. Bless yourself for trying.
"The identity of the protester in the photograph is not known with any certainty, but he's been called one of the most influential revolutionaries of the twentieth century." Woke up from the museum dream grateful i wasnt late and still had a camera. went out and watered the neighborhoods gone to the lake im out in the garden giving everyone a drink and the dogs are loving their way of liberation and choosing peace over bacon and when it got to be too much we went inside and i ate garden greens washed the floor considered the possibilities organized my satchel breathed easy while my heart beat quite on its own and it occurred to me that i should believe in that put my faith in that the rhythm that first deep rhythm when i was little id sit behind my mother with my ear against her back and listen to her voice from through her body listen to her heart beat i would lie in bed in the early morning and listen to the blood in my ears and it sounded like someone running and it was me. keep hydrated and a little oil and vinegar for bones and blood quiet my country even the planes have all landed. the sky lowers i plant more corn #1 comes we sit in the dark kitchen i play saints on johnny the heat has made us stupid with little to say. coffee and ice cream and i stand in front of the fan in the skin the Goddess gave me. humidity drives us indoors i clear the clutter clear the shui. drives us down to the next town for cord marigold bad chinese beer they put the healthy food first everythings changing perspective is changing the farther out you get the greater the degree like the line of an angle leading with an arrow into infinite space i wanted to use the term cartesian plane the other day and stopped myself. more and more i say nothing and i feel free. the less you talk the more you realize how little there is to say. but what you say can matter if you let it. i use the knot you taught me a lot and so i think of you every time and wish you well and say my little knot prayers and when i saw you the other day you seemed so small and i felt so full of good light and a strong heart that carries the imprint of the net it was caught in but relearned how to swim and its starting to feel good again. so thank you for the net that set me free.

05 June 2008


Bright Idea #28: Become a wild and bosky song yourself.
"I am not a nugget." Back and better the garden emerging in threads of green a light for each corner perpendicular to the directions white seasons green seasons a summer wardrobe a new battery something for Sprout half of us wear crowns my universe expands exponentially and im squealing with wonder at the hamburger stand the pink man with white hair flashed his badge retired forty-four years still carries the laminated i.d. flashing it to hippies at a hamburger stand two weeks or so ago i gave up on the flesh diet again signed up with Animal rights Wilderness society society of Friends im living gently smiling at people in cars trying to say the nice thing to connect to make peace i enter temple of mammon for Significant Other die-hard hummingbird battery and theres peace signs and something called green glamour and i think well its gone the way of the holly king but it could be worse and theres gigantic plastic amanita muscaria lawn ornaments and people wearing peace signs like some fancy foreign language but its there and we can read it those of us in on the shibboleth. its not the heat its the humidity tropical fruit rolling across the farm school parking lot Significant Other got the promotion days weekends a family together summer vacation sitting in the spot contemplating the kismet of it all the gun rumble of an iron horse and thou. last night watering there came a ruby throated hummingbird to the borage we planted roses peonies this peony from a root that i divided last fall and in no way resembles the rest planted more coneflower foxglove lavender all the faerie flowers a green rabbit and a white cherub the sunflowers stretching out the cosmos all in one corner can i divide without destruction and the man comes tomorrow to teach the dogs electricity. Glad to be back.
"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)