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

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.
"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)