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

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.
"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)