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

11 June 2008


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.
"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)