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

21 June 2008


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.
"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)