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

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.
"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)