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

09 July 2008


Bright Idea #53: Don't Wait.
"To open deeply, as genuine spiritual life requires, we need tremendous courage and strength, a kind of warrior spirit. But the place for this warrior strength is in the heart." I dont want to wait to put the wings on and walk down the aisle of a big box or a main street and blow bubbles grant wishes love my neighbor be Peace. there is nothing we have but Now. i want to strew seeds and smile and say hello. i want to connect and grow and evolve. i want to rescue myself from self-loathing and ostracism self-imposed exile from the isle of humankindness. whats the harm? i have a warrior heart i wont waste it. what do i get for the giving? i get to give more. the evening is bright and cool with lightning bugs and at least she called the doctor and thinking about it too much makes my belly ache. theres salt in with the seed and nothing in the field but a green wagon home with bells and applewood smoke a horse a goat a dog and a woman in a brown dress with soft sad eyes her face turned into the wind smelling other peoples dreams. i sense acutely the passage of time its the same feeling as when youre standing in the tide up to your ankles and the waves come in shushing and swirling and then pull back away toward the heart of the ocean. that drawing away, taking something away you never knew you had until just then and its feels good and frightening at the same time. i do my best whether or not its good enough. i do my best to believe, to play the part of me until theres no difference discernible and in starlight my path is as clear as water my path is as true as music my path compassion kindness clarity joy and waiting until im eighty to put those wings on is like waiting for the end of the world.
"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)