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

10 July 2008


Bright Idea #54: Maintain the Connection.
"We have received an inestimable gift. To be alive in this beautiful, self-organizing universe—to participate in the dance of life with senses to perceive it, lungs that breathe it, organs that draw nourishment from it—is a wonder beyond words. And it is, moreover, an extraordinary privilege to be accorded a human life, with this self-reflexive consciousness which brings awareness of our own actions and the ability to make choices. It lets us choose to take part in the healing of our world." Rani Rani Rani. i got the kids all cranked up and split. called #4 from outside the house but he was busy. got a chocolate bar and some petrol and it was a cool night the city smelled of linden flower the town of sewers the country of water. nina simone and thinking how lovely we were how incredibly young and explosive with potential energy that brought us to a stone table cafe i always like hearing about people what theyre becoming how they manage to maintain their chosen identities while mine still scuttles along the floor of silent seas. theyre out there befriending picked up like stitches dropped in distraction and im not that brave i feel like theres just too much for me to atone for and no ones out there cheering for my redemption so ill stick with the present and the bird in the hand and i still want to know their art and letters but from a remove, like a series of mirrors that makes a telescope. theyre stars in distant galaxies and it took so long to settle here on this little land that the telescope of second hand news suits me well. up close theyd burn too bright and i just dont have enough strength to say hello remember me? we danced in the dark room her little toes curled against my dress i tilled the corn rows and hope i didnt kill them all corns a hardy creature a brilliant bunch of sunflowers for the first turn our hearts are like the sun and everything makes much more sense when we live our lives around them.
"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)