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

05 August 2008


Bright Idea #68: Listen to your Body.
"He who shall hurt the little wren/Shall never be belov'd by men./He who the ox to wrath has mov'd/Shall never be by woman lov'd./The wanton boy that kills the fly/Shall feel the spider's enmity./He who torments the chafer's sprite/Weaves a bower in endless night." The smell of dew and sunlight on wayside flowers is the breath of Paradise. Cool morning inspired a walk to the chestnut tree and delight was in the sweet shade walking back. lately theres been a peace about me, something nested and at home, contented and wonderful. i think maybe people get the same feeling from me they might from a wilderness, or an animal encountered there. something about me that isnt wholly domesticated, something unprogrammed, untethered, unwashed. my siding with the wild, with Nature, inspires the same wariness and space. give it a wide berth and dont provoke it. thats how id like to go on seeing it, that its not a matter of my deficiency or dereliction, but of my unwillingness to be anything but what i am, to pretend to believe other than i believe, to participate in a life i dont believe in or altogether disagree with and be honest about it. all the while i work within the confines of where i am and who ive become. i dont shake off all tenacious obligation and live in a lonesome valley learning the song of my blood. maybe one day. but where i am i fill fully with my self. i cry into the compassion and sing into the emptiness. i weave myself as closely as i can to the flora and fauna around me pledging allegiance to the Earth and her creatures, head heart and hand to the Great Spirit that moves through me and shows me in a million ways that i am worthy of sunlight and wayflowers, moonlight and woodlands, sweet earth and bright water, all gifts given freely to those willing to put forward an open head, heart, hand.
"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)