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

15 August 2008


Bright Idea #76: You Are Loved.
"It is a central stillness of spirit that is so vital that it can tame the wildness out of almost any tempest, however raging it may be." Nadir. flaccid psychological wormhole. the familiar falling flaming railroad nails and when i double up on doctors orders i feel it flowing top down, maras arrows into flowers. i used to live there all the time, and its been an unwilling visitation of broken bottle streets and the smell of a resigned humanity. i realize how hard i actually work to keep off the streets, to keep to the cool shady trails through high scented wilderness smiling into the center of the system, just breathing. i realize how tired i get from the effort. turn around and its behind you, just at the edge of the golden wood, waiting. that poem i wrote in elementary school about the silent darkness that waits for weakness and weariness and wanting. i realize how good im getting at better i can stand there and take it, it sticks its fist into the back of my head demented marionette i did my best to mop up the mess retreat manic babble and a bowl of ice cream double meds bed and you so infinitely perfect and sweet and when i woke the darkness had receeded low tide darkness on the other side sunlight and the smell of trees i keep my eyes on the dog as were walking this weekend ill read valkyries and do a lot of walking put this nadir behind me like a one rough wave in all the ocean.
"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)