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

18 August 2008


Day One: "Break a Vow."
"Let them call me rebel and welcome, I feel no concern from it; but I should suffer the misery of devils, were I to make a whore of my soul." A vow i made more than thirty years ago. to deny my self. to relinquish control. to surrender not to a greater guiding hand but to the screaming void. a vow that has ruled me since, brittle bone of my lifetime, unable to support any sort of growth. break the vow. look around you see what is waiting in the rubble and overgrowth. look around you see what is worth setting aside and what should be buried, hot compost of regret denial shame fear wash the artifacts of your soul with sunlight and running water. pull weeds. let the good grow. give yourself time but do the work. break the vow. whatever ruled you then does not rule you now. now is the new breath, never taken. now is the deeper stretch. now is the liberation of energy from some dim arid prison. now is the activation of a beautiful thought into the million gestures that make a lifetime. this is the horizon mind. this is the blue sky mind. this is the mind that honors the infinite now. this is what has been coming. now. small renovations, new blue walls and pine floors resuscitated from under eighties shag, building a life. brother sister dogs gambol in the yard happy to be dogs alive. people i love learning to let go. ive turned my face to the wind and what will be, a different surrender this time, laying down the struggle for nothing and the neglect of everything else. today i take one step, knowing not to run too far too fast. it all has to be taken in, savored, appreciated. shout out to Artemis, Changing Woman, and Saul Alinsky.
"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)