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

02 October 2008


Bright Idea #82: Be Yourself (Whomever that happens to be at the Moment).
"And there I am, in a kind of mask, voicing the voice of an aspect of what I've become, of an aspect of what I could well become, or an aspect of what I've become and not become aware of yet." Morning organizing my thoughts and getting there on time after harvesting hot peppers in my bathrobe. The little ones see in me someone who doesnt judge them, who can somehow see the world from their perspective, they clamor sometimes for the light of my attention, even as the adults cut their eyes at each other as i look away. who else should i be? it gets dark so soon. the neigborhood kids show up i feed them cake and they tell me i have a lot of friends. for halloween one girl will be a baker, the other a table. late supper, knitting, #4 said from the porch down the street you could see three rainbows. i dont know the steps but my hearts in the dance, sitting across from you at lunch, passing you in the hall, idling beside you at a light. im your friend, your companion. im your sister, your fellow traveller. hello. chilly turns to drizzle and the house is warm from just being here, braising, baking, breathing. the hearth wall grows. were sailing toward the season where the light comes from the inside. heart light hearth light keeping the fire alive until the sun rises just so above the hill and we go, growing outward again.
"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)