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

06 October 2008



Bright Idea #86: Take the Time to Write It Down.
"They cry out at the sight of her and come flying/Over the tidal flats from miles away,/Sideslipping and wheeling/In sloping gray-and-white interwoven spirals/Whose center is her/And the daily bread she casts downwind on the water/While rising to spread her arms/Like wings for the calling of still more gulls around her,/Their cries intermingling at the end of daylight/With the sudden abundance/Of this bread returning after the hungry night/And the famine of morning/And the endlessly hungry opening and closing/Of wings and arms and shore and the turning sky." Driving #3 to school saying prayers of thanksgiving for petrol and teeth-skin circadian rhythms the clouds were whipped white and scattered against slate of forms farther away. as a child i would walk the block singing songs impromptu and incisive, i thought, for a child no matter how precocious. thought to write them down when i came to pen and paper but like dreams they always fled upon arriving. i write my dreams down and im beginning to write the songs down too. psalms of morning afternoon evening. psalms of seasons weather creatures. psalms of kitchen water cloud. offering up the psalms of thanksgiving my soul recites unceasing to its Beloved. so much to do i stayed indoors to do it with only small forays to PO and compost, introducing disc to Z. and out-potting the fancy sage trusting in their immortal nature. they suffered and struggled in their narrow little home. i thought theyd stretch roots down into good earth with fine exposure and companions of lambs ear delphinium and coneflower. one sage i unceremoniously scratched into a dim corner of the shadow garden took happy root and sends out long scented leaves on albeit leggy stems. sometime before samhain the garden will get tilled over. just dig everything in that doesnt get fed to the compost and let winter do her slow silent work, Persephones underworld bargain breeding joy for spring. pumpkin cake with chocolate and cranberry, tomorrow apple pie. write it down. in the interview ani talked about her self-hatred, and her animal self that lives in the senses, in the energy of environment and of safety. i remember reading somewhere long ago, youre worth writing down. so thats the gift this year. the writing it down. not dylan at a portable punching out poetry early morning after the crowd thinned out and it was just him and his headspace but urgent insistent present moment mindshowers that refuse to give up their seat on the bus to no man, white knuckled and thin lipped slipping in a puddle of his own entitlement. ill sit there and write it down, pull over, rest sketchbook on cans of tomato puree or against the steadfast bark of trees (had impulse to dive into infinite intricacy of treebark but realize i dont have the words for it, yet). the sun comes out in benediction, shining blue and golden robes. its all so worth writing down.

"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)