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

24 March 2010



"Late on the third day, at the very moment when, at sunset, we were making our way through a herd of hippopotamuses, there flashed upon my mind, unforeseen and unsought, the phrase : “Ehrfurcht vor dem Leben” (“reverence for life”). The iron door had yielded. The path in the thicket had become visible.”

everything moves toward the beginning.  i begin to recognize the path, for months now obscured by overgrowth, venomous bramble and deadfall.  the dynamic sphere that extends outward infinite everywhere rolling in arcs and waves as invisible and essential as air.  



"Compassion, in which all ethics must take root, can only attain its full breadth and depth if it embraces all living creatures and does not limit itself to mankind."

i begin to see the practice, and i feel the energy return to me the more effort i expend.  at last with Beloved as guide, pilgrim and companion, i may be able to relax into Being, the bloom of the century plant, the end of Desire.  three days of clouds break apart like old batting and with the wind creates these shadow countries that exult across the ground gradually releasing her green.  i could watch the wind through the pine boughs all day and come to understand a thousand things.  the small birds are gods prophets, the trees a religion.
the house metabolizes more books and paint, i offer incense and fire, i sweep and try to tend with a gentler hand.  ive been so hard so long and now there are moments of panic in the shell, clawing at cracks my fingers hurt, my heart races.  this is my struggle.  this is my blessing.  and the shell is weak, superficial and doomed but I am forever. and its forever i begin to believe in. 


"Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory."

return of the ten:
1.  arundhati roy
2.  michael moore
3.  amy goodman
4.  utah phillips
5.  ani difranco
6.  michael franti
7.  meg hutchinson
8.  father daniel berrigan
9.  etty hillesum
10.  greg mortenson
(and bushwalla and the cats from 1GreatLeap)

(3.23)  birthday of Akira Kurosawa


“In a mad world, only the mad are sane."

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"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)