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

27 September 2013


 the kind of quiet that comes after some great struggle sets in


 i go about my business and read and knit and sit in front of a flick now and then
i try to heed my own advice, and am satisfied with the effect
listen to the songs your soul sings while youre sleeping
keeping open to all thats beautiful and unexpected
gentle with yourself, just sit there, a few sweet seeds in an open, outstretched hand,
and something will rise to its own brave occasion
and come to be called companion


 the nights are still full of chirps and whirring
i listened to a troika of some unfamiliar insect triangulated in the trees
each speaking in perfect turn of their Being
the stars are bright and of such a density it is as if they spilled
from some celestial silo across the fallow field of night
the thick river of The Holy Road and the rest in augured constellations
Orion rises now at dawn, and will appear
familiar and encouraging companion of winters long dark contemplations
  by the next Turning of the Wheel.


ladies in the waiting room
clucking out farm tales in hushed tones
grandfathers chased around the barn by freshly beheaded turkeys
hypoallergenic alpaca wool
the many virtues of barn cats and the problem of grandchildren
becoming attached to beef cattle
 its this, and the old men in greasy plastic gimme caps set high on sun-leathered heads
holding court at the feed store counter with their coffee and packets of crackers
discussing with the self assurance of men who have worked in slow, patient unison
with the very Earth herself for their somehow suddenly failing entireties
the price of corn, the quality of hay, the auction
the antics of grandchildren
the damnable exploits of livestock
its this, and the mist in the lowlands in the morning, the rolling luxury of true Earth
where every moment something is different and beautiful
a bird, a flower, a quality of light
everything a story of something it took a million years to make
that called me here
and keeps me, as close to Home as im likely to be.


"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)