the monk

Renunciation and all-wanting
Happiness ‘midst tasks too daunting.
Shallow depths and lows uplifted
Contradictions are truths to the gifted.
Echoes reflecting in the snows
Listen, then listen harder to the crows.
A forest speaks to the waiting ear
As paths unwind bringing you near.
Easy and true a friend when in need
Pliant and gracious an ear that gives heed.
Stillness breaths the open wind
Sleeping hearts now stir again.

one thoughtful viewing...

_____Death is like a film or painting that requires more than one thoughtful viewing to appreciate and understand.

the Dream

Wake up. I want to tell you that you are living a dream but I know you will not listen. You will not listen for the same reason I did not listen. You don’t give a shit.
-----No one wants to be roused from a pleasant dream of self-indulgence and ease. No one wants to know at what cost their luxury was acquired. How many treaties or laws or lives or backs were broken in the process.
-----The dream is a parasite feeding on our complacency, devouring our wills and moral footings; betrothing us to lives of servitude to an abyss of material desire all the while shouting into our ears all the lies that we have grown so accustomed to.
-----We have become deaf to truth. We hear only the noise of the machines that bind us to the dream. A dream that consumes the dreamer.

-----Until....

-----Until enough falseness and contradiction and hypocrisy and injustice has seeped from the pores of this nightmare, and its putrid odor can no longer be ignored. This is when you'll wake up. This is when you'll realize the depth and degree of your addiction to the fairy tale you've been living. This is what some might call, a moment of clarity.
-----This is also when the parasite, this dream, will itself go to sleep. It will sleep in your heart and in the hearts of others and it will slumber more and more deeply as more and more wake up... as more and more can no longer stand the stench of its lies. It will sleep until enough time has past that the lessons it taught will have been forgotten again and it tempts us toward another deafening, intoxicated, mad ride past the boundaries of our common sense and reason.
-----This then is when the old beast will rise again to blind mens eyes to the darker side of their nature. Once more men will fight and kill for possession of what should be freely accessible to all. Once more power and greed will become virtues; injustice the law; and fear, the means of control.
-----The dream is strong... and it dwells with us all.

Claires dancing trees

Wake up

.....One of truths attributes is its continual push for recognition, understanding and acceptance. Truths which are ignored remain truths. You are the lesser for not acknowledging them. Truth is empowering and carries moral authority. Truth is pliable in that it is not ridged and can be seemingly "bent" by reason of perspective.
.....Truths become self-evident over time. Sadly this "truth" is not realized in the same ways and at the same time by all peoples. Each has their own capacity for the absorption of truths; their own pace at which they can tolerate the change of perspective that a new understanding demands. Agility is not only a physical attribute, but a mental one as well.
.....A change of perspective will not tolerate passivity. Effort is required when ones mind changes; when ones outlook, preconceived notions and trivial habits of thought are challenged by something wider and deeper. Looking out into the bright daylight can be a bit overwhelming when one has been in a dark room sleeping.
.....I want you to wake up.

Phaelenopsis

Chance

snow falls
upon what
it cares not-

though don't believe
that chance
rides its decent.

pile o' logs

Ice storm 2

Ice storm

"know thyself"

A walk through the woods that became an expression of my empathy and appreciation of nature, while listening for the intuitions that arose from such an encounter and following them to a deeper experience of unity, was my greatest joy at one time.
. . Since then I have followed many paths through many woods. I do not recommend this approach as it relies much on grace. Much on an understanding of the ways of "God".
.....To "know thyself", can be added "...and you will 'know God'".
A walk through the woods can become many things. An expression of longing...of restlessness, of humble reverence...

a spoiled child

The winters wind invites our contempt. It invades our experience. It shatters our line of thought and demands our complete attention. The winters cold wind is a spoiled child with no capacity for reason.

Oblivion

An experience of a deeper reality is not something to be feared. That, I believe, is why many people are so afraid of dying. It's not oblivion that they fear, since that is nothingness. Oblivion also rules out fear of the unknown since oblivion rules itself out by being unknowable, leaving use with fear of some"thing" else, which implies the ability to experience it. It's consciousness after physical death that we fear; a consciousness that awakens us to the truths of many things. Sadly, many people are not comfortable with the truth... and they fear it.

Efficiency is a virtue

Many times, truths revealed to the inner man are incommunicable to the outer.

A sentence should not just create a picture, it should open a door in the mind.

Efficiency is a virtue.

Derive meaning from the common.

Our life is defined by our choices.

Power

The overriding reality of my day is that this government was complicit in the events of nine one one.All else pails in comparison to this fact. Anything is possible now and the world as I have known it is at an end. Good languishes in the halls of government. Too few are the enlightened, unentangled lawmakers who remember the oaths they took. Government is power and power corrupts.

"As we act, let us not become the evil that we deplore."
.....as quoted by Barbara Lee, D from Cali. on 9-20-01 prior to casting the lone dissenting vote to S.J. 23, giving the "President" a free hand to attack "terrorists" anywhere he saw fit.

Treason

....."Truth is treason
..........in the
...............empire of lies." Ron Paul