still among bounteous green
death inching its way
these precursors of falling
of those masses remaining..
In death is beauty
our recognition of
the autumn glow
underlying death of
what appears and appears...

What do you find..?
Discomfort rampant
Freedom under lock and key
Passionate dark discourse
Desperation on borders
Spiritual aridity
Wonky and heady proposals..
That's enough..!
What of a new finding
Coming from simple
Recognition..
Recognizing that in which
All findings appear..
Simply that...

Sharp edges are boundaries
in our perceptions which exhibit
the persistent illusion of a mind plus world..
So we allow the encroachment of Awareness
to soften the sharp
to expose the illusion
and bring us to discovery
of the Self reality
which as background lies ..
Allowing the sharp edges
to be sharp once more
made now of persistent Beauty...

With our thoughts and perceptions
we give credence to separation:
a self which experiences the world
the world we have always known..
Better however..an apparent self
seeming to experience an
unfolding world..
Even Better..an unperturbed Self
colored and shaped
but knowing only My Self..
But perhaps Best..simply I am...

We want the mind to confront
a Question of significance
for the mind to struggle
and finally report that
I know not..
A Question such as
What am I?
will reduce the mind to
a not-knowing friend
melding into simple
happiness of Awareness...

A racial or privilege of identity
where difference is unnoticed
results in a sameness
in our blue-pilled culture..
Some plead for an awareness
of these differences overlooked
both small ones and elephantine..
Yet in these endeavors
something else escapes notice:
our strong belief in separation
a belief born early.. never shaken..
Here is a radical approach:
step away from the differences
and find the Presence which
contains all differences..
Know that each of us
although molded in difference
the moldings are not
apart from but made of
the  Presence...

The whole in the part..
The entire universe
as a whole and in
its interminable parts
are all holograms..
Might we say:
the Whole rises
and takes the shape
of what seems external in
both the vast and the small..
The mind retires and
is burned in wonder
on glimpsing this
sublime expression...!

To find infinity in nature
we experience holographic power
we sense the ocean in the wave
the universe in the tree rings
the sun in a rain drop
our pain in a stranger's eye..
These experiences grasp the
oneness..a whole seemingly hidden
until it isn't...

Thanksgiving
prompts reflection
upon the gratitude
at the heart of
Thanksgiving this year..
If election darkness
fills one's being
and gratitude seems
contracted this year..
We need realize
as the day approaches
separation's illusory voice
seemingly amplified..
Until we find once more
with expanding gratitude
the gracious heart
in this and every
Thanksgiving...

In this Lenten time
the Christian tradition
provides 7 signs in
the Gospel of John..
These point to the
Perennial truth of Identity
of each of us
regardless of religion or not..
The Perennial truth is
simply the recognition of
oneself not separated
as world culture insists..
That's it..!
Nothing more..!

Listening
to a bird chirping unseen
yet it is not yet spring..
A cold sun illuminates this
February Saturday morning..
A song with passion
appearing as face of Awareness
chirping a message of expectation
it might be said..
If this were said..alas it is wrong..
A fulfillment not then but
Here/Now is cause for this
celebration...

This polarity in play
is the pathway of life..
Placed in polarity
life is lived
on Being's edge..
Life surges in youth
our edge we find..
Edge is becoming
and we forget
edge also Being
does edge.!
Now to remember
when suffering prompts
and Being light floods..
Hence our discovery:
becoming is only
vibrating Being
and we are a
child once more...

is creation itself
a rising in and of
consciousness..
a simultaneous birth of
a 2-sided coin:
subject/object
as thought and perception..
the birth is convincing
in its colors and boundaries
appearing as both
savory and unsavory..
along with its birth
comes ego's desire for
the happiness
which once it knew..
questions are a threat
and its defenses
often most militant..
fears and desires
conceal real happiness
retaining that most
convincing coin...

As we consider
or disparage this
wrenching title..
We are told stories
some long hidden
of camaraderie
transcending fear
real freedom..
Might we today
look beneath all
of life's struggles
and dislocations
and find there
this same Gift..
Visiting the Gift
we might find what  
has been forgotten:
we are that Gift...

Words
interrupt the
sacred Silence
naming the particles
appearing before us..
creating a world
out there..

Before
the interruptions
Silence
formed and colored
itself from
within itself
never departing
from its glowing
seamlessness..

Thus
we see
words as engines
of creation..
creating the illusion
of the dream world
we all know..
a dream unending
until..on a sunny morn
we awaken...!

If we have an agreement with reality
that reality consists of 10,000 separate things
and that we in our body/minds are the
subject and observer of all of these things
reality will unfold just thusly..
Yet..consulting our experience we do not
find the many boundaries assumed
and the experience of seamlessness
arrives quickly in a new day...*



Thought for the day....... "You will always define events in a manner which will validate your agreement with reality.” Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)  Thanks, Nancy..!

The human heart
in metaphoric exclamation
teaches of presence
totality and wholeness
of Consciousness..
Each beating heart
stands as vibration
made simply of What is
infinite and transparent
joyful and frightening..
This is the true identity
of each of us..
Vibrations
as perceiving experience
appear as the
seeming and separate
mind body and universe..!

Surround the irritation
the painful thought
the dull itch..
Ask that surrounding
the identity of that
which it surrounds..
Our real Self
is thus exposed
and touches the pain
which now.. undisguised
is found as One
with infinite Self...

Briefly..Yes..!
Each of us is capable of
Self-Recognizing ourSelves
As Awareness aware of Itself..
Within our Aware Self
Are found thoughts and perceptions..
Appearances these are..to include
Human shapes  
Thinking and moving
Which we might aptly name:
Yes..Simulations...!

Of vital importance
in this our time's moment..
To realize
with living transparency
the only-ness
of Consciousness..
Separation dissolves
in the realizing
and is superseded now
with uncaused joy...

There are many who find comfort
on their journeys
by way-stations which are
ready to assist..when summoned..
There are presences there
which color experience..and seem
present as life unfolds..

Moreover..life without form seems
daunting and distant to some
who relish intermediate relief..
Religions have relied on this
very natural desiring..
Providing figures of faith and
stories to map and locate the
light and happiness
we all seek..

Yet..in ancient and modern days
a pondering has arisen in some
about a path more direct
bypassing those many
way-stations..which..having served
now seem to delay arrival..
And..are dissolved by discovery
that way-stations are made of the
light and happiness
we all seek...

the orange sweater
harbinger of autumn..
this leaf coloration reminds and
a warm texture promises
fall sunshine and wind chills..
these thoughts and perceptions
we might observe
as paul cezanne
checked out his carrot
with revolutionary results..
inviting the ordinary
to expose Itself...!

How do the senses relate to "being?"  The senses can seem to
be objects residing in a subject/object world, but perhaps there
is a unicity present, in that, senses and sensing might seem as
one, or being.  The mind will picture things like eyes or noses
which pull into the separation cage of belief and illusion.  But,
backing off from all these floating thoughts, with their nagging
dissatisfactions, it might dawn that being appears as senses
and sensing, and eyes and noses..and separation's shadings of
being are blatantly exposed...

Walking
and a photograph of a
sunlit cloud seemingly
next by a tree
with similar features..
This is Subjectivity
expressing itself
in Similarity..
We see things
as we are
not as they are..

do this and
taste the beauty
in the seascape
and all around..
extricate the tangling
and regard yourself anew
as the luminous whole
which is your birthright..
then look again at the
sea and mountain
and experience
the taste of the
forenamed beauty...!

Amid the AI excitement
a question arises which
may be the unseen elephant
in science's exuberant labs:
Will AI be forever limited
by objective duality..?
Can AI experience  I Am
or will it forever be stuck in
its own question: What Am I..?
Leading edge AI speaks of
processes beyond thinking
exploring those very human
qualities:  emotions..feeling..
perceptions..
Yet we know these as objects
objects vibrating within
that empty fullness:  I Am..
I Am: the identity of all
but AI remains unaware
limited as it is..and must be..
Tho' AI is made of I Am
this AI cannot know..
AI:  one more temporary color
of  IAm...*
(a tentative conclusion..!!)

There must be happiness
in the depth of this day's seeking..
Momentary satisfaction and contentment
in midst of participation in this annual
running frenzy..running of the..
So..appropriately named..looking for
happiness
in the darkness this Friday..
Some may sit on a restful bench
in a crowded mall..or observing
a sea of people in downtown
Manhattan (I did this!)
and there seems to be at times
a glow in the black..
Let's call it a black hole
as science speculates.. and
others remind of that
springtime black Friday:
a new creation bursts forth...

to enwrap consciousness
in a thought-filled cage..
Pressing consciousness
through the bars and
with temporary relief
from a seeming demand
to reckon with an observer
an inner presence entangled
with sights and sounds..
We are all struggling
to find Peace..Happiness..
Struggles are the
messages from These:
a simple request to re-direct
our gaze and ears
to that which precedes..
The consciousness of
our deep intuition...

How might we see
Job and the whirlwind
to uplift our day..?

Job was visited by
the whirlwind
after his story of
misfortune..and advice
from friends long on
common sense
but short on
understanding..

Job the sufferer
after frustrated
searching for reasons
and with surrender
encountered the
whirlwind..

He discovered
and finally understood
himself as whirlwind
within and made of
the perennial source
  of it all...

This word of the day
An experience of time
The briefest sort..
I wonder
If this old word
Contained a hint
Of time's illusion
When seen and heard
Standing alone
With hands and bells
On a village tower...

We find inspiration
In another's poem..
That expression
Another owns..
But the inspiration
And our words
Which flow
Are ours alone...

These are anathema in our splitting culture
A sign simply of failure and the ego's wound..
Following comes a stressful resolution
to avoid in the future these pained indignities..
Yet it seems there are winds of change
arriving daily and flagging mistakes as gifts..
A mistake may point to the path underfoot
as not your path..and more of value:
your real destination is not on this path
or any path..you have Arrived...

If you are on one side
Google is there..
On the other
Google aligns with you..
Our information explosion
in quantum speed
provides one-sided power
new to our time..
Arises the temptation
to claim truth
on this side for now
until Google of a sudden
joins the other side..
Duality seems strengthened
until we contemplate
the futility of separation
on this our
most painful level...

This exciting program
envisioned in the country down under
and with Bill Gates' enthusiastic resources
steps out boldly in the right direction..
We all remember our history lessons:
facts on a timeline taxing young memories..
The newness here is the integrative imagination
no event stands alone..but must be viewed from
a very wide integrative lens..
What are the drawbacks..?
Matter remains crowned as fundamental truth
despite the words of integration and wholeness..
Big History represents a flip underway
toward the recognition..not far away
that wholeness..consciousness..awareness
these expressions of the Big Formula: I am..
must come first..
With the Formula's iterating colorations arriving
with thinking and perceiving..as each of us are
engaged in this moment...

These come
as sunrise or memory
or hurricane
from where we know not
seemingly from out there
in this or that locality..
We back away..
We do know that
a thought
merely passes through
and very soon departs..
In passing it colors
what we recognize as
I am here and now...

Now I Know..

A blank gaze
Of a pitiless Sun has
Ignited a flame exposing
Painful perceptions of
Separation and anarchy..
These vexations of centuries
Are now visioned
As garments clothing
My rough beast
Slouching toward
Bethlehem for a
Flaming reentry and
A naked recognition
Of what I am...

Now I Know...


This is a response to:

The Second Coming

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
~~William Butler Yeats, 1919

the vine
a new name coloring I am..
the shepherd is now the vine
the hired hand the branches..
the colors change
but I am..our identity..remains..
branches express the separation
which we all experience..
we live in what seems as
a subject-object world..
as branches we seek the vine
unaware that we already are
the vine..!
then it happens in a moment
as the seeking wearies
our false identity as branches
is burned..at last revealing:
I am the vine..and the
fruits of joy burst forth...

Might it all
come   to    this..
What do we
mean when
we say:
"I" ?
Listen
in a cafe
marketplace
church
TV and web
and we find an
"i"
attached to
so many things
things of joy
entertainment
things of
thought and
contemplation..
Life as "i"
finds:
weariness
loneliness
apprehension
searching
yes..peace­..
Then..
a searing question:
that small "i"
might "i" really
be "I" ?

It seems that Eden (Garden)
witnessed a split
a fork in our road
confusing all of us
re: our identity..
Am I the bodyself
unhappiness in time..?
Or..am I the unnamableSelf
Happiness out of time..?
Self/self:
self searching for Self
until at last self melts
as it shines in Self..
This mountainous discovery:
ending our search we locate
no..we become
no..we are
our only LIpurposeFE...!

Her question to which I answered
no, not yet..
Late spring rains with waterpower
forming as hail to cut and slash
then to surround and seep
scaling trickles to rivers
uprooting and re-routing
with fractal consequences..
The smooth wholeness of water
iterating with breakage and re-forming..
Creation's waterway...

First we believe we are something
something among all of those somethings..
After suffering as separated something
we are uplifted in discovering we are nothing
not a thing..
We have then transcended our separation
but find that everything we left behind
still calls out for our attention..
Then the sensation:
everything shines ..Peace attends...

on parade
many outward lights
with darkness concealed
until a bursting..
The allowing parade
and the anti-parade:
expressing our Freedom..
We celebrate Freedom
but also discernment..
We perceive darkness
and seemingly
discernment muffled
among those whom
democracy so recently
appointed...

I am the Temple
She is and you are..
Recognition is to be set free
wild in the knowing of
I am..
When religion arrives
separation comes too
with beliefs unshakable
veiling the freedom of
I am..
Although each religion
came from lighted freedom
came from knowing
then forgetting
I am..
So the world awaits
that Recognition
very old and very new
each Temple discovery:
I am..

anger can do it:
has the capacity to veil
seemingly completely sometimes
that which we are..
it is the ego-cloud covering and
gaining authority in
situations of separation
of which we are attending..
could it be..really..an invitation
to perceive a lining of light
or..the screen behind the movie..
the ego-cloud then may disperse
and be discovered as a gift
from grace...