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191 · Oct 2016
Daring
CharlesC Oct 2016
Each of us creates
that which appears..
This truth startles
yet attracts our daring..
Each longs to be free
of Newton's hold
but such freedom is
named as folly..
So we remain
waiting for grace
to bless our daring...
189 · Aug 2018
a car approaches
CharlesC Aug 2018
a car approaches
and passes..
sight and hearing
pass into hearing
and memory
now fading and
leaving behind
only memory
now fading and
leaving behind
an emptiness
filled with possibility
including another
car approaching:
these moments
brought to you
by your gift of
fleeting perception...!!
188 · Sep 2016
Simply..
CharlesC Sep 2016
Each creates all that appears..
This truth which startles
each longs to experience..
Simply..
Each longs to be free
of Newton's hold
but the freeing presents
as lonely folly..
Simply..
It seems each uniqueness
must dare to experience
this old new truth..
Simply..
The pumpkins and gods
all new creations each creates
soon vanish..
Simply..
That which remains
turns..dissolves..and Knows..
Simply...
188 · Mar 2017
Before the Music
CharlesC Mar 2017
And before the morning unfolds
we consider our experience
of that in which these
beginnings begin..
Imagining the transparency
of the joyous fullness
from which and in which
and as which
the song emerges...
188 · Aug 2017
Reduction
CharlesC Aug 2017
This is the process
which seems vital
to our time and culture..
We need the experience
that perceptions are
what we know of
the world just now..
The world becomes
subjective..and we find
it has always been so..
So we reduce
the seeming world
to perceiving as object..
Then..that object to
that in which
and as which it is:
Consciousness...
187 · Oct 2017
Halloween
CharlesC Oct 2017
'Tis the time of the year
when death comes to visit
in a friendly way..
In this season we are offered
the experience of death
hidden in laughter of children
dressed in their frightening best
vocalizing: Trick or Treat..!

Perhaps it is a form of an NDE
Near Death Experience
in a community sense..
A tricking of death
exposed in light and laughter..
Experiencing death before we die..
Giving our temporary attention..

But then reflecting:
What else is temporary
and what is permanent..?
Thoughts and perceptions
of course
just come and go..
These mind things rise
and very soon die..
And what remains..?
Life itself remains..and
when we lastly depart..with
our thoughts and perceptions..
Life again simply remains...?
186 · May 2016
In the moment
CharlesC May 2016
It seems there is this
about the X generation
with their GPS devices
interested in closeness
only in whether
to interrupt the straight road
with a new move
left or to the right..
Their focus seems to be
on the territory not the map
realizing the map
is not the territory..
Evolving awareness this
may be..
Perhaps all of us
have reached this point
on our maps
and it is time to taste
an unknown territory...!
reflection after a visit by my grandson and friends...
186 · Dec 2015
Writing with fire
CharlesC Dec 2015
Starting
with the empty page
whiteness welcomes
and frightens
awaiting that first word..
When it arrives
we ask
to what does it point..?
and
where does it stand
between self and Self..?
These questions
result in a fire
and the word
dissolves
in the flame...
185 · Dec 2016
No Left Brain?
CharlesC Dec 2016
The left..
that analyzing splitting
friend and fiend..
We are slow to discover
the Right
is that upon which
proud left depends
for it's work..it's life..
Yet that left
seems warily persistent
wishing to convince:
I stand strong and alone..
I will hide..if I must
until doubting clouds
blow past once more..
But its days are numbered
as we each day uncover:
left is an actor
a temporary pretender
from Right...!
184 · Jan 2016
Knowing the 5
CharlesC Jan 2016
Let's now confront the question
what do we know..really?
Do we know anything more
than experiences of sensing
as our 5 senses sense..?
We know the seeing
hearing
tasting
touching
smelling
and seem not to know
that which is sensed..
Are there things out there
objects of sensing
maybe so..maybe no
can we know these..really?
Such musings
radical but simple
point to our Awareness
which we are..really...!
183 · Dec 2019
Purpose
CharlesC Dec 2019
If we examine now
What we are doing
And find we are not free..
We must then
Put the doing aside
Perhaps only briefly
And be the observer
Of the doing..
Then the observer
Absorbs the doing..
No observer..No doing
Just what is happening..
And we notice freedom
Making reentry...
183 · Apr 2017
SPRING
CharlesC Apr 2017
SPRING is chirping..
just now..a SPRING walk..
SPRING forms a birdsong
imagined on a high branch...
No skill in naming the bird..!
Attention shifts to the warming sun
to the sprouting dandelions
to shining white on the distant Peak
to melting of  recent snow:
these many SPRING songs..
I am SPRING
shaping and returning
as each footstep
rises and falls...
182 · Feb 2018
Clusters
CharlesC Feb 2018
on a raw damp winter day
a haircut
a cozy coffee place
with a special:
warm biscuits and gravy..
this cluster of morning
memories presented itself
on an afternoon walk
in a still chill day..
the remembered cluster
a coloring of present
awareness
embellished now by feet
pacing on a wet roadway..
remembering
perceiving
sensing
melting to knowing
and the Self
reveals...
CharlesC Jan 2019
Amazing! (see below)
from Edgar Allan Poe
early 19th century..

we await this awakening
today!

switching of identities
sometime in our lifetime
is the one and only
purpose we have..

Jehovah replaces Man
as felt identity..
beliefs are cast aside
and our activities
are activities of That
which we are...

~~CC


Think that the sense of individual identity will be gradually merged in the general consciousness—that Man, for example, ceasing imperceptibly to feel himself Man, will at length attain that awfully triumphant epoch when he shall recognize his existence as that of Jehovah. In the meantime bear in mind that all is Life—Life—Life within Life—the less within the greater, and all within the Spirit Divine."

- Edgar Allan Poe (1809 - 1849)
Eureka: A Prose Poem
181 · Sep 2019
5 Questions
CharlesC Sep 2019
Definition of God
Is the first...
We consider the
Limitations of language
Which seem to leave
This question unanswerable..
A defined God is not God...
Yet...

Purpose of Christianity
Is the second...
The purpose of this
Tradition is the same
For all traditions..
Simply to awaken to
The Perennial Source
Of which Christianity
Is one expression...

Like a Salad Bowl
Is the third...
A blending implied
Of the disparate
Vegetables in the bowl..
Instead let us
Recognize the vegetables
As temporary colorations
of the Bowl...

Control and Guilt
Is the fourth...
This is the charge of
Many observers of
Exterior appearances
Of Christianity..
Appearances are of
Separation born from
Hardening cultural belief
Over the centuries...

Stemming Decline
Is the fifth...
Perhaps we need
To assess the decline
For the benefits
That seem possible..
The major question:
Does the decline
Provide a cleansing
Of the blinders
Hiding the Truth...?

( These are my thumbnail
responses to questions posed
for a group panel discussion.)
181 · Feb 2018
Starting
CharlesC Feb 2018
There is
an experience of
inner luminosity in
each of us..where
we need to start..
All out there colors
but does not change
our starting place..
Starting out there
starts with splintering
endures as suffering
and endless searching
for that hidden
way to Start...
181 · Jan 2018
Am I Surrounded..?
CharlesC Jan 2018
Not enclosed
or restricted..
But do I allow
remember
the white space
surrounding my circumstance..
With the space remembered
there is the possibility
of the circumstance
fading and revealing
its whiteness...
180 · Oct 2015
Understanding
CharlesC Oct 2015
There are levels
and our ego"s desire
to occupy each and all..
Awakening to grace
welcomes ego's reach
but as the moth's fire
attraction
dooms the ego's search
with a burning
and a realization
of its illusion of
independence..!
179 · Sep 2019
Freedom IS
CharlesC Sep 2019
What we all desire
Scripture writers and
Constitution writers
Writers of many stripes
They all know well
To play with this word
In their compositions..
Their implication is
(Those many writers)
We need their advice
To reach that freedom
Of which they speak..
And  apparently many do
Need those pointers..until
A sudden recognition
Out of Simplicity says
I am Free now...

Freedom IS
And ever has been...
179 · Oct 2016
Staying in the Station
CharlesC Oct 2016
Shall we live all our days
in searches unending..
A journey we call it
in pleading our pursuits..

Rail tracks as a point
in the distance appear..
Yet arrival displays
as it has before
a split and a point..

Might we not consider
staying in the station..
Reversing our gaze to
our journey's beginning..
And finding there
the Peace which
I already am...
179 · Nov 2018
Wind and Sand
CharlesC Nov 2018
within our Stillness
a wind arises
and paints patterns
ridges and rows
canyons and hills
shaping our Stillness..
178 · Feb 2017
Peace/Chaos
CharlesC Feb 2017
Chaos seems to be rising
in our home and world..and is
expressed by frantic seeking..
Seeking is fueled by fear
and by resistance..
It seems we must learn
that our seeking is futile
on the disturbed paths
which deny the presence
Here/Now
of what we are seeking..
We must apparently wait
for chaotic seeking
to break away at last
dissolving into its
makeup of Peace...
178 · Mar 2019
Irreducible
CharlesC Mar 2019
What is it
that we can say is
irreducible..?
This has been
science's quest over
the centuries:
to locate the illusive
irreducible..

Atoms in ancient times
seemed irreducible
followed eventually by
electrons..protons..quarks..
You know these names..
Names of matter
tinier and tinier..
irreducible

And the end
is not in sight for
searching in matter
for that which is
tinier
tiniest
irreducible..

It appears
we await a new day..
Perhaps soon
for recognition
that our focus
need be reversed:
inside not outside
is a non-location
infinite and
irreducible...
178 · Feb 2019
Art dissolves
CharlesC Feb 2019
when art looks to objects
a tedium is experienced
despite displays rendering
temporary pleasures..

the displays portray
exterior as exterior
polishing the world
but retaining separation
as we wear again
dark cultural blinders..

let us become artists
and carry with us
our tools of expression
and yet more:  the lens
of Awareness as we
permit that Awareness
to absorb the tools
and the expression...
Poetry as Art!
178 · Dec 2019
doodling
CharlesC Dec 2019
doodling
emerging from a
cloud of Freedom..
allowing the finite sketcher
to sit this one out..
allowing a Recognition
of our Freedom to guide a
free pencil to proclaim
the reality of our Freedom..
as lines and colors
shine in a unity
Recognized...
177 · Oct 2016
I am Everything
CharlesC Oct 2016
This arriving finally
with understanding
a perceiving up close
proceeds from this moment..
A moment of release
from captive bars
and a knowing now
of the brilliance alone
singing in the moment
as Everything...
176 · Feb 2019
Subjectivity rising
CharlesC Feb 2019
Subjectivity rising

it is the inward path of now..
a time in evolution apparently
to lift oneself from weighty
objectivity..and to understand
the fallacies and illusions
which have brought our
object fixation to a pause..
the knowing experience of
Oneness in each of us
which arrives with a noticing
of the sun illuminating itself
or the wave discovering the
ocean..this new morning
recognition is a blissful
remembering of who we
ever have been...
176 · May 2019
Freedom
CharlesC May 2019
is understanding:
we take the shape of
all that we perceive..
our perceiving is
nothing more than
living as Awareness
and knowing that
all perceiving is
made of That...
175 · Jan 2017
Impressions
CharlesC Jan 2017
In my more youthful past
in that memory as thought now rising
a philosopher in my reading
used a wax impression to gain
understanding of thought formation..
Which philosopher?
The name has escaped
a coming and going as
impermanent thoughts come and go..
I am awaiting a re-qcquaintance..
But let us proceed..
Did that philosopher ask about the wax?
Might he have said:  You are the wax
out of which your thought takes form..
Wax as a faithful metaphor
for Consciousness..our true Self..
Thoughts arising as small self
and projecting a world..
Oneness so speaks...*

(if you know that philosopher,
I would be indebted if...}
174 · May 2019
Culture Prison
CharlesC May 2019
freedom
we all seek..
searching for that
which will make us
free..
when not discovered
resignation reigns
and quiet desperation
begins new searching
until an Abruptness
in a moment
sets us free...
174 · Apr 2019
Abide
CharlesC Apr 2019
The appearances
in our hours
thoughts
perceptions
beg our attention
resist departing..

Moreover
one appearance released
replaces another
with the gap between
growing short..
and shorter..

Yet in the gaps
lurks the only happiness
we can know..

Abide...
173 · Dec 2019
Forebearers
CharlesC Dec 2019
These are people
From the past
Appearing to gaze
Into our present..
We know some
Dates and places but
Not much else..
We must  be satisfied
With their gaze now
A unity of eyes
As their gift of plenty...
172 · Aug 2016
What remains?
CharlesC Aug 2016
Awareness remains
never enters or departs..
The spider approaching my chair
in this moment
is an appearance soon departing..
And a gentle rain
just gave way to sunshine..
Two more fleeting perceptions
gaining attention
within and as
the remaining Awareness
which you and I must be...
172 · Dec 2019
Attention
CharlesC Dec 2019
Attention
Implies a focus
a narrowing of
Our Wide Angle..
This narrowing seems
Necessary to see
The red robin and to
Heed the red light
At an intersection..
But the rub arrives
When we linger
In our attention
Forgetting
Our Wide Angle..
Bringing anguish
Accenting our
Attention...
172 · Oct 2018
This is a pencil
CharlesC Oct 2018
This was his challenge to
a different understanding..
A proper challenge..I might add..
which can be boiled down to
a choice of perception..
We appear to live in a world
of separation..of duality..
and common sense asserts:
yes..this indeed is
a pencil..

A different knowing
is suggesting a
new..yet quite old
perception..
Our inner subjectivity
questions the solid object
said of our pencil over there..

To then discover:
the pencil is made of our
seeing and touching and thinking..
these not separated
from the "I"
that is perceiving..
The Oneness of "I"
asserts now and clears
with joy
centuries of illusory
perception...
171 · Jan 2021
The body..
CharlesC Jan 2021
Is an appearance

Created from a multitude of perceptions and conceptions..

Each of the multitude arising in This..and seemingly

Integrated to be you and me.. thus birthing a new perception

And conception..which may arise with a nagging belief in

The end all of a reality of birth and death..

This story may resonate..suggesting an awakening to the

Vastness and Oneness of This..or perhaps not..

If not..new stories may arise continuing the warfare

Story of ages..affecting the body with bouts of discomfort..

New body stories arising..rearranging and disguising This..

Yet..Perfect it is for this moment...
171 · Jan 2021
Inauguration..
CharlesC Jan 2021
A preliminary message

Ignited the chaos..featuring

Sharpness and compression and

Macabre hilarity.. penetrating our

Heart of Democracy..the wounding

Was not out there on the steps and rooms..

Those horrors seemed to harbor.. in the

Moment..dark facades of fascism..

Until a mirror revealed our darkness

With a glimpse.. inaugurating a new

Bend on our homeward road...
170 · Mar 2016
It seems
CharlesC Mar 2016
Two powerful words
fitting our reality
of an apparent
self and world..
Two words reminding
of what is truer:
Consciousness
Awareness
Self..
Out of These
is made that
which seems...
170 · Jan 2019
the mixture
CharlesC Jan 2019
we are a mixture
seemingly
of the objects we
know and sense and see
plus that in which these
all reside..
which for most is
the body limited carrying
a mind confined..this
quick capture of
the insistent  
and wary ego..

our civilization
seemingly
stands on the belief framed
in the snapshot above..
except for those open
to non-objective truth..
a recognition which ignites
a consuming  burn of
the belief fomented by
the now scurrying
mixture..
169 · Sep 2019
Energy Bank
CharlesC Sep 2019
This storage bank
Is available 24/7
And is accessed by
Recognizing that  any
Object is not an object
But an experience
Of the mind and senses
(Thinking and perceiving)
And is made of
The Self which
We all are...

That simple...?
Try it  on waking...
169 · Feb 2017
TRUTH
CharlesC Feb 2017
We are living in disruptive times
voices are loud and angered
shouting change and resistance..
Multiple truths seem to thrive
for brief moments within mixes
of contingency and suffering..
Truth has been curtained
in shadows of triviality..
Our most desperate need
is for Truth to be exposed
calling each of us by that
ancient name: I Am..
Such new recognition
must sooth angered voices
dissolving idolatrous lies
in a morning's new light...
169 · Apr 2018
Quantum Directness
CharlesC Apr 2018
There is an approach
to self-recognition
arriving daily to many..
A direct recognition
of what we are
comes from a
very subtle noticing..
A soft kick
off the line on which
we have walked
in years of practice
and assumption
and fear..
A quick quantum
recognition of some
arrangement of nature and
past futilities of a sudden
are bared...
169 · Mar 2019
Lady Luck
CharlesC Mar 2019
what seems
as good luck or bad
dresses a teacher..
our smaller mind
when confounded by
the unexplained
drills down to locate
what must be there:
a cause and effect..
often 'tho..alas..
sorry..no luck..

then might dawn
the recognition:
what is happening
is all at once
right Now..
what is happening
halts the search in  
no time and place
and Lady Luck
smiles and
takes a bow...
169 · Mar 2018
Twilight
CharlesC Mar 2018
is that no-time
between time of sun
and time of darkness..
a gateway
momentarily cleared
for a glimpse
of the eternal..
not day and not night
but a joy grasping
inflicted by the
dark colorings of
one light...
168 · Dec 2016
Music's creation
CharlesC Dec 2016
It was festive with conversation..
Then the announcement of music upstairs
and some went up..others stayed
and listened passively..
The filtered music seemed not distant
but penetrated all of the words and laughter..
Seeming then as musical wholeness
falling and creating this
festive occasion...
167 · Nov 2020
Envelope of time..
CharlesC Nov 2020
In the envelope of time

Reincarnation appears as

Soothing as we dwell in

The seeming reality of the

Day..a settling into this

Plenitude of time..if not now

Another lifetime will do..

The lonely self grasps this

Logical story to fill a gap..

That is..until "time" is found

Crumbling in the explosion

Of a Birdsong...
167 · Mar 2017
Daylight Saving Time
CharlesC Mar 2017
They had their reasons
an energy savings perhaps
or daylight appearance shift
an improvement of time..
But alas a darker view
has veiled the daylight..
Strokes and depression
shade our manipulations..
And perhaps more:
time stands revealed
as a thought impermanent
arriving and departing
veiling our lives
with its seeming
independence...
167 · May 2018
Silence works best..!
CharlesC May 2018
God has been named and created
from an image of separation..
The creation retains the illusory separation
in a reality which searches to close the gap..
Resistance rises in the form of a-theism
and in the twin dilemma of
belief and non-belief..
New birthing cries out
for recognition that any name
only points to the Infinite
named as Consciousness..
Yet..alas..another name for
the unnamable..
Silence works best...!
167 · Jul 2019
Surrender
CharlesC Jul 2019
there is a battle..however subtle
which rages within each of us..
battle lines are drawn by frustration
over failure to find more than temporary
peace..in the seeming reality of this world..

disappointment claims to be the reward
for skirmishes fairly engaged and won..
it is reported  that our disappointment
is a spy which observes our maneuvers
and watches for opportunities to whisper:

your strategies are futile..
when the spy suggests surrender as
the only workable plan..we resist and
return to our tents..to refresh and reset
our aims.. promising conquest ahead..

but the spy  also persists with her
ready advice..as victories and losses
do not end in declarations of peace..
it seems the world awaits our attention
to the soft whisper of the spy...
166 · Apr 2019
Clarity
CharlesC Apr 2019
If we are not clear
then we must search..
Clarity beacons from
beneath the search
to end the search..
But beliefs and culture
interfere.. claiming
progress lies ahead..
So we double down
again not recognizing
the search conceals
the clarity we seek...
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