what is The Journey..?
it is a perennial experience
in which we are observers
of that which moves
from time to time and
from place to place..
it is the discovery of
a new identity as
timeless and placeless..
new lenses present
  times and places
as temporary colorings
as appearances
in The Journey of
freedom and creation..
former journeys of
sights and sounds are
dissolved in a
dawning recognition:
The Journey is always
Here and Now...

There is only Presence
a rich oneness
which is our identity
standing and witnessing
and creating of itself
life's many separations..
Paths of separation
of resisting and seeking
seem to veil our identity
allowing only brief tastes
of the Presence we crave
and words fail to disclose..
But the thrills on life's paths
present a window
which when cleansed
illumines our way home...

He said:
brevity is the soul of wit..
and said T. S. Eliot:
We can say of Shakespeare, that
never has a man turned so little
knowledge to such great account..
and said Rumi:
knowledge of the world is ignorance..

The endlessness of knowledge
is blessing and curse..
Google is one name..
It is easy to forget
to not allow attention
to experience that
in which all knowledge
appears..

To recognize knowledge
flowing in and out of that
in which it appears..
Knowledge in isolation
we place first
in idolatrous fashion
as we search for
the water in the wave...

Perceiving and sensing
all those worldly objects
grass seeds and mountains
far-off quasars
and twinges of pain..
Let's  pause..
Yet..for a moment know
all are vibrations..
all are appearing
within and made of
What you are...
Viva la Difference...!

Why is it all good..?
This has been proclaimed
By many who have delved
Into the lives which
We apparently live..
Scriptures say so and
So do many teachers
We might name..
How to make sense
When perceptions arise
Which shout otherwise..?
Or is this another
Recognition of the
Illusion of separation
And of the Luminosity
Of real existence...?

Viewing outside we see some-things
and viewing inside we see
other more subtle some-things..
But..we ask
who is the viewer of these some-things
and..alas..we might say..we find no-thing..
And perhaps unexpectedly
we also find Joy...!

For some~~

The Advent season brings us

To the story of Mary with her

Fears and misgivings after

Angelic conversations..

Her status as a ****** pointed

To an angelic mistake..does not

A conception require separation..?

A new question:

Might there be inner Birth

Recognizing Virginity

Appearing as separation...?

A few words strung together
Recall our stirrings
Awaiting the signals
From where we know not
To lace together
The disparities
Of our perceiving..
Disparities may be faint
Or of pounding fury..
Yet the lines must reflect
How disparities dissolve
In our eternal sea...

A brain scan is viewed
and seems to record
the busyness of a brain
most independent and active..
A brain viewed as  creator
with the scan recording the
colors and shapes..as this
electrical flesh originates our
minds and our lives..

However..we are invited to pause
and experience a revolution..
a revolution of reversal:
a top-down point of view replacing
an old and worn bottom-up..

Consciousness-only is napping
and dreaming of you and me
as we live our bottom-up lives..
on a promising day..a new
point of view finally dawns:
top-down is a gift of freedom..
we are shocked to find that
we are the one napping
and dreaming of breakfast and
jewels and brain scans...

gently tapping
at my chamber door
came this bird
as one word..

the word seemed to say
not your old booklore
not some visitor
not the darkness there
not the whispered name..
but simply perching
and waiting..this word in
my silence..terrified..

I sat on my cushion
with my imaginings
with my memories
some perfumed..
and the word repeated
not these..not these..

a question arose
of biblical import
and in desperation
I implored about the
balm in Gilead..?
the word repeated..

upstarted I demanded
departure..leaving my
loneliness unbroken..
and even to this
the word repeated..

the word still sits
above my chamber door
awaiting my waking
from my life in shadow
floating on the floor...

Each of us
experiences the veil
                    the shadow
                    the separation
which hide our real nature..
until our experience
like a tree planted by water
replaces belief in  
seeming opposition..
erasing the division and
exposing  the peace of
our only Reality...

This is not a
Sliver of time..
But the Field
Containing all time
(And space..by the way)
You and I
Are this Field
This Now
Which is waiting
For our Recognition..
For when Recognized
All absences and departs
Paint our Now with
Memories now made of
Now...

Words of transformation and
Words of activism are subject
To the lens viewing these words
And all words..
The lens used by a vast majority
Is the lens of "separation"
(Sin is the Christian term)
So..most of us are living in sin..!

Leading to the inquiry:
Is a new lens available in which
The old lens melts in the fires
Of Truth now told...?

A king's experience
Of Self discovery..
In a waking.. perhaps
A sleeping dream..
That doesn't matter..
His dream character
Daniel announced in
The midst of the king's
Anguish..of living forever..
The king's real Self
Recognized..with the
Dissolving of the lions
And the den and Daniel...

We are immersed in stories
Until it seems to most
The story is real and I
Am a character in the story..

Yes..however
What if we were told
that a story must be recognized
as a story..?

And recognizing story as story
Is the key to the Freedom
You have been seeking
Until now
But only if...

Might it be
that prayer only exists
when the one praying:
Burns
beliefs of separation..
Burns
any prayer prepared..
Casts
the concepts
of mind and body
into the spreading fire..
And bathes in the  recognition
of transparent abundance..
The prayer is now praying...

This is
the mind obstacle
That those on the path
Find tough to encounter..
Some continue on a bypass
Over and around..

Others gently penetrate
The toughness itself
Gazing around
Finding intense coloring
But no diminishing of
Wholeness by that
Threatening something..

Returning to the bypass
These others are routed
Directly to knowing
That which they and
Everything are
Uncolored and Infinite..

These are two paths to
Uncover the Joy that
Seemed to be hiding
Until now...

His vision, from the constantly passing bars,
has grown so weary that it cannot hold
anything else. It seems to him there are
a thousand bars; and behind the bars, no world.

As he paces in cramped circles, over and over,
the movement of his powerful soft strides
is like a ritual dance around a center
in which a mighty will stands paralyzed.

Only at times, the curtain of the pupils
lifts, quietly--. An image enters in,
rushes down through the tensed, arrested muscles,
plunges into the heart and is gone.

~~Rainer Maria Rilke

Do we live behind a thousand bars
those bars posing as illusion of a
separate world out there..upon which
our small finite self paces and paces..
paces..and searches for the happiness
which..on occasion..quickly illumines
our ritual dance..but soon plunges
into our clouded vision..once more
we are pacing behind passing bars...

~~CC

this question seems to be
a shortcut to understanding..
science is compiling and
moving the bar
to surmise a conscious location..
a rock?
a rose?
a cat named mardi?
a dog named smokey?
selina?
robert?
the usa?
the blue marble?
the vast universe?
a sigh of relief comes
when experience reports:
only consciousness is
and you and all
are that...

are the permanent
the eternal
which we forget
in our hastiness..
our identity lost
the objects of life
stand forth claiming
special reverence..
until
the tree experience
brings us home and
reintroduces ourself
to ourself...

All is well
All is love
Made of love
So..what's the worry..?
Or..the outrage..?
A quandry arises
The above seems both
True and False..

We witness suffering
And cries for help
Not to be ignored..
Resistance rises
Action asserts
But now something new
Ancient separation subsides
As Sacred outrage
Blossoms...

What is it..?
Definitions refer to illusion
in what our senses report..
Einstein astounds us
of persistent illusion
in the world we see..
But..we ask..how
can that be..?
There are things out there
not to be denied..!
We must now turn
to that perennial truth
which leads us to
the subjective realm..
We need examine
the assumption of  I
in: I see the train
smoking and chugging
and soon departing
around the bend..
Does I also move
around that bend..?
An obvious question
which is never asked..!
That train..it is assumed
smokes and chugs
unstrung from I..
But looking again
the truth arrives:
I know only
a train appearing
passing through I..
A new I is born
arriving with joy...

Old and grain bare
Weather beaten
A touch of sadness
Claiming attention just now

Seeming to say
Focus on me..just me
I have been here for years
Noticed and unnoticed

All objects seem assertive
Declaring their independence
Alone in that outer world
With a history and future

Until I Recognize
This fleeting appearance
In the fictitious out there
A wave denying the ocean...

This seeming boundary
introducing autumn time is
marked by decline and death..
Bringing awaited beauty our
thoughts and perceptions
of autumn
are the filtered messages of
eternity and infinity
into time and space..
A coloring of our experience
during this seeming transition
each year in autumn time...

Impersonally
We are aware
Of happenings..
Of happenings rising
And departing..
We as characters
Sometimes are part
Of happenings
Sometimes not..
Yet our character
Wishes always to
Be center stage
Keeping the dream...

And powered resistance..
The clash of separation
Which we view as
We always have viewed
Thru our fallen lenses..
Ongoing dark turmoil to
Bring at last..humility
And clarity to our
Convincing and clinging
...Fallen lenses...

Awakening..?

The sleep is deep

And the dream is unchecked..

We have our roles which we

Claim without Question..

Until the Question arises

Shaking our dreamscape

Our role lacks solidity

And the persuasive voice

So long on stage..seems to

Drift without anchor..

A final Question arises:

Who is is that is

Awakening...

complexity abounds
as we try to understand the heavens
in old tried and true ways..
the universe accelerates its expansion
so we must conclude there is something
more than the matter we see
pushing with extraordinary vigor..
naming that something as dark matter
existing in universal darkness
is apparently beyond our viewing..
we conclude: emptiness is not empty..
and nothing is not no-thing..but..?

these many thoughts..among many more
promise only unending searches
using science's outdated lenses..
enter a new lens:  
the consciousness-only Scope..
where it is discovered that everything lies within..
is known by..and is made of consciousness:
consciousness is our reality..not all those things..
things are our fleeting  thoughts and perceptions..
yet our scientists are reluctant to cast off
their deep-seated learning..and in surrender
discover..at last..the truth
for which they are searching:
emptiness and no-thing
contain vast possibilities..many appearing
many..not...

Direct and Indirect

Portrayed as choices sometimes..

But are they choices..?

The direct journey has no

Geography or duration..and

Those arriving tell the joke:

There is no journey..only

Recognition of no journey..

The indirect journey is

Composed of stops and starts

Searching for what might be

Directly discovered...

we are all searching for
happiness..for contentment..
illusive it seems
and we may resign
our search to futility
among what appears
on our way..
then we hear the story
of the moth's
attraction yet fear
of the flame..
desiring desperately
to know the flame..she must
merge with that flame..
in our searching
we hope to find
our consolation among
appearances darting
in and away..
we fear the vast
nothingness which houses
all of the coming and going..
do we..as the moth-- need
to merge to find the
happiness..which is our
joy and flame...?

Nothing Being Everything..

This key formulation

Which is not a formulation

Brings our finite minds

To the edge of Recognition

Of the extant of Oneness

The very Vastness of

Being..and invites our

Participation..forevermore

Not as a person..but as the

Freedom and Joy of

Nothing Being Everything...!

The flow of blood
Bears the oxygen from
The lungs..to our
Extremities...delivering
Sustenance to extend the
Lifetime of each organism..

Or..is this a flow within
Consciousness..an activity
Made of Consciousness..
Our conditioning most often
Selects the first option
Overlooking this One..

So..our new paradigm of
Consciousness-only
Suggests both options
Simultaneously..rendering
The flow of blood and
Oxygen delivery as
Appearances within
Appearances..Showtime
In Grey's Anatomy..!

Freedom at last
From grasping illusions..

There are dark notes
from our skyways
with expressed alarms
over democracy threatened..
Our laws and modalities
descended from that declaration
of the reality of equality
now centuries old..
That reality is permanently
our identity..each of us..
in all our conversations
and news conferences
which come and go..
Our experiment points to
a recognition by all
and will be repeated
'tho ours in our peril
trudges and reels
fearing darker days...

Paradigms Shifting

rubber meets
the road..
spinning vibrations..
material science
seems as commanding
answering our need
to gather together
closing the distance..

fossil fumes
heat and pollute
our living space..
new vibrations
quantum science
gathering together
instant messaging
through no distance..

Paradigms Shifting...

With anxiety in the land and

On the ballot..there is also

Leadership concealed on that

Scroll of instruction and choices..

Let us say that Opening/closing

Are choices..hiding the Choice..

And it follows..

Leadership is the waking

To know:  the Choice arrives

Before the choice...

Perception

Takes place through lenses

Which are ground based upon

Varied assumptions of

Separation..our culture stamped

By a belief of an independent

Out-there..with separation as the

Herald of truth..but there are

More and more lenses these days

Perceiving the same out-there..yet

Knowing it as a "seeming" truth

An appearance Here and Now

With no out-there out there...

despair lodges raw in the body
which is deemed separate..alone
a contracting pain of
a weighty thing..
a darkness which admits
no suggestion of hope..
but hope seems to persist..
armed now with discovery
of new identification
of a white field which
surrounds and penetrates
the weighty thing..
allowing resistance to resist
the white foothold gently
is placed..hope enlarges into
knowing and seeping into
an emerging surrender...

We've
witnessed the hearings
with many concluding:
she said..he said..
Such expressions seem
as uttered through many
shaded lenses..

Our way
of knowing the world
as Two and not One
will quickly provide
a shaded vision
until
the shades are recognized
for what they can be:
the color and beauty
of difference in our
seeming creation..

Returning
to the hearings
with cleaner lenses
we see the varying
shades and colors
of thought and emotion
pervading the talking
and the One
seems quite hidden..

A sign of caution:
Justice
is best served
through cleaner lenses...!

Many appearances
in this holiday season
seem as locked doors..

War zones we view
wondering what string
of complexities led to
the soldier standing
in a protective stance..

Homeless people with
cardboard signs
withstand cold wind
stating their ensnarement
and wish to belong..

Immigrants end their
long journeys in
detention..looking
outward to that which
appears free beyond..

Many outward paths
seem impeded by
an ancient lock
guarding a hole
without a key..

We apparently wait
for a single key
filling many holes
with recognized light...

Yes..Lethe
the river of forgetfulness
from the land of myth..
Today it is a
poetic name for our
forgetfulness at birth
with a life-long wish
to remember our
inner teacher..
We may have
many teachers which
help and hinder..
unpredictable
the effect of either..
We await
an experience simple
which clears final brush
and we remember
the teacher long hidden
in our forgetfulness...