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..

Where does thought come from..?
Seeming to arise out of thin air
and in our lives as
subject with object..
A nuisance sometimes
in meditation and 
interference with our sleep..
As we give thought
an identity and authority
we create a tyranny  
most difficult to overthrow..
Backing off..we notice
thoughts are alive in
time and space
but do not survive
in the presence of now..
Why?..presence is open and free
not knowing of constricting
time and space..
And joyously..we are always
that presence..awaiting
recognition..and a 
good night's sleep...!

Ordered for us
their portrayal of
selected happenings..
the Real news
on horizon becoming
are silent discoveries
hidden from view
by a few reporters
looking out there
but inward at
the same Time..
their startling
bits of news
waking result of
polarities at play..
Newscasts with
only outward attention
may someday find
viewers retreating..
half truths
hardly digestible...

Between Oases
Are the dry patches of
Misdirecting and wanting
To find a trail to the comfort
Of the next Oasis..
The secret
Yet to be discovered by many
The weary traveler:
Pause on your trail and
Be introduced to the You
Who has never departed
The Oasis...!

What is the secret
of this obelisk
we are to uncover..?
That:
The French historian
The hieroglyphs
The Rosetta Stone
The ancient civilization
The Philae lander
The Rosetta orbiter
The shadow
The Solar System
and
the comets
All of these
are simply made
of the SUN..?!

Steady it seems
through many seasons
discolored orderly straight..
anchored in earth
an endurance recorded
in our memories..
But now considering
what we remember
as a veiling of a fence
real and shining
and by forgetting
our fence prepares for
winter wind and cold...

for science
an illusive goal
try and fail..
Every-thing is shrunk
energy and matter
hidden and dark..
with added surprise:
Every-thing is
accelerating away..
notable here in
science frustration:
their outward focus
Every-thing out there..
might we ask
What is out there..?
with holistic sense
our holograph brains
processing waves
interference patterns
making apparent
Every-thing seen..
Might this seed
blossom one day
looking for that
Theory of
EVERYTHING...?

The poet speaks

Of unspeakable horror

A rabbit's scream in

The owl's clutches..

What to say..?..let's say

There is No-thing exterior..

Yet we suffer the rabbit

As we do..our perceptions

Of war..division..plague..

Yet..All is within and

No-thing exterior...(?)

~~CC



When the owl is less than exquisitely swift and perfect, the scream of the rabbit is terrible. But the scream of the owl, which is not of pain and hopelessness and the fear of being plucked out of the world, but of the sheer rollicking glory of the death-bringer, is more terrible still. When I hear it resounding through the woods, and then the five black pellets of its song dropping like stones into the air, I know I am standing at the edge of the mystery, in which terror is naturally and abundantly part of life, part of even the most becalmed, intelligent, sunny life — as, for example, my own. The world where the owl is endlessly hungry and endlessly on the hunt is the world in which I live too. There is only one world.

~~Mary Oliver, Owls and other Fantasies...

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

The fixed and static
mostly those nouns
bear our watching..
these are snapshots
fixities in flow
making their claim
as the whole show..!
we should consult
a parable teller
to shift the lights
reveal a new show..
and we need be
especially alert
for those wishing
the teller to go...

a pear it was
hanging alone ripened
awaiting a fall..
her experience then
many years remembered
a radiant shape
a pear and not
with an afterglow..
now the memory
one simple viewing
intercedes with a
Knowing hers alone
within which her
life finds flow
compassion lives...

The name chosen
for a tribe
annihilated..
This ship too
confronted the
Whiteness
and found its own
Vortex of death..
Ishmael observed all
and learned of
the White Source
the Leviathan
that consciousness
which as One
bore enveloping good
with evil edge..
From his horizon
of rescue
of Love
he Observed
and did know
of creation's sorrow
and blessed flow..

Call us Ishmael...

Religions may be born again
when invited..or urged to return  
to the Perennial Light
their home and source..
Religions develop as a
prodigal..securing adherents
to their veiled vision..
Forgetting their source with
esoteric practices and colors
adding fearful demands for
adherence..for control..
Scriptures seem opaque
but carefully viewed
often point to their source..
As adherents depart
and the light of criticism
penetrates many layers
there remains
a longing for new birth..
It is a call from grace
to resurrect and remember
the Perennial Light
and watch for emergence
of something brand new...

This tradition seems lurking
as the real Theory of Everything..
It is a pull toward recognition of
the real Self which we all are..
This sacred Tradition
places our Self and our
seeming self-separation..ego
in a perennial dance
which has always been so..
This is the Illumination within
which all of our religions their
temporary patterns express..
Science has neglected
this Formula until it was found
that an Observer has been hiding
and must be revealed
for further advance..
We seem to be on the threshold
of a startling discovery:
Our Self is Everything
the real TOE for which
we have perennially
been seeking...

Beliefs
Stand shattered
By those searching
To quench desires on  
Unfulfilling old paths..

There is a path..however
Older than old and
New as the present moment
Which stands ready
For our recognition..

Recognized it appears
As no path at all
This is the Recognition of
Sages and searchers
Startled to find they were
Already that for which
We all search...

a family album
perhaps especially
or happenstance discovery..
breathless vistas
seashore places
evening laughter gatherings
stark recognitions not
mistaken..
precision abiding..

and then
sudden emergences from
nowhere..
habitual viewing torn
prompting new explorations
awakening patterns unseen..
iceberg revelations
now realizing our settling
assumptions
deceptions and unexpected
origins..
other slices
parabolic mysteries
left and right..
perfect picture now..?

The Picture:

Nothing as Everything

That's the Total

All there is..

That's it..

And you are not

In the picture..

Yet..be not troubled

For You are the Picture...!

the Point
hovers between
joy and sorrow..
and it contains
a precious revelation
two emotions one..
Such fullness awakens
a birdsong rises
living creation unfolds..
and tears then
begin to flow...

Power..apparently

Is the mover and shaker

In our world..it is

Buried in a religion of

Separation..and wedded to

Another belief: I am

I plan..I control..I know..

Freedom..real Freedom

Is thereby darkened

Until..the dream is dreamt..

Awakening...

is the story we all share
as it repeats 10000 stories:
including yours and mine..
each of us awaits a discovery
that our story was written
long ago..we of the 10000
are searching simply..for the
happiness we once knew..
the search ever widens to the
mountains and seas for the
buried treasure we intuit lies near..
there are chapters of our story
of joyful findings which end
with a new chapter re-joining
the search..then just sometimes
desperation delivers..as our story
dissolves in the happiness we seek..!
and the prodigal is home...

Waiting for the white paper
which underlies this writing
to loose a flow of words
finding Peace
in the facing-off:
a pumpkin and a purple cushion..
Henry David Thoreau chose
to sit on a solitary pumpkin
not a crowded purple cushion..
Many we know might charge him
with most slothful neglect..
Our venerable teachers
have exhorted us to
lift up the purple
with their assumption:
what is real is purple..
Yet we..startled by experience
find that very often
purple is pain..
We long to sit on that pumpkin
long since overgrown
with dead purple vines..
At last in our longing
the pumpkin may speak
of what lies in hiding
.. 'til just now..
with Peace emerging
the Pumpkin is Purple...

Is
The great liberation
The Recognition of the
Overlooked admission
I don't know..
It is the answer
A darkened glass
Stained with confusion
Being wiped clean
Our image uncovered...

The rabbit scampered across the yard
then back again to a starting point..
This is to isolate one of a plethora of
seeming random happenings of nature
in my yard this morning..
Bringing to attention the private
nature of the rabbit's perceptions..
We might imagine the excursions of
the rabbit's mind..but to soon realize
these are but our own excursions..
But what is there holding those
excursions: the rabbit's and mine..?
Whatever That is
is our common world..
That through two special glasses
morphs into two private excursions
along with those many more
taking place in my morning world...

Thought is adept at producing a

Story of me..an identity as thought..

This severe restricting of IDentity

Does not rest easy..thus a scramble

To find a missing piece to return the

Wholeness seemingly diminished  

By that ravaging thought..

To recognize..finally..the thought

We are not..but the thought is OK

Un-divorced from the Wholeness

We are...

As dawn arrives and sleep departs
THERE in the new day arises
as the Here of sleep seems to dissolve..
The real world we knew yesterday
THERE it is once more..
Thus the default pattern of our days
asserts its unquestioned truth..
What is THERE to prompt a question
on whether the question is settled..?
Perhaps it is that ancient trickster death..
Death in innumerable disguises
in this moment or the next..
Death seen as coming and going
a temporary coloring of something..
Hence the question of that something..
Something we seem to have always known
but apparently forgotten in all those days
of locating ourselves in that insistent
THERE...

Real learning we
learn from
a red bicycle..
Movement is
conversation of
oppositions..
Without conversation
differences reign..
We soon find
multiplicity growing
and peace disturbed..
Red reminds us
each difference relates
to other differences..
Relating is unifying
bringing the peace
Red turns Blue...

Our morning inquiry
asks when are we
finally to see that
we are waves in
an ocean of waves..
until this inquiry
we seem to reside
in our red boat
as red separates
from deep blue..
is it today
or does our boat
need a fresh coat
morning brushstrokes
red glossy re-new..
awaiting then
another morning's
inquiry and invite...

is
perfection..
owner to owner
perfection is passed..
each owner nods
to this idol
with awestruck glee..
but perfection
interferes and disrupts
even poisoned once
an intimate encounter..
forgotten in this
and other tales
is human waking
shifting and reaching
of shadow and spirit...

"there is only what is happening"

this is the teaching;
what the senses sense
NOW
is the whole shebang..

happening dissolves
the solidity of our
persistent illusion..

happening
not a noun..but a verb:
the momentary dancing
of experience..

seemingly
entering and departing
what is known as
Awareness..

More..
happening is
what we are:
Awareness dancing...

the mind
is a forgetting..

now in springtime
a robin gains attention
bringing the mind to focus
and perhaps to compare
this harbinger of warmth
with the chill times passing..

this is Nature's movie
and we willing actors:
expecting the robin
as temporary and
soon to depart..

yet the robin reminds
as it has before
that the robin and we
are made of
Nature's infinity
never departing...

This August morning
the titled rumble with birds chirping..
The cat's interest aroused
by a bird's arrival
and eased by departure..
Pink August blossoms
criss-crossed by bees..
Inner sensing
of what appears to be external..
Space of Awareness alive with
movement and color and sound..
perceptions
perceiving
Awareness...

Named from those
many yesterdays..
A teacher or friend
ancient or recent
near or far away..
A passage we read
way back then..
Tender advice in
a time of hurt..
A homeless man's
most grateful eye..
A science truth
grasped just now..
All remembered
this day..
The many words
spoken or not
built our vessels
to catch new light..
Creating each
unique identity…

'Tis the season
Remembering the time
Santa brought us a
Withering disappointment..
Duped by a hoax
Perpetrated by a culture..

Bringing a vow
Not to be duped again
To see reality as seen
Out there and verifiable
Ending all questions..

That is until
In a later chapter
After edging in pain
Questions finally arise
Which dissolve in
The Happiness we are,,

And old Santa
In a new guise
Rides with his reindeer
Once more...

**! **! **!
Merry Chrsitmas..!!

These celebrating weeks
Offer the settings
For an overcast
A dark concealing
Of the season's light..

Busyness and buying
Small concerns compound
Webs of chaos attach
As a virus
To the season's light..

Fortunate is she
While boxed and bound
Finds that moment
Unexpected quiet glimpse
Of the season's light..

Perhaps this footnote:
A paradoxical gratitude
For that chaos
Her viral entryway
To the season's light…

that which seems
are appearances
from perceiving or
projecting the world:
the news
the coming election
that caravan..
these paint our canvas
and we..by habit
become the paint..
we are disturbed
as much
seems disturbing:
disturbance adds paint
to our canvas..
the times are cunning
as Shakespeare warns..
might we see through
our deceptive paint...?

("The seeming truth
which cunning times
put on to entrap
the wisest."
William Shakespeare)

The high import of
finding ourselves unmixed
with darker things
things which seem to divert
notions of luminous I am..
Let us then become Seer
seeing all else as seen..
We have created two poles of
enormous yet temporary worth..
I am the Seer
with new freedom as felt
and I must linger a while
without remembering
all I have left behind..
I will rest here this evening
this lighted waystation
safe from memory's recall...

Self-ie

Photos in reverse with

Appearances of self..

Breaking the silence of

A blank lens..and

With our writing

Breaking the silence of

A blank page..

Haste might be projected

Or anger or concern

Seeming what we are..

Yet..Silence stands

Appearing as selfie

Awaiting recognition...

Behind
a still awareness
which is ready
to connect our wholeness
enveloping
enlivening
sending of Scouts
birthing the players
filling our stages until
the dream finds an ending....

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...

Pretends
To be evidence of
Permanence..after all
If we return to the scene
On the day following
We might see and agree
With the snapshot's claim..
It seems there is continuity
In the world out there..

We allow the appearance
Of fixity of the Snapshot
To detract from the Truth
That the Permanent resides
Without appearance and
Eternally within...

We seem to act
Of our own volition..
Departing this place
To arrive over there..
Coffee..not tea..
Unquestioned choosing..
But does the simple sneeze
Unfurl the question:
Is there volition..?
Are all events really
Sneeze events...?