Inside this mug of
Fresh brewed coffee I find a
Moment of pure peace

Meandering through my memory
Mangled, malleable history
Misty, muddled mysteries
Wistful, wondrous willow trees

Going with the flow
Yet you do not know
That the flow goes all directions

The natural lines that blind your mind
These barriers of glass
Create channels, rivers, currents
Patterns
Where the water
The flow
Simply goes

When you are always in the rapids
When your point of view is rabid
Only reacting
Not responding
So swept up in the current
You flail, flounder, following
Helplessly

Yet little do you know
The flow goes all directions
You are never alone
You are a node
You are the ocean
Not a current
You are everything
You’re worth it
You are the moment
You are worship
You are attention pointed out
Barriers are but illusions
Your life is lilting, tilting fusions
But becoming the ocean is not always easy
It’s massive, the motion makes us queasy
Most of the time we are in our own streams
Funneled by barriers as real as our dreams
But funneled nonetheless
Carried away

The process of growth
Is slowly raising yourself out of the stream
Slowly
Gradually
Adding moments of response
Instead of reaction
In that act
We find branches
In the stream
And therefore choice
We can paddle
Change our course

The world opens up
We are not the ocean yet
But on our way
As you lift yourself higher
Out of the stream
You do begin to see
The flow goes all directions
Flowing into the sea
Not only are you the ocean
But you are every stream

You float above this aquatic landscape
Coursing rivers like veins across the living earth
And, here is the magical part:
You can choose where to swim

You dive in
Headfirst
You are birthed
This is divinity
Infinity
Each moment of consciousness
A fateful flux
Between ocean and stream
Between finite and infinite
The macrocosm above
The microcosm below
The cosm in between

You are
Here
Now
The barrier between the mundane and the divine
The band of fluctuation
You are the frame
In which
This artwork unfolds

That is what happens when you can choose
When you lift out of the stream

On one level, you choose the next moment

On another level, you choose any of the infinite realities that your mind can imagine

On yet another, you are consciousness, the great ocean of light
Choosing which point to dive into the universe
Which river to course through

To enter a life of conscious experience
To sing the body electric
Be born and live and die
Be born
Live
Die
From ocean to stream and ocean again

The stream will be your entire experience
While you are underwater

But never forget:
This is Water

David Foster
This is Wallace

Meditation is learning how to swim
To realize this is water
And dryness is within
Then you learn to rise
Float above the water
Ascend
Transcend
Fly
So high
Then choose your stream
Dive in
Up and down
In and out
Like a dolphin merrily moving through the ocean
A smiling sine wave
Flowing seamlessly, dreamily
No wonder they are smiling
As free as one can be
They are the ocean and the stream
A realization that is probably easy
When one is born under the sea

We are the water in the stream
And the sea
Stretching across infinity
We are the force flowing through the tree
Splitting, branching
Diverging from the whole
But connected at the soul

In actuality
We are fractality

Silver speckled specks sprinkle the night sky
Spectacular sparks
Spots of light, flying by

A meteor shower

I stare up at the sight
Lying in a quiet field
The cities light far in the distance
Delighting in the darkness
A portal to another dimension often hidden
Paradoxically, a reality obscured by light
Away from the truth the light reveals
I now relish in the truth of the dark
The view of the night sky
A portal to the past
Yet also to the present

Back supported by the cool, firm earth
My visual field consumed
Filled with infinity
I soon realize
Here, now, in this moment
I have no head

Where my head should be
Is the night sky
Myriad stars and the endless space between

When juxtaposed to infinity
Actual, immeasurable infinity
Even my stubborn ego
Cannot keep up the fight
I dissolve into the night
And each gleaming point of light
Sometimes streaming across so bright
A glorious glint
On a short fated flight
Undertaken anyway
Without even a hint
Of spite


Each ephemeral illumination
Mirrors the spark of creation
The egoic conflagration
This meandering mentation
Of thought
Pure invention
Now caught
My attention
Now an ought
Instead of is

Rumination replaces reality
In between the stars and me
Not physical, still I cannot see
My attention follows helplessly

Infinity recedes
Thought impedes
Advice I do not heed
A voice I do not need

As suddenly as it began, it disappears
The thought vanished, my mind clears
Again I have no head
My bed is the earth
My view is infinite
Each star a blazing hearth
Billions giving birth to light across the galaxy
In this small piece that I can see
I peacefully float
In infinity
No self at all
No head to call my own
I make the world my home

Inside of every line there is a meaning hard to find
A moment of the mind
A breath of sacred life
A body not to bind
A sharpness like a knife
Pure attention
Not a weapon, but slicing through each second
Severing summoned notions
With smooth motions
Leaving only seamless being
Flowing like an ocean
Coming and going
The ebb and flow
Of life under the light
No longer lost in night
Now caught in perfect sight
For but a moment
Where the flow went
Before returning to the sea
To effervescent infinity
With equanimity
You are here with me
Flowing
Like the ocean

Perform
Per form
Performing
Per forming
Putting yourself into a form, forming
Putting your intangible, expansive, nebulous, spiraling, luminous being
Into a format
Expressing yourself in a way that transmits
A form that transmits
Per forming
Per form
Perform

I am a surfer
A peak seeker
Looking for the next crest
The very best
The time better than the rest
The time when the energy
Flows
Grows
Glows

When every neuron in my mind combines and unifies
A grapevine fire
Each power line burns with the surge of electricity
Reconnection without surgery
Neural plasticity
Electric elasticity
In this new configuration
My mind becomes a conflagration
I glow brighter than the sun
My life has just begun
I am infinite
Yet I am one
With all the world
And it’s with me
Wireless
Electricity
Connection
With infinity


That is just the start
I am but a part
Sometimes a spark
A beacon in the dark
But often just a speck
A mote afloat in a dark ocean
And so I search, a shark in motion
I swim
I feel
I open myself to the sea
I see all the possibilities
Rippling with realities
Feeling through the frequencies
I intermingle and interact
Imbibing vibrations to guide exploration
Going with the flow
Until that flow shows me freedom
When I swim in the deep end
With a pool of other motes
Each of us just one note
But when we sing in harmony
There is no beauty quite as free
Each of us ignites
Fire on the water
Glowing oh so bright
Entangled, getting tauter
We connect and intersect
The energy demands respect
The motive is beyond suspect
We live, we die, we resurrect
We flow together
Create a wave
The wave
My favorite
I savor it
I crave for it
I was made for it

Because I am a surfer
I ride this wave
I am this wave
One of many molecules
Sparkling with untold joules
Electrical, aquatic
Our flow so hypnotic
Clean, fresh, non-toxic
Neon, tidal
Unfinished, untitled
Undiminished, unbridled
A perpetual motion
In this vast ocean
Once we were alone
Now we’ve found a home

I sought this peak
And now I summit
Eventually we all plummet
Back down to sea level
And yet I still revel
I unwind in the undertow
Beached when the tide is low
I still bask in the wonder though
Awash in the afterglow