when it rains, are the heavens crying?
sometimes I think the land itself cries
for all the torturous ways in which
we destroy it.

I wish I could converse with the trees
and learn from their experience,
the wisdom of being rooted to a place.

rain drops fall to wash away ***** city streets:
blood, *****, spit, trash, and lingering pain
all wash down to the sewers.

all water return to the great ocean
and we, even urban dwellers,
return to the earth.

don't cry sky, we're all returning home.

life unfolds in its mystery
full of joys and disappointments

Your love carries me away
into chambers of my heart

love consumes and mends
the broken places in my life

Beloved, I take refuge in the stronghold of *Your love.

fear paralyzes
then I fall back to
my old self

I am sitting in front of a small coffee shop
listening to the birds chirp and smelling the rise
of cigarette smoke infiltrating my nostrils from
a barrista's hand.

random thoughts rise like smoke from my mind
as I sit and settle into myself and just take in
a everyday of this new city I arrived at last Wednesday.

The life of the urban jungle of D.C. seems far removed from
this sleepy quiet neighborhood.  No sirens every 30 minutes or sounds of construction in the distance.  

All this reflecting takes me further back and makes me muse about how I got from being an angry punk kid to now a 34 year old, who just bought a home with his wife and expecting a new baby.  I am grateful for everything that's been given to me, and especially for the ability to be grateful.

Maybe I don't really need to figure out how, but just here and now fully open to the present.

1.  Cultivate the garden of your soul
2.  Clear away the weeds by being honest
3. Stop playing God
4.  Ask for help, and find a community where you can be vulnerable.
5.  Find a safe space to grow, and where you can give and receive help.

I awoke with fatigue and pain,
but my soul lifts with renewed hope
as Love floods my heart, cleansing it

i am a resentment factory.
i build and construct my resentments by manual labor
                                                                                                with fine tuned finger movements.
but then the industrial age happened, and i started
mass producing my resentments.

a great sage from galaxy far far away once said
"fear leads to anger. anger leads to hate. hate leads to suffering."

o how true that's been for me.  my factory of resentment leads to
anger, and mass production of anger leads to self hatred.
i am left with a box full of resentments and anger that just sit in storage.

the beauty of all of this is that my factory is run on fear, the main power source.

i need to shut the power  off and blow up the factory.
anybody got some TNT?

eyes closed
brain quiet
breathing slowed
body relaxed
heart full

new breath
awakening from death

new life
embracing the now

never slows
river of life
flowing beautifully
into the infinite

energy within
flowing like a
mighty river
to the ocean

I am not a machine with a full tank of gas
I am a human being with limits, and food is not just fuel.
I need nourishment of all sorts to be fully alive.

Sometimes all I see are empty eyes in this urban jungle
that I call home, even though my heart belongs in Appalachia.
I am a mountain boy away from my true home.

I long to feel the morning fog roll in,
and hear the songs of the cicadas.
I love seeing fireflies in the summer time,
and the feel of a summer rain coolin' my skin.

I am not a machine,
a thing to be valued merely based on
production and function.

I have value, because I have life coursing through me,
and I sing the song of the Creator in my soul.

my thoughts run wild
as I sit in silence

I focus on my breath
and my thoughts go off
like pop-corn

I come to my breath and posture
I keep thinking about an itch
I can't reach

I keep coming back to my breath
and to this very moment

flooded with emotions
lost in thought ,
then I remembered
"feeling are not facts,"
and I should judge myself
based on my actions.

I try to put one foot in front of the other,
and do the next right thing.

a force so fierce that I have no defense
my rushing thousand thoughts makes me tense
convulsing into delusion  and madness
overtaken by unending sadness

how can love that used to make me high
now make my whole soul sigh
into the breach i plunge unknown
and all my front is blown

i stand naked and trembling
still my mind is rumbling
my only hope and solution comes deep inside of me
a loving Higher Power that helps me simply be

my own mind
robs me of serenity
delusions seem real
and fears of the future
seem imminent

a huge weight is lifted
when I trust in a loving power
I do not know what
but it's not me

Quakers call it the Divine Light
Taoists call it the Great Tao
and Yoda called it the force all around us
I choose to call it *Love

your touch
your love
the laughter
we share
feels safe

my open wounds have finally
turned into scars

the past sometimes linger
and leave scars on the inside

my heart shines love and compassion
upon myself and the little boy I once was

today i carry my scars not with shame,
but with love knowing that it's all part of life

O creator
I am lost at sea
until I rest in you

in the silence of contemplation
I become one with the sea,
and awaken to the reality that
what I was searching for was you

you were with me always
even when I thought I was
lost

the autumn wind acts as
a forerunner of the coming winter

leaves fall, and life slows in order
to make room and prepare for
something new

a slow anticipation builds,
as living creatures prepare for the winter

I was never good at waiting for winter,
it always felt too desolate and alone

today is a new day as I feel the autumn wind
with eager anticipation of winter,
because I know with certainty no winter lasts forever; it is the forerunner of spring

I wait in silent joy for new life to grow
and prepare my heart for change

Nothin' hurts like heartache
a longin' that you just can't break

Woman, you did me wrong
I am gonna mend my ways

I ain't been home in so long,
never to dance with your hips swayin'

Let me go home where I belong
back to the mountains of Appalachia,
where cicadias sing and
women are sweet like moonshine

another day sober and free
new possibilities rising
from despair to hope
resentment to love and tolerance

walking through difficulty
with my head held high
trusting in a Loving Higher Power
holding my daughter close

no longer isolated and alone
I trudge the road of happy destiny
with friends: brothers and sisters
who lift me up when I stumble and fall

I get to show up to life today
I am so grateful for second chances
to live life sober and free
my heart reaching out to help another

.                             bodies                                   more
                                colliding                       ­       than an
                                        gently in                            emotion
                           ­              infinite                             tied to physical
                                       space and time                connection,
                                 ­          unfolding into                and yet found
                                        each other                         in carnal lust.
                                     and becoming                  a language spoken
                                            one.                ­           in silence.

mind frozen
  
                body tense

I keep telling myself that I care about spiritual growth

but **** it all to hell
        
                    i want to be close in the biblical sense

somewhere there's bumpin' and grindin' happening this very minute.

intimacy intimacy, i tell myself

feel my feelings

i've been numb to my ****** feelings

i get all this, but sometimes ****** thoughts and feeling hit me so hard.
                         i don't know what to do with them, they just mess up my head.

i want serenity.

        i want peace.

              i want some wisdom in all this.

i am not a monk.  
    i do not want to be celibate,
                                            but **** I don't want to be overwhelmed either.


For now I am embracing my *** crazed thoughts, but not acting on them.

                i am more than my thoughts and feelings.

                                                  i am.

nobody croons like marvin gaye.
no other black man's voice eases
my soul like that man.in need of
some ****** healin.'  

everyone needs some lovin,' even
on made up holidays. i want to go
back to the days of pagan rituals
of celebrating life and fertility.

sow your wild oats my man.  sing
your song and shake what your
momma gave you.  we all need
some healing touch, especially
those fools who got no soul.

shik-gu
the word and idea had the
power to make me tense involuntarily.
it's strange how we hurt the people
we love the most.  

for a long time, i lived my life like a tornado,
not caring who i hurt.  often the people in my
path of destruction were my um-ma, ap-pa and
hyung [momma, pa, and brother].

time heals all wounds or it can make deep resentments
fester.  i'm glad i've chosen to walk the path of cleaning
up the wreckage of the past.  

today, my family still aggravates, but see them for who they
are, people with their failings and strengths like me.  
and little by little, i walk the path towards embracing
my own humanity, my brokenness and all.

your cries break my heart
and I hold you close until
you whimper into sleep

my gentle swaying and rhythm of my heart
guide you to sleep

my daughter,  I hope someday you
discover that the Divine Presence
holds you safe and close like I do

There will be times
I will not be with you
But remember that God
is always with you

.



silence

                                                   ­                                                                 ­                                                       so faraway
so near.

                                                          ­                            everything
                                                                ­                       in me
                                                                ­                       wants to
                                                                ­                       fill it up
                                                              ­                         with empty
                                                           ­                            noise.

but there are
brief glimpses
when i
can







                                                     ­                                   embrace
                                                                ­                        silence
                                                                ­                        and be
                                                              ­                          at peace.





                                        




.




­                                                                 ­                                                                 ­                                                          .

there is a holy silence that binds
souls together

a silence that takes up room
a palpable presence

not like the empty silence that destroys
and splits people apart

a holy silence that warms hearts
and connects long lost lovers

silence of the *divine mystery

I saw
two hearts meet
into one

a soft touch
a tender word
to open up to love

life is simple
we live to love
and die in love to
return home

in the stillness
my restless mind
is cradled by
*Silence

mind locked in fear
repeating the same
mistakes over and over
slamming into the same
dead end walls.

one day a life altering suggestion
is given, "go around the wall."
fear dissipates to make room
for something unknown;
a new regime takes over my mind
based on trust and hope that
dismantles the walls.

slumber is fleeting
so is the promise of love
which can easily
be lost

still awake
yet my body
longs for sleep

thoughts are
rushing in and
not slowing down

the more I try
to sleep I
am more awake

I am sleepless
not because I
am full of fear

I can't sleep
because my heart
is brimming with love

I am filled
with anticipation of
love yet to come

a quiet discontent
seeps slowly into my bones.

a steady stream of despair
floods my whole perspective.

I cannot escape the weight
pressing quietly down on me.

A slow steady death of my own making.
How do I escape this maddening numbness?

I cry out of the darkness out of a deep dark hole.
A glimmer of hope comes in the form a voice.

Someone climbs down into the darkness with me,
and tells me that he  can't lift me out, but
he can share with me how he dug himself out.

Hope rises from strange places,
and mine began when
I experienced love from strangers,
and realized I am part of a We.

I awake from a dream of love,
a love that exists between
you and me.

The love born of daily commitment,
a tender word even when our muscles
ache and our hearts are heavy.

Our love is born from slumber,
a long forgotten time when we
walked in paradise connected to all of creation.

A love born out of suffering and shared experiences,
a love that grows from each day waking up to gaze
into each other's eyes.

I am grateful that our love is more than a dream: an echo of our subconscious memories
from our long forgotten past.

Our love is a reality
here and now.

I am treated as small and insignificant
many feet tread on me

I have been around for millions of years,
I have been a mountain, a boulder, a stone,
and finally a grain of sand.

I am small but beautiful.
now, I can catch the light of the sun,
and let the light in.

beauty lies in little moments
when i pause and breathe

In each small moment
we can choose
life or death