SHIP

The metaphor we will all agree upon is The Journey. The Journey through space. The Journey through time. The Journey through life. The Spiritual Journey. Who are your traveling companions? Where are you from? Where are you going? Which vessel have you chosen? Who is the captain? Is there a captain? When I was 26, I spent three months hitchhiking through Spain. I learned for the first time to be alone with myself. I learned to trust complete strangers. Somehow I always arrived at the place I needed to be. In one piece. I fall in love with my life all over again. There are so many places to go. So many wonders to see. So many people to meet. My fellow traveller, let us walk up the path aways together. Where are you from? Where are you going? Tell me your story.

FISH

On Friday noon at holy convent school

The girls say grace before the chowder soup.

Our mother superior lifts the ocean grail

& Brother Jesus splashes his silver tail.

My favourite Beatle George begins to sing

And thirteen moons like pearls on silver string

Arise in sequence from the sea of mirth.

The salmon swim, swim for the rivers of their birth.

                   

In our month, it’s half and half, the sun is seen.

The night of winter turns to water green.

The world’s a little rock in empty black 

But under silver skin we find no gap.

                       The fish is the ticket to the undertow.

                       My heart is not a muscle red or frail.

                       On the skin of the fish it’s a silver scale.

                       Can I breathe and breathless be?

                       The deep is as deep as it’s always been.

                       The fish is the ticket to the undertow.

TRANSFIGURATION

Accept the premise: The world is infinitely more mysterious than we dream of in our philosophies. We look to the heavens for the arrival of angels. We seek the eternal in the yet-to-come... the infinite in the ephemeral. We seek the Holy Grail in journeys to distant mountain peaks. Look around the world we live in. Behold! The luminous presence of the Divine is everywhere. What surfaces in the quicksilver of time? Out of the corner of my eye I catch a glimpse. In the gaze of a stranger, I see the open white light of my Creator. In front of my very eyes the most astounding miracle occurs. What I thought I knew as mundane, metamorphoses into the miraculous. This is not faith it is fact. The two key ingredients to allow life to come out of Oblivion. Water & Light. The abundance & bounty here in the green & blue is endless. Why do we exclude ourselves from this great astounding globe of sublime beauty? It is not necessary. We are living in the Garden of endlessly blooming jewelled Life. 

I ease back into the cloud bank, the easy chair of certainty. “All is flux all is new, but not this love I know of You”. 

KING OF KINGS

Depthless deep & emerald green, the ocean surges.

Upon his throne of stone he sits.

His ship of state, becalmed, awaits the wind.

Will you drink & quench your thirst?

O did you need to know for sure at first?

& from water he emerges, into water he submerges,

The King of Kings before you sits.

The light, the light, to see without... within.

Will you drink & quench your thirst?.

O did you need to know for sure at first?

& now you feel the waters flow.

Now you know you know you know.

The golden light, the flower’s flow.

The source is deep & wide & clear.

The golden light, the flower’s flow.

The source is deep & wide & clear.

The veil of mist, above, around, converges

& you, in doubt, once said “Does He exist?

The wind has caught your sail… the wind... the wind.

Will you drink & quench your thirst?

O did you need to know for sure at first?

& now you feel the waters flow.

Now you know you know you know.

The golden light, the flower’s flow.

The source is deep & wide & clear.

The golden light, the flower’s flow.

The source is deep & wide & clear.

HEART

Live in the Mystery. Awakening 1: My mind is not my brain. Awakening 2: My soul is not my mind. Start peeling away all the layers that define who you are. Take away the facts of birth & geography. Take away the limitation of your physical body. Take away your person narrative. Take away your roles & your relationships. Take away your memories. Take away all the definitions that seem to flesh out who you are. Candidly... I ask you. Are you still there? Of course you are. Minus Mind... Minus ego.... I am still an abiding awareness. My friend talks of energy. My other friend talks of the laws of physics. My other friend talks about the void... the plenum void. My experience reveals a deep awareness.... within me... without me. Name it what you will. I no longer am fixed on definitions. Divinity for me is awareness. The more aware I am the closer I am to that infinite source of awareness. Live in the mystery. I am not my brain. I am not my mind. I am.... I am.

HEAD

Let’s be scientific about this.... neuroscience has not & cannot pinpoint the locus of the mind. The Ancients thought the mind was hovering somewhere over the vicinity of the heart. It is a 21st century model to attach the mind to the brain.  My brain is not my mind. Period. I have been using the metaphor of cybernetics with too much persuasion. My brain is not a mother board. Hello! My mind is not a meat machine nor is it a complex web of neurons gapped by synapses. The fact of my brain intrigues me... me (that is). Recently, I have been using the metaphor of the brain as antenna.... as complex receptor for quanta of energy data. Once freed from the anchoring of myself to my brain to the dense matter of my physical being I suddenly experience an expansion of self. Call it freedom. Where are the limits of the mind? You tell me.

HANDS

Something from nothing. The act of shaping. The act of holding & molding. It is with these ten fingers I grasp the strands & tendrils... the rays that stream from the centre. My antennae... the tines of my winnowing rake. As creator I ask myself “Why create something from nothing?” I ask the question of the Creator of the World. “Why Create something from nothing?" The answer.... “Because I Can!” Spirituality & Creativity are one & the same. “Why create something from nothing?” Because I can.