There are no wrong answers. But the RIGHT ones? Well, they're just so much more fun...

A*muse*ing

My muse is not of
this world or the other
It is a we
in the space between
the here and the there
in the trailing
vibration of laughter
and sobbing tears
in the swift air
shifting
from a clapping hand
or an owl's wing flapping
in the taste of sweetness 
that speaks in a tongue
heard by all who can hear
the beating of one heart
in the soul of the poet of life
scribing the language of
love for all
for one

You are the voice that sings the song my soul knows

Mr. Toasty

Like lightning that stretches across the desert sky

You lit up the sky on the darkest night

My mouth watered and my heart was cryin

Not enough water though, to put out your fire...

When you set the hills ablaze with your smile

Drilling holes through my heart with those laughing eyes

Leaking droplets could not quench the thirsty drought

Which I could have avoided had I thought to doubt

Your call through the night that set the desert aflame

With this ravaging fire that my heart dares not tame

But it cries, and it tries to quell the desire

Not enough water though, to put out this fire

and so I burn

ashes to ashes 

us to us

love for one is

never enough

3/31 Just read this again, remembering the day I met him and the way he set my world on fire. It was years before the smoldering dissipated. I still remember. I remember all of the excitement and heat, the dizzying, magical spell I was cast in. Now it's a fond memory. But my heart remembers the intoxication. What I'll never know is why. How do we fall like that? I have fallen again, since, but now I know just to enjoy it. Love is a wonderful gift to enjoy, not to be taken lightly, and not to be owned. Like a rushing breeze it comes, and it goes. Lucky is when we find that front that sticks around for quite awhile. Maybe we get smart enough to follow it.

hope.ful

Hope is the food that feeds me
when the cupboards all run bare
It warms my tummy with thoughts so yummy
and never skips a dare

When flirting with a thought so lovely
hope lingers longingly
It flails its passionate storm above me
as its dreams consume and woo me

May hope not be this dreamer's dream,
but a prelude to enliven
And ready I will always be
when hope's surprise will rise then
-ME

Yesterday brought me two messages to 'change it up.'  I'm working that one, for sure. The second told me to try going right if I think I should go left, and see what happens, all the while paying attention to what is going on around me. The warning was to check for false appearances. I'm way too trusting and I feel stupid saying that because although some people consider this a flaw, shouldn't that be just how we should live? In a trusting and trustworthy state?

Sometimes we have to play dead to get through the rough times. But then one day when you're tired of hurting and not being you, you come back to life. The coast is clear. It's time. See you out there... I might be hanging by my tail from a tree, watching for you.

wake up you sleepy bear

wake up- the morning’s here

the light shines through

that cracked old door

and sprays across the dusty floor
*****

wake up Rumpelstiltskin

wake up- the day is new

the coffee’s on

the eggs are done

the table waits for you
*****

Hey Sleepyhead, WAKE UP!

wake up before it's night

the sun is warm

outside we’ll run

wake up and taste the light

From the world of last night's dreams...Opossum teaches the lesson of using and enhancing appearances and deceptions and illusions. He also aids in resting when needed (playing dead), and the art to act or behave in strategic manner as appearing to be fearful or fearless in spite of true feelings. Opossum gives courage to pretend for a while in order to cope with mental and spiritual constructs. He teaches wisdom and sensibility and knows when to fight if needed. Is it time to fight for things or to rest?

Lala land

What about a world where people don't look past the dazzling light in his brother, to his forgetfulness of wonder? Or a place where those who cry for peace are no longer crying out, for it is the way of the land? What if reaction to difference was not anger or fear, but curiosity? How about respect for the people of the lands far away, knowing that they are just as important as the ones under our own roof, in our own cities or countries or continents? What if each soul mattered? What if we all did our part to help and to heal, even if it costs a few more coins from our pockets? What if we all realized that there are no costs to caring and sharing- only love. What if when we hurt we didn't blame it on color or religion or spite. What if we took that hurt and used it to understand, a little more, our beautiful brother?

What if love was what we knew and practiced and breathed? Oh, but... I'm daydreaming again.

In the land of milk and hunger

(There we were
all the hes and shes
all the thems and usses
all the mes and wes)

Melting slowly into the crowd
where we could barely breathe
in the population's overflowing
stagnancy of lifeless debris

How do you hide your ears from
hearing the throngs of life's songs jumping
from the plumped up lips of vanity's
answer to your own heart's calling?

Can you hinder your insight from seeing
or your heart from once believing
in the touch that left you bleeding
when it cut you with its blunt assault?

Where is the land of plenty, the one
we spoke of in the night, where our
will ran deep and our hunger fed us
with her longing to be wonderful?

How do we drown in the emptiness
sinking into the depth of plenty
when we were made to walk on water
and turn water into wine?

Where is the hunger?
Where is the need?
When is the fire coming
that will ravage this debris?

    Where's the hunger? 

jelly jar

ask not of god what god is,
for god cannot be told by lips

ask not of love what love should give,
for the light of love is limitless

trap not this splendor in a jar,
for then the splendor would be gone

think not how far the light can reach,
for this, only the open heart can see

buried alive

Sometimes I wish I never knew
the sweetness of the red berries
that dripped from my lips
staining my winter white skin
If I had never tasted of its sweetness
nor ingested the power of its ripeness
burning in my belly, pulsing in my blood
then blue berries surely would have been enough

Mega watt bulb

Sometimes light is nothing more than hope that you give to someone in a moment that they really need  it. Maybe it's a smile, a helping hand, or a dose of care. You never know when it's going to really make a difference. Light doesn't dim when it's shared- it just makes more light.

Love doesn't cost a thing.

I. Own. U.

As someone who adores the stars that symbolize the great big Universal Energy from which we come, I dutifully stared into a relatively blank sky last night for quite some time. I got a little dizzy wondering what was furiously spinning out there in the great unknown. There was one little patch of the western sky, to which my eyes were drawn, where two of the brightest bulbs I have ever noticed- Venus and Jupiter, pierced the otherwise darkened canvas. Earlier in the day I read an excerpt of a verbose explanation that told me that when these two planets convene (should happen Thursday) it will produce what will appear to be the brightest star- yes, the one that was known to be the star of Bethlehem. I chuckled, because, hey- what do you know- not a star at all.

Many people follow what they are told to. Mostly because they never thought to think differently. Yesterday I was thinking about how much easier it is to live in ignorance where you don't have to do the inner work, and find your own truths. I suppose that at times of great unrest when our religions of majority were created, it was helpful to employ practical ignorance. But now we live in a world where knowledge grants us permission to believe in the very thing Jesus told us about our own power- that we have it. However inconvenient to most churches this is, it is the truth when we strip away the confines of religious faith and live in the light of our own hearts- the most brilliant light of all.

Imprisoning ourselves doesn't begin or end with religion. Its evidence is everywhere that we allow ourselves to be relegated to a belief about ourselves- whether it is that we are sinful, fat, short, sick, right, wrong or powerless. What we are when we strip away all of the things that we think define us, is love and light. These are our birthrights. All that life tosses in our paths are just navigable obstacles in a course designed to strengthen our tools which enforces our being the light of love.

I cannot hear your words no more

ear's pressed against the earthen floor

Your thoughts no longer wear my face

my soul has won that measly race

my skin now pricked, releases the throng
of the toxic rights and righteous wrongs
snorting the light and huffing on love
of these my heart now, can't get enough

You are the Love

So swept away by a video I watched today. This was just one very big moment in it...

"There is nothing greater than love with no object. For then you yourself have become love, itself." -Rumi

Thank you!


Here's the video:

Pav-love

Thank you for the comforting moments that I find when my stomach is heaving in the silence of this grief
Thank you for the understanding which you help me find when I am lost in myself
Thank you for the peace that impales and keeps me upright even in the midst of a storm
Thank you for the tears that let the pain of emptiness and loss roll away from me
Thank you for hearing my prayers and even when the answer is not yet, you stay close by and hold me
Thank you for how far I've come and
Thank you for all that I have yet to be
Thank you for the strength and courage to keep hoping and dreaming
Thank you for the gifts that I never thought to ask for
Thank you for every time that I am touched and brought back to life, I am reminded of the bliss I seek
Thank you for my hunger
Thank you for delicious affection
Thank you for laughter and silliness
Thank you for helping me respect differences
Thank you for helping me recognize similarities
Thank you for the warmth of sun and the cold of rain
Thank you for remorse
Thank you for second chances and first ones too, and any bonuses along the way
Thank you for broken hearts and mended fences
Thank you for loneliness

Sadness sucks. Loneliness is frequently sad. I am looking forward to the day when I will be loved- when I can love freely. Driving home from church today I suddenly realized that the ache in my belly was due to a lack of food. While I was deciding what sounded best for lunch, my mouth was literally watering. So is that why my heart cries when I think about how much I desire this thing called love? Someone told me today that I don't want it enough, which is why I don't have it. Seriously? You mean it gets worse than this, the craving? I've had it before and don't remember ever wishing for it quite this way. Is emotional depth susceptible to inflation?

All I can tell you is that when that bell finally rings for me, my gratitude and devotion will be immeasurable, unmatched and my love will be spectacular.

Ring the bell that still can ring

forget your perfect offering

there is a crack in everything

that's how the light gets in

Leonard Cohen

Oui oui mon ami

Those times when you were running free
we watched you dance in the summer's rain
when you were tied to love by your own heart's strings
we plucked the harmony of melody's refrain
That day when you were bleeding out from
life's searing irony which burned you- we were there
when heaven robbed you of your joyous love
we were there, we held you in our arms
Don't think for a moment, wherever you are
or wherever you go- that love does not go with you
For it is in both the joy and the pain
that life fills you up again and again
we will drink from your cup
or fill you up for we are always with you

You mean we actually are all ONE?

Turn me oh-ver

Writing my wrongs in this black box of shame

Humming some hims to erase all the blame

Kneeling before you, I’s lowered in shame

As pen-nance releases my runaway game

Whisper my seek-ret through these cuts in the steal

Where you hear me, and hold me and tell me to feel

So I squirm and erupt as I rise to my heals  

Shedding shame’s ugly skin, for flesh's a-peel

Holding me farther away from your hearth

where my lips cannot bellow your prodigal spark

Where our fire dares not flare to then fall apart

Hold me where the flame is real, not a shot in the dark

Righting your wrongs in this black box- no shame

Kneeling before me, you bowed down and I came

I dream of melting your tower of shame, as

I burn slowly, warmly- please don't dampen this flame

Til we whisper our secrets through the holes in this fence
The wall crumbles between us, as we move to confess
And we shed all the wrongs, and move on to the best
In the light, in this love, we will truly be blessed

Pen-nance: The act of writing your wrong

Groupie

If an artist performs or creates as a result of true surrender, then mustn't he also surrender to the depth of his audience's reaction or response? If what you created was so beautiful to have touched someone else (however they perceived it) then shouldn't you also be in awe of the place in them that was touched?

So tired of egotistical writers/performers/musicians who only applaud those who see what they do. They're missing their own point. I think.

Tie me up

Ask me anything you want
take whatever you think you need
Know that I will surely give
for love has made a slave of me

Towering tree beyond my reach
ever stretching toward the sky
never does it fail to shelter
the restless wings of tireless flight

nor does the ocean cease to harbor
whales or turtles or angle faced fish
with never a question and never a doubt
for the heart of love is anonymous

It's not that I crave your hungry, warm kisses
or the grasp of your strong, searching hand
These treats after all are not mine to savor
but I once saw your heart in the world of forever

So ask what you will and take what you need
for mine is the deepest pleasure
when I pray that I give you what you need to become
love's devoted slave, forever

if not for me, then for the world... 

We never lose by loving, only by holding back

Hot coal

Compassion... isn't it just a general forgiveness of life and its little mishaps? It is seeing beyond the walls that we build. It's tearing down the fences that keep us from reaching out to each other in an hour of need or want. It is understanding and loving the light in each beautiful soul that we reach out to with our words, money, hands, dreams and hearts. Like forgiveness, compassion rises above personal hurt and need, and moves forward to the place where our souls glow. Its generosity employs the understanding needed to tear down the walls and fences that hold us captive from our own hearts' fullness.

Like forgiveness, compassion is a choice. It is a reality, event or process that begins the minute that we have chosen it, and continues for as long as we remember to practice it. There is no perfection in compassion or forgiveness, as there is always room for more, but there is peace.

Why is it that we try so hard to erase the lines around our eyes, find shorter lines to stand in everywhere we go, and yet we hold so tightly to the lines that bind our hearts and our freedom?