the invitation

the invitation has been issued,
your name etched in leaves of gold,
penned with the sacred ink of antiquity
broadcast through the heavens
dispatched to the nether regions of your heart
Look the other way and you will miss the moment!

your presence is now most fervently requested
your place at the table laid with limoges and linen
you will be greeted warmly, embraced without limitation,
annointed with oil of sharon, sprinkled with hyssop
while many, held back by reins of fate or fear, decline –
May we count you in attendance?

respond exactly as you are, as it pleases you
arrive adorned, bejeweled,
stripped bare to bone
come bearing gifts or approach empty, arms open,
present yourself cloaked in completion
or draped and dripping with the sheer desire of becoming–
All excess baggage will be checked at the door.

the invitation has been issued in your one true name
the offer non-transferable,
send no other in your stead
claim no false persona as your own
proffer no papers save those illuminated from within
You are now asked to demonstrate sufficiently Who You Are.

do you not see?
the gesture has been offered from the highest,
everything you have ever wanted now rests before you in disentangled aggregation,
awaits your gentle nod, your audible yes
your outbreath of unleashed surrender –
While you stare blankly at the rainbow, angels wipe your canvas clean.

how is it that you so willingly grovel at the feet of survival
yet keep love’s glory waiting at the door?
you fret and fumble, hem, haw in hesitation –
when will you fling open every gate in joyful anticipation
of what awaits on the other side?
Radiance will not drip onto your tongue from a dropper!

while you rue lack and misappropriation, a weighted wagon groans in the causeway,
do naught but draw a bead on the empty goblet before you
and the call of the endless sea persists, unheeded,
continue to rest your gaze on ephemeral horizons
and you risk skipping the beat of your own evolution –
To knowingly remain in shadow is an inferior proposition at best.

the invitation has been issued, the table has been laid
respond exactly as you are,
as it pleases you
the choice is yours, by free will and freedom:

Arouse from your slumber and seize fresh the day.

ode to branson, colorado: bring your dream

I haven’t said all that much about my new rural community down by the Colorado/New Mexico border, but here’s some wordage that just came through. Once you get excrutiatingly clear about your dream and release just about everything blocking your attainment of it, you may find yourself in surprising and unexpected locations. When you are called, you simply go. It matters little whether anything makes sense, is practical or convenient.  Home is where you find it; paradise is yours to create. This is mine: What’s yours?

BRANSON, COLORADO
Bring Your Dream

More than a hundred years ago,
homesteaders made their way west to build
farms and ranches, homes and families,
in southeastern Las Animas County, Colorado.
They brought their hopes and dreams,
and they planted the future.

But here, where the plains meet the mesas,
the land and sky can be exquisitely unforgiving,
so some folks were more successful than others.

Today, slowly but surely and without a lot of fanfare,
new dreams are being lived out in tiny Branson, Colorado.
The dream of finding an affordable home to hang your hat and
raising wholesome children who share your personal values.
The dream of keeping chickens out back and walking
to the post office each morning
and putting roots under your long-held ideas and visions.

Whether you dream of finally picking up that
paintbrush or writing the great American novel or
growing a business or simply living in a place where the silence
can be defeaning and the horizon stretches for miles before you,
you can live it in Branson.

Nobody’s going to try and sell you anything –
it’s just not that kind of place.
If you’re meant to be here, your heart will guide you.
Bring some warm clothes and a wide-brimmed hat,
an unquenchable desire to slow down and pitch in where you can.
Bring your resourcefulness and your spirit of true community,
and bring everything that life has taught you so far.
(A truckload of tools and stuff to barter might be a good idea, too.)

Slowly but surely, without a lot of fanfare,
folks are finding something to love about Branson, Colorado.

And when they do,
dang if they don’t find their dream sitting on the doorstep.

prayer for radical gratitude

Prayer, by Arthur Roy Mitchell (c.1889-1977), A.R. Mitchell Museum, Trinidad, Colorado

thank you for every morsel bittersweet
for every fleeting foray into unimaginable bliss
every lifetime of incalculable pain
for the searing darkness and the blinding light –
thank you

for your rabid inability to create your own boundaries
giving me a reason to establish my ramparts soundly
and master the raising and lowering of my own castle gates –
thank you

for triggering my insecurities with your comings and goings
dragging your nails over toughened scar tissue
busting open wounds that I smugly believed were
once and for all time healed and whole –
thank you for giving me no choice
but to redress and heal anew

in exasperating fashion you loved when i was barely lovable
remained close by when i begged you to disappear
evaporated into the ethers at the very times i wanted simply
to stroke the skin round your weary countenance,
hoisted me onto the meat hook and left me in the netherworld
for days (nay, months!) on end
and for this most of all,
i thank you

you ignored my pleas to show up as i wanted
refused to succumb to the machinations of a restless and uprooted mind
imperceptibly inched along the road to a soul revealed,
pushed back when fear and unworthiness sought desperately to push you away
trampled my tidy, evanescent order into a liminal chaos
invited me to stew in my own juices until they rendered savory and sweet
(oh, did i remember to thank you?)

when i was certain that the elusive butterfly called love had left the room
you proved me wrong and i thank you
when i was steeped in weighty self-reflection and nagging indecision
you forced me none too gently toward an unchanging truth
gave me space to wallow and wonder (damn you!)
skipped merrily on your way without a glance in your rearview mirror
and while i despised your every stroke of bold absence,
i forgot, perhaps, to thank you

for the untold gifts you offered
(though i wanted something more!)
thank you
for the all-too-rare appearance of tender footprints in the snow
the sparse moments peeking out from beneath a pall of igneous complication,
for not forsaking for the sake of contrivance and a measured peace
and for showing up at my doorstep every time i surrendered my tumescent heart
to the whim of a ridiculously ironic god -
thank you

for this and for that
for tears of laughter and lamentation
for your utterly excruciating tirades of silence
and leaps into the abyss of unbound emotion,
for all that has died to the past and poises at the edge of the now –
while you still listen and wait and want and more
here i am, eyes wide open
remembering
to thank you

thegreenbeautiful, parts 1 & 2 (video)

Thank you, Alaya, for sending me this extraordinary youtube series! Just this morning, I was pining for the wonderful videos and music I used to post here, but some rural technological challenges have gotten in the way. If the entire series is as thought-provoking, funny, authentic and richly inspiring as these, we can surely ride this wave into The New.  French original, English subtitles, 10 minutes long. Vive the hearts and minds who brought this forth to share with the planet! Here are the first two; if they resonate with you, you can go to youtube for the remainder.

   

 

in closing

i always wanted to share with you
the best of who i am

reap and replenish the fruits
of succulent succor

i remained at the ready

heart open
door more than ajar

while you cantered
cantilevered

your variant mutterings echoed
like quicksilver
maybe maybe not
whatever

hovering just above the surface
hummingbird
in flight
midair frenzy
of wings
would gentle soaring somehow destroy your nature?

all creation would be served by
your earthly arrival
battling against gravity
is food for fools

time is but an essence
concentrated experience that leaps
flutters
drifts past us vaguely somnambulant
 until we blink

and it disappears from view

illusion is like that,
you know,
it no longer holds my attention

please may i have
another piece of pie?

perhaps the pecan
this time

oh, shift!

must we again be crammed like cattle in the birth canal?
every vestige of the old clings and clutters
like intoxicated flies of autumn that will not be swatted away
they weave listlessly
landing near to our noses and teasing with the momentarily unattainable
our feet stuck in the syrup again

oh, shift!
we know we are but an instant away
the land of the promised tangoes toward us
only to pull back sharply in a volte-face
a sea change poised in oscillating sway
renders us restive and incomplete

oh, shift!
the vibrational backhoes rev their engines
they have arrived to carry away the sweepings of unlived lives
clear slag heaps of ancient flotsam and jetsam
of runious choices and decisions of invalidity
is my closet not yet empty of the remnants of reconciliation?

transmutation is a bittersweet pill marked by rhapsody and lamentation
supernal spiraling and plummeting freefall
we hang on tenterhooks decaying to the core
while the chrysalis pulses in deconstructive readiness,
quickened by impending genesis, the final molting tickles our tongues
wends its way through a helical dance of evolution
and urgently entreats us to be patient once more.

oh, shift!

how brave the heart

Here we go with some more traditional, rhyming verse. A wise friend commented that the free-flowing muse shifted recently, bringing in a more structured energy all-around. Whatever the reason, it’s working for me. This piece seems a likely companion to a similar one I penned some years back, which you can read right here. 

 how brave the heart

Through the mist softly came a wandering  herd
Not of flesh, bone and sinew–the primary word
Arrived in the meadow bent humbly in prayer
This did not go unnoticed
By one sweet maiden fair.

What fresh wind is this?
What fate elemental?
You pierce me, my Lord!
With things rare, sentimental
The gifts that you offer, the alchemist’s table
Is prepared, set for magic through this unfolding fable.

My cauldron infused with herb, flower, and bee
Potent, my potions align here with thee
You surprise me, but yet something knowing pours through
Some deeply lodged landscape unfolds into view,
The vessel familiar, the stage rightly set
But natheless, all new: Have we ere met?

Something unsettling though earthly in essence
Moves swiftly, aloft, yet strangely quiescent
Is this destiny or madness?
Pray tell, what say ye?
Am I daft or deranged? Has the mead left me bold?
In the twinning of souls I see dross turned to gold!
The delights of the hillside, of dark, flowing streams
The drone of the bagpipe, the lancet’s gleam
Bringers of peace triumph mongers of hate
Across continents, eons, march armies of fate.

M’Lord, you intrigue me, this I cannot deny
Whether tis you that attracts or some unearthly cry
To reclaim true connection, merry greet, merry part
The ultimate opening of the universal heart
Enchantment and science the answer may give:
Why must every man die — while scant few dare to live?

what it is, what it’s not

It’s not the bat – - it’s the one who wields it
Not the ball but the one who fields it,
Not the swing, it’s the yearning within
It’s not the score – - it’s the spirit that wins

It’s the passion, the glory, that design the form
The ardor unchained that subdues the storm,
The plan is nothing without those who create
Who resist the temptation to arrive too late
Who time after time return to the start
Forging art as their lives and life as their art

The mind is the chock – - it will not be the lever
It deadens the heart while trumpeting, “Never!”
It’s the heavy grey shroud that swaddles desire
The thunderous torrent that dampens the fire
Quell your overzealous intellect, its rampant domination
Set the table for head and heart to dine on besotted integration

It’s not your childhood dysfunction, that old, tired news
It’s the dance of living delight, the song of the muse
Every pain that comes up offers its own box of matches
The immaculate keys that unlock inner padlocks and latches,
Your resistance is futile, surrender the way
It’s your best, highest promise for a truly new day

Does not the search for sweetness fuel every bee’s bumble?
It’s all about the catch – - not a bit about the fumble
It’s the crumbling edifice you erected in deepest slumber
Your awakening to a storehouse of riches beyond number
It’s a choice to self-flagellate every step of the race
Another yet to choose instead to walk, head high, with grace

It’s not about what hasn’t happened; it’s about what’s now in bloom
It’s not that anything you did was wrong – - just that you were right too soon
This, now, is what it is; this is what’s it’s not
How will you honor all you’ve been given…

       …and bring forth the blessings of all that you’ve got?

clearing prayer for personal sovereignty

I began this piece back in July and found myself stumbling upon it this morning and bringing it to completion. These words contain great power for anyone who speaks them aloud. If this energy resonates with where you are now, you might also want to visit (or revisit) “prayer for radical forgiveness,” which resides in the right-hand sidebar in the list of “pages.” As in much of my work, the “you” in this piece may indeed represent a part of yourself that is ready to release and heal.

clearing prayer for personal sovereignty

To the one who bulleted my tender arroyos with the rat-a-tatting of buckshot spray,
I invite you to consider how the weapon was placed in your hand
Who gave you the sharp command to fire at will,
And why you acquiesced without reflection

To the one who laid at my feet a bundle of thorns beribboned by knotted raffia,
I suggest you ponder gently the origins of your wounded heart
The ancient inklings of your foundational fear
And your penetrating need to remain outside the margins of healthy attachment

To you who projected onto my illuminative scrim
a blistering repertoire of gaping wounds,
I offer you a lightsaber of Forgiveness
dipped in a river of uncoiling Compassion

To you who tore into my soft underbelly with rusty and jagged swordplay
intent on inflicting unremitting pain absent the bliss of final annihilation,
I thank you for the opportunity to strengthen the invincible core of who I Am

To the one who feigned shock and astonishment when the mirror of truth
was raised squarely to your visage of affectation and scowled discontent,
   Who retreated because you refused to offer access to Love 
when it pounded at your door
Who beat back the arrival of Contentment
when it arrived cloaked in naught but a pearly sheen of Peace,

I invite you to turn your attention inward and halt your ragtag march
to bludgeon every supposed exterior enemy along your path

And I release here and now,
into the willing and outstretched arms of a Just and Loving universe,
My unholy attachment to your pain-riddled accusations.

May Blessings and Joy embrace you in every moment
May LovingKindness guide your every step
May we all choose our highest expression
and let Love lead the way.

you are the prayer

You can pray
Or be the prayer

Sing
Or be the song

Ask the searching questions
Or live the unmistakable answers in every moment

You were placed here for a purpose beyond all purpose
A hope beyond all hope
You are the very breath of Creation
And the unfolding of Eternity

Nothing is about you
And everything is

Nothing is certain
Save the unequivocal certainty of the here and now

You own nothing because you are the All
Need nothing because within you lies the completeness of never-ending Love
And the promise of humanity’s everlasting freedom

You can talk the talk and walk the talk
Until that unmissable moment that you become the talk

You are the message, the prophecy,
 The incantations and the psalms
The ritual is your beating heart
The absolution, the blood coursing through your veins
Your eyes speak the benediction with every blink

No longer must you see yourself
a lowly pawn in the grand game

No longer need you wait, candle in hand,
For the apparition made manifest

The temple lies within you!
Through your holy mouth enter the willing
And return the newly born.