Peaceful Christmas Wishes To The World, from Makropoulos

Whether you believe the story or not,

the sentiment of it is important:

Peace on Earth,

Good Will To All --

on this Christmas,

during this tumultuous time,

may we all find the Jesus within us all.

As I've said so many times before,

if only we could all do that,

Jesus would come

again, 

or truly,

for the first time.

Beside Myself

I'm standing beside myself

and staring

up a long, cold concrete stair,

walking beside myself,

doubly visioned,

doubly

unaware --

me

momentarily divided in two

by the tilt of the earth

by the pull of the moon.

My other self,

my darker self,

the self I like to hide

for a moment illumines,

its unbearable brightness

filling my mind

lighting the truths 

about me

about life.

These are

the truths that I hide

because they're so large,

no one could bear

to stare

at them daily.

But when I'm beside myself,

when I'm split in two,

I see what lies hidden,

and I see

what hides it, too,

unbearably.

You too.

( williams )

Have no fears.

Even in this weight of stark

self division, we are turning
back towards coherence;

 even as we are moving

into the darker days,

each imperceptibly longer,

the sun is moving too,

planning its return --

Prepare yourself

for that time, when

we can be whole, and gaze
at the beauty of earth again, 

and revel

in the gifts that it gives.

This solstice,

this Christmas,

give the gifts of a child -

of peace and love,

and wide-eyed honesty, so

the next time your self divides

you are happy

with what you see.

forbidden fruit

( knoxnews )

There's always been a forbidden fruit,

and there always will be.

There's always something that

within our conscience,

we know we should not do.

(Our conscience, by the way, is that ever flowing,

border crossing,

spiritual entity

that both dictates our individual actions

and unites human - kind.

Essentially, our conscience

is the essence of the Creator

that we all share.

)

The moment of The Fall was

the moment of evolution

during which

humans recognized they could discriminate,

understand,

and make decisions

that are both in tune with the

and, 

more significantly,

contrary to 

the will of the Universal Conscience.

It set us in motion to become
Creators
in our own right --

So, to reinterpret

that story that I love to interpret

and reinterpret so much:

some early humans

with the initials A and E

once upon a time

were the first to have the capacity

to make a choice 

,

to ignore the voice of Conscience

and do something contrary to the wishes

of the Universal Good,

and then, they also chose

to pretend that what they did

was just fine.

Thus began

the game of deception that we call Civilization.

( igniq )

We have made the terrific mistake

over the centuries

of believing that our conscience

is individual,

when in fact

it is the steady constant

that provides universal ethics

for harmonious living.

The voice of God

screams out from the depths

of the You

you currently occupy;

it demands

that You cooperate

and collaborate

with your fellow Humans

(and the other animals, as well).

We have stifled the Voice Inside for far far

too long.

If you hear a voice screaming

in your head right now,

as I do,

a voice you cannot ignore,

it is the voice of our shared consciousness

and our source

demanding to be heard.

Listen to it.

The Dream That Must Be Interpreted (by Rumi, illustrations by Odilon Redon)

(  oceansbridge)

This place is a dream.

Only the sleeper considers it real.

Then death comes like dawn,

and you wake up laughing

at what you thought was your grief.

But there's a difference with this dream.

Everything cruel and unconscious

done in the illusion of the present world,

all that does not fade away at the death-waking.

It stays,

and it must be interpreted.

All the mean laughing,

all the quick, sexual wanting,

those torn coats of Joseph,

they change into powerful wolves 

that you must face.

The retaliation that sometimes come now,

the swift, payback hit,

is just a boy's game

to what the other will be.

(this, and the above, from
artunframed )

And this groggy time we live,
this is what it's like:
                             A man goes to sleep in the town
where he has always lived, and he dreams he's living
in another town.
                    In the dream, he doesn't remember
the town he's sleeping in his bed in.  He believes
the reality of the dream town.

The world is that kind of sleep.

artinthepicture

The dust of many crumbled cities
settles over us like a forgetful doze.
But we are older than those cities.
                                 We began
as a mineral.  We emerged into plant life,
and into the animal state, and then into being human,
and always we have forgotten our former states,

except in early spring when we slightly recall
being green again.


venu

                     That's how a young person turns
toward a teacher.  That's how a baby leans
toward a breast, without knowing the secret
of its desire, yet turning instinctively.

Humankind is being led along an evolving course,
through this migration of intelligences,
and though we seem to be sleeping,
there is an inner wakefulness
that directs the dream,

and that will eventually startle us back
to the truth of who we are.




canvaz

just a pair of shoes

I can't believe it has taken me

over a week

to post this entry . . . .

I am still around! 

But the world has been way too much with me. . . 

to all the readers who pass by this page

either purposefully

or by happen-stance,

I promise:

I'll be back to regular blogging,

and regular visits to your blogs

very very soon . . . .

( harpers )

About a week ago,
I was part of an organized discussion,
where the leader proposed we all contemplate the topic
of shoes.

Quite frankly, I didn't think the conversation would last all that long.
But we all quickly came to realize that one should
never underestimate
the meaning of
a shoe

This conversation was part a training session
for group leaders
in a spiritual context,
so nearly everyone considered the sacred places
where we take them off --

( islam.about )

This seemed far too obvious to me; my mind
went to symbolic shoes,
magical shoes,
not to mention
my own shoes, too.
These are the shoes I am wearing right now:

( zappos )

They are also the shoes I was wearing on the day,
when I contemplated shoes.  As I sat there thinking about them,
I could suddenly feel them --
feel my feet inside of them,
and the ways the shoes held my feet:
comfortably, inconsequentially --
minimal support but enough
to get by.

'Tis true:
 shoes do
say a lot about me and about you.
In fact, we talked for quite some time
about the Meaning of Shoes.



I don't have a lot of shoes,
but the shoes I do have I buy for walking;
I have very few shoes
for decoration only --
I take shoes seriously, and I don't give them up
easily.
Because I wear my shoes well,
and by the time they are unredeemable,
they are so full of stories that I cannot part with them.
I have more old shoes than I have
photo albums, not to mention
more old shoes than I have
new shoes.

I am no Imelda Marcos
.

. . . and yeah, I have big feet.

As I sat there thinking
about shoes,
beyond my own shoes,
a collage of symbolic shoes
crossed my mind --
shoes that have trod the pages of popular,
and unpopular
culture for centures, and I was amused
and amazed by the stories
they told,
far more than the average library.

For me, when someone leaves my life
for whatever reason they might
leave,
the hardest thing they could leave behind would be
a pair of shoes --
I would have to look at them
every day,
maybe
twice a day,
until I got up the nerve
to pick them up
and get rid of them.

In their emptiness,

shoes imply stories,

some finished,

some in progress,

some yet to start.

So as I contemplated this humble

entry on shoes,

I started looking for pictures of

interesting shoes ~ ~

Well, here are a few,

only a few

Read on, and let their emptiness
fill your mind with images of where
they may have been:

( bible-archeology )

( lizciokajlo )

( costumes.org )

( prior two photos from arttatler )

( indiashoes )

( americanduchess )

( newworldorderreport )

( fashionfabulous )

(lulusvintage)

( catsmidwestmayhem )

(above two pictures from jerzygirl45 )



. . . . . and . . .

Shoes are magic,
never forget it,
shoes can take you
anywhere
you want to be.

Like a Prayer: To My Mother

( susanwrotehere )

Hanging up the phone tonight, after talking with my ancient mother, I said to her, as I always say: "I love you."  Obligatory, yes, and yet, I know I truly mean it.  I know that if tomorrow, if I had not said it, and if I were to receive the call that told me she has finally departed this domain, I would tear myself apart for not having said those three words to her the last time we spoke on this beautiful planet.

Those three words are an obligation, and yet they are all I want to have ever said to my mother, because they summarize all of my messages to her, over the years, over the decades, over the centuries:  my messages of hope, of expectation, of disappointment, of demand, of guilt, of sadness, of hurt, of happiness, of intentions, of plans, of relationships, of joys, of men, of women, of children, of change, of desire, of despair, of impatience, of patience, of giving up, of acceptance, of life, of life, of life --- all those messages I've ever shared with my mother over my multiple lifetimes, which she has listened to so patiently, are best summed up with one message: I love you.   And so I say it, dutifully, every night when I call her before she goes to bed.  It's true.  I do.  Like a nighttime prayer, I call my mother, listen to her litany of pains and changes in her aching aging body, and then I say "I love you," and "sleep well."

( terawarner )

I love you.  What does it truly mean to say that?  In the long term, when you've lived as long as I have, it is to say this:

You have a place in my heart.

No one else has that place --

only you--

and when I visit it, I am

with you.

The mystery and the magic lies

in this:

my heart has more places

than I can count,

and each has a different shape

                         and size

that can only be found

when its occupant is found --

In other words,

dear reader,

I did not know that place existed 

in my heart, that place

the size of you

until I met you, and then

there it was --

beating, throbbing, flexible, growing

that place in my heart 

that was made for you --

that was waiting for you --

No one else will fit there,

and it will endure,

as long as I endure--

This

is what it means when I say

I love you,

and I do ---

               who

ever you are, my many

silent ethereal, virtual friends --

love you ---

read it every night

before you go to bed

                           like a prayer.   

( activityvillage )

Turkeys Revolt!!! (Happy Thanksgiving)

So sorry I haven't been here for a little while --
it's a busy time of the year for me,
not simply because the holidays are starting.

It's just the nature of the business I'm in.

Anyway,
I was cleaning and stuffing a turkey this morning,
when I was approached by a four year old
who climbed up on a stool and looked very closely
at the beast in the sink.

"What do you think?" I asked him.

"I just want to look at the turkey," he said,
"but I don't want to eat him.  I really feel sorry for him."

I tried to come up with a good reason for eating the beast,
including the fact he was raised free range,
and fed natural foods,
there on a beautiful farm
somewhere in Upstate New York,
but I realized by the look on the child's face
that I was presenting a very convincing argument
for keeping the bird alive.

Oh, well.
I'm still eating turkey tonight.

But I did want to see how the turkeys themselves feel
about the ongoing abuse against them.
And I may have found a few answers:









hey, happy thanksgiving!

On Purity & Perversity

"'t'will out! 't'will out!" (Othello  V:ii)

*

There is a point where the pure

meets the perverse,

and that is the place

                   of secrecy --

The place of hushed whispers

and slapped hands,

the place of shame

                                      and private penance.

The insiduous shadow of sin

creeps in

when childhood curiosity

meets adult greed, revenge

and guilt.

Come here,

little boy or gilr,

come here.

I know you just discovered

the feelings in that part of you

that no one ever talks

about.

You can talk about it --

             you can show it

                                        to me.

and I'll show you

            what I have, too --

just as someone

once had me do,

              I'll do

                   unto you.

But keep it quiet.

No one will know.

We live in a world,

                                          after all

where we all are led to believe

that only what we see

is true.

There is a point

where the pure

meets the perverse,

and that is the place

                         of secrecy.

* *

( pennstatecentral )

I woke up this morning to this story on the radio:

(click on radio for story - thanks to
NPR Morning Edition)

The recent revelations that a university football coach could abuse a child have yielded more admissions of childhood abuse then the pedophile priests ever did.  More and more men (and women) are coming forward with stories of how they, too, were abused -- by coaches, troop leaders, neighbors, uncles, friends.  Why does this incident spur this wave of admissions when pedophilic priests did not?

NPR claims that having this vice discovered in a college football locker room brings it into a more familiar realm and treads into the domain of what I would call secular manhood -- a sacred domain all its own.  In the USA in particular, the altar of the Sunday Football Game is visited far more regularly than the corner parish, and the communion of beer and chips shared with more reverence and passion than a thin tasteless wafer claiming to be the body of One Who Died For Our Sins.  Instead, the average American male opts to view the carnage of their favorite sport, again and again, sanctified and revitalized by those who live through it, week to week.

The Penn State story tears a hole into the ritual of manhood and carnage we call American Football, and this NPR story seems to suggest that, thanks to this, during those commercial breaks, more men, women, boys and girls are finding words for secrets they've hidden far too long.  In some cases, these secrets may have festered and produced self doubt and castigation, and ultimately created more victimizers, and more victims.  Seeing not only the perpetrator but also other coaches and a university president pay the price for this indiscretion helps the victim see that they were indeed a victim, and that society will sympathize with them.  There is something terrifically refreshing about this, because once a victim can identify his own victimhood, and realize that those who victimized them were indeed wrong, then that individual can take positive steps down the path of healing.

Meanwhile, as the NPR story says, there was little to no retribution in the church.  Pedophile priests were "outed" and for a day or two, they were the talk of the town, but then they were shuffled back behind the sacred veil of secrecy and silence.  Some returned to active congregations.  Some may have been defrocked, but no charges were filed.  Most recently, the Vatican initiated liturgical reforms that some argue reinstate language that takes steps back towards obscuring what is happening in the mass.  Language itself can be a barrier to hide behind: cryptic language makes true understanding and personal interpretation less possible for the average church goer, and restores the power of translation and interpretation to the priests, thus diverting attention away from those nasty little stories about priests and altar boys and replacing it with a reverence for the priest's specialized access to sacred knowledge.

~ ~

( christmasideas )

Meanwhile, a wounding contradiction festers.

At the core of Christianity is the fetishization of innocence
and purity :  the return of the child who can save
the world.  The story
that is so adored
and repeated because it is adored
looks to the Innocent - to a Child - for redemption.

Honestly,
the Christmas story is a beautiful vision,
for only in our children can we find
our better selves.

So why must we maintain this secret place where, even as the innocent is adored,
it can be defiled?  If the great men of football can man up enough to punish those who hurt our children
then why can't the Church?
So much healing could begin, if the cycle of abuse
in that oldest of abusive institutions in the world could be broken.  Both abusers and abused (many of whom may be one in the same person) would benefit from a public confession and atonement.


Notably,
with every new story of abuse that we learn of,
the finger points back to the abuses that have yet to be punished.
The truth will out, for
the secret is tired of being kept --
Every secret ultimately longs
to be told, and

purity is demanding its time again

11/11/11, reprise

Hi.

I have republished one other 

of my earlier entries,

and today I want to do that again.

This one was actually originally written

on 10/6/10,

I think,

but it was written about today,

and I actually had a fantasy when I wrote it,

and still harbor that fantasy,

that it would inspire the world.

Well, maybe not the world,

but maybe you.

Here goes:

( laptopprophets )

So, as we all may know,

there's a growing community of folks

who are a bit worried

about the date

12/21/2012.

Somethin' about

Nostradamus

and

the Mayans,

and

some kind of planetary alignment.

Well, I had a revelation

today, and

it goes like this:

That's not really the date to watch

out for.

Well, ok, so it's true;  the evidence

(if you accept that kind of evidence as evidence)

does suggest

something major,

on

12/21/2012

something/anything

ranging from

major paradigmatic shift

to 

ice age

to

metaphysical awakening

to 

alien encounter

to

total destruction

or

fill in the blank

on 12/21/2012.

( somy35 )

But I had a vision today,

and it was

that the really interesting

palindromic

upcoming

temporal event 

will be:

11:11 on 11/11/11

I think it could be

either

a.m. or p.m.

you choose.

~ ~ ~

Anyway,

I would propose that

11:11 on 11/11/11

should be declared

the deadline time

for the one-ness,

and if we meet that deadline,

and stay in a state

of oneness

until 12/21/2012,

well,

we'll pass whatever

judgement day test

God has in store for us

for

12/21/2012.

Get it?

You see,

the deal is this:

if, 

by some weird

outside

chance,

we are facing Armageddon,

then hey,

what the heck?

Would it really hurt us to try,

for a little over a year

to just be at peace,

to just love each other.

This Is My Request,

My Dare,

To The World:

If everyone would meet that deadline:

11:11 on 11/11/11

a.m.  or p.m.,

you choose,

and then

beginning on that date,

just

STOP

stop all the hate.

Stop all the fighting.

Stop all the bickering.

Stop all the competition,

and hating,

and hurting,

and murdering,

STOP IT ALL!!!!

and just start loving,

loving people

who

you never thought you could love.

Find a place in your heart

where you can see

the thing that makes those people

who anger you, or have hurt you,

or who you don't understand

yes, 

those people,

find the thing that makes them

beautiful.

and love them until

12/21/2012.

Well, actually:

 let's say

the danger zone for

a real,

possible

 Armageddon

or

Apocolypse

or

whatever

is

from

12/20/2012

until

12/23/2012.

Yeah,

that sounds good --

those solstices 

can take awhile,

especially when they involve

a realignment

of the Earth's

magnetic fields.

So, given that,

if we get through

12/23/2012

and we're still here

and the sun

is still shining

and Santa Claus comes

and brings you

all the presents you asked for,

well then,

if we're still here after

12/23/2012,

and we've loved for a year,

and we've communicated honestly for

a whole year

and we've given to the poor for

a whole year

and we've forgiven all our debtors

for a year

and our debtors have forgiven us

for a year

and we've built up Iraq's infrastructure

for a whole year

and gone to tea with the Taliban

for a whole year

and the Taliban has gone to tea

with us

for a whole year

So, let's say

we do all that for

a little over a measly year,

and we get past the 

end of the Mayan Calendar

with no Apocolypse,

no voice from the heavens,

no planetary destruction,

why then,

if that year or so of loving

each other really proved

to be a waste of our time

we can start hating each other again,

and go back to fighting each other again.

That's the deal.

That's the deadline.

11:11 on 11/11/11

begin the one-ness